The leading opposition presidential candidate is portrayed by the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic as a puppet working for paid NATO stooges. The latest regime poster to appear on walls across the Serbian capital shows Dr Vojislav Kostunica as a Pinocchio puppet in the hands of another opposition leader who is standing in front of an Alliance flag.
The main positive message from the Socialist Party (SPS) comes from the slogan that was the theme of the party congress earlier this year: "Obnova, razvoj, reforme" - Reconstruction, progress and reform.
According to Ms Natasa Milojevic, chief of the creative team for the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, the regime "started its strategy more than a year ago. They started the campaign with so-called reconstruction and rebuilding in the wake of NATO bombing.
"An important part of that is state television and state newspapers and radio. They are trying to portray themselves as patriots. They are trying to do the same as was done at the end of the second World War."
This week President Milosevic appeared on the campaign trail for the first time and opened a new hydro-electric dam, Djerdap II, on the border with Romania. His speech was spread across the front of yesterday's state newspaper, Politika, and dominated state television news, RTS. They said he addressed a crowd of 100,000, but the non-government newspapers said that 10,000 attended.
The event and its reportage are a key part of state television campaigning. RTS is the only nationwide broadcasting network and is under the sole control of the regime.
Events such as the appearance of Mr Milosevic are not publicly announced, and foreign and non-government journalists learn of the events only after they have taken place.
One state-television advert for the Yugoslav United Left party of Ms Mira Markovic, wife of President Milosevic, strongly plays on the NATO-stooge theme. Opera music accompanies clips of anti-regime demonstrators. "First they take and tear ours," runs the slogan, as pictures of flags are shown. "Then they carried foreign ones." Clips of the bombing then follow: "Foreign flags attract planes. And we always had one flag and one country: Yugoslavia."
Dr Kostunica's campaign is exploiting the feature most people see in him: integrity. The broader advertising aim is to target people who are already against Mr Milosevic but who might be planning to vote for another opposition candidate in the first round.
The advertising campaign will try to gain their votes from the beginning. The job of mobilising undecided voters is being allocated to a number of non-government organisations and to a student resistance group, Otpor.
Pollsters say it is in Mr Milosevic's interests to have a low turnout and in the opposition's interest to have a high one. He has a core 20 per cent of voters, but the undecided pool of voters, or those who say they "won't vote", are potential opposition recruits.
The best-known advert of Dr Kostunica shows his eyes alone; a monochrome picture on a white background with the words, "Who can look you in the eye?" Then the answer: Kostunica.
With typical panache, the federal Information Minister, Mr Goran Matic, said that the eyes were not Dr Kostunica's, but those of the actor Al Pacino.
The next day posters of the whole face of Dr Kostunica appeared across Belgrade, with the slogan: "Who is the only one who speaks in the name of all of us?" Kostunica, of course. But the regime supporters also had their revenge: they plastered NATO stickers on the eyes of the Kostunica poster.