‘Lolu Akinwunmi writes: CONSISTENCY: ONE CAMPAIGN. ONE MESSAGE. ONE VOICE.

One of the great strengths of successful brands is predictability. You may encounter them in different countries, through different advertisements, across different media and over many years, yet something remains recognisable. The execution changes. The underlying meaning does not.

Political brands require the same discipline. A candidate cannot represent economic competence on Monday, revolutionary disruption on Tuesday, national reconciliation on Wednesday and something entirely different by the weekend simply because each subject happens to be trending. Eventually, the voter may reasonably ask: Who exactly is this candidate?

CONSISTENCY IS NOT REPETITION

Consistency is sometimes misunderstood as saying exactly the same words every day. That would quickly become boring. Brand consistency means maintaining the same strategic meaning while finding fresh ways to express it.

Consider the Nike brand. Thousands of advertisements have been produced across sports, cultures, athletes and generations. Yet the larger territory of performance, determination and human achievement remains recognisable. Political communication can work similarly. A candidate positioned around economic renewal might discuss agriculture, infrastructure, education, technology and taxation. Different subjects. Different speeches. Different audiences. But each can reinforce the larger proposition. This is consistency.

OBAMA: MANY CHANNELS, ONE RECOGNISABLE IDEA

Back to Obama. His 2008 campaign is useful again. The campaign operated across rallies, television advertising, speeches, email, websites, social media, grassroots organisation and merchandise, but the executions differed enormously. Yet the ideas of hope and change remained highly visible across the campaign. That is what integrated communication should achieve.

REMEMBER, EVERYONE CAN CONTRIBUTE, BUT NOT EVERYONE CAN CREATE

Modern political campaigns have many communicators:

The candidate speaks.

The running mate speaks.

Campaign officials speak.

Party leaders speak.

Spokespersons appear on television.

Supporters post online.

Influencers create content.

Advertising agencies produce campaigns.

Digital teams respond in real time.

The danger here is obvious. Everyone can begin running a different campaign:

One spokesperson describes the candidate one way.

Another introduces an entirely different proposition.

An advertisement promises something the candidate rarely discusses.

Social media pursues whatever happens to be trending.

Eventually, communication becomes fragmented.

The campaign may have enormous visibility but little accumulated meaning.

MESSAGE DISCIPLINE IS NOT MESSAGE CONTROL

Campaign managers therefore need a clear strategic communication framework. But this should not mean distributing scripts and insisting everyone memorise identical sentences. Good message discipline provides people with a common strategic centre. Everyone should understand the following:

What does the candidate stand for?

What is the central proposition?

What are the three or four supporting messages?What evidence supports them?

What message should we consistently reinforce?

What claims should we avoid because they cannot be substantiated?

Once these are clear, communicators can speak naturally while remaining strategically aligned.

THATCHER: THE POWER OF A CONSISTENT MESSAGING

Back to the Iron Lady of British politics! Margaret Thatcher’s political communication provides an interesting historical illustration. Across different campaigns and years, certain themes became strongly associated with her politics: markets, individual responsibility, trade-union reform, reduced state intervention and national strength. Individual policies changed and circumstances evolved, but voters could generally identify the ideological territory she occupied. Again, the lesson here is not whether those policies were right or wrong. The communication lesson is consistency. People had a relatively clear understanding of what the political brand represented. Strong brands make themselves easier to understand.

DIGITAL MEDIA MAKES CONSISTENCY MORE CHALLENGING

Social media has made this challenge considerably more difficult. Campaigns now operate in an environment that rewards speed, controversy and constant reaction:

A candidate makes a statement.

An opponent responds.

A hashtag begins trending.

A supporter posts something provocative.

Within minutes, campaign communication can be dragged away from its strategy.

This creates what might be called communication drift.

The campaign begins the week talking about its central proposition and ends it discussing five controversies it never intended to make part of its agenda. Political communication managers must therefore distinguish between important response and distracting reaction. Not every provocation deserves amplification.

WHAT YOU SAY MUST MATCH WHAT YOU DO

This is a rule of Consistency. Political branding goes beyond communication materials. The candidate’s behaviour communicates too:

A candidate positioned around inclusion cannot repeatedly communicate contempt for groups of citizens.

A candidate claiming fiscal discipline and asking people to sacrifice cannot casually demonstrate conspicuous wastefulness and profligacy.

A candidate positioned around transparency will face difficulty if the campaign routinely avoids reasonable scrutiny.

The strongest brand consistency occurs when Words, Actions and Experience tell substantially the same story. That is where credibility grows.

PLEASE, PLEASE, DON’T "REBRAND" EVERY WEEK!

Campaign organisations sometimes become impatient. A message does not immediately dominate public conversation, so someone proposes a new one. Then another. Then another. Soon the campaign has accumulated slogans rather than meaning, and the audience confused. Brands are built through consistent reinforcement over time. Campaign insiders hear their messages every day. The average voter does not. By the time the campaign team is tired of a message, many citizens may only just be beginning to notice it. Consistency therefore requires patience.

THE ONE-CAMPAIGN TEST

Either as the agency or campaign team, do this:

Place everything together. The billboard. The television commercial. The candidate’s latest speech. The manifesto. The spokesperson’s interview. The social media page. The rally, etc. Now remove the candidate’s photograph and party symbols. Now ask: Do these communications still feel as though they belong to the same political brand, sans the image?

If not, integration may be weak. Different platforms should not create different candidates. They should reveal different dimensions of the same candidate. Because strong political brands are not built by communicating everything. They are built by establishing something meaningful, and then reinforcing it consistently enough for people to remember.

And Always remember: Different messages. Different media. Different moments. But ONE political brand.

NEXT: MSS SPECIAL 08: Voters need to see the human side of the candidate!

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‘Lolu Akinwunmi

Publisher, The MarCom Strategic Series (MSS)

lakinwunmi@primagarnetafrica.com