'Lolu Akinwunmi writes: Building The Political Brand: Strategy & Communication

By ‘Lolu Akinwunmi

BEING KNOWN IS NOT ENOUGH. WHAT ARE YOU KNOWN FOR?

If a voter hears your candidate’s name and asks, “What does this person really stand for?”, what should be the answer?

•  Not the manifesto.
• Not the biography.
• Not a list of twenty campaign promises.
• Not the slogan printed beneath the photograph.

What is the one central idea the candidate wants to occupy in the voter’s mind?

That is the challenge of positioning.

In marketing, positioning is essentially about establishing a distinctive and relevant meaning for a brand relative to alternatives. Political communication faces the same challenge. A candidate cannot meaningfully stand for everything.

WE MUST MAINTAIN THE DISCIPLINE OF CHOICE

This is where political communication becomes difficult. Every campaign wants to talk about jobs, education, healthcare, security, infrastructure, corruption, agriculture, technology, young people, women, business and virtually everything else. And understandably so. Government touches all of them. But communication strategy requires choice. Positioning does not mean the candidate cares about only one issue. It means there is an organising idea connecting the candidate’s many positions. Let’s look at a few global examples:

BILL CLINTON

Bill Clinton’s 1992 American presidential campaign provides an instructive historical example. Campaign strategist James Carville famously posted three reminders at campaign headquarters, including: “The economy, stupid.” It was primarily an internal instruction rather than the campaign’s formal public slogan. Its purpose was to maintain focus. The campaign also emphasised “change versus more of the same” and healthcare. The broader economic programme was presented as Putting People First. Different policies could therefore be discussed while repeatedly returning to an identifiable strategic territory: economic conditions, change and their consequences for ordinary Americans. This is positioning discipline.

MARGARET THATCHER: DEFINING THE PROBLEM

The Iron Lady ran some of the most amazing campaign campaigns in the UK. Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 campaign demonstrates another approach. The Conservatives concentrated heavily on economic difficulties and industrial relations. The famous Saatchi & Saatchi poster reduced an argument about unemployment and government performance to three words:

“Labour Isn’t Working.”

The poster showed a long unemployment queue and became one of the best-known examples of British political advertising. Whatever one’s politics, the communication lesson is worth studying. The message identified a problem, attributed responsibility and implied an alternative. It did not attempt to put the entire Conservative manifesto on a billboard. That is what positioning forces communication people to do: decide what matters most.

BARACK OBAMA: OWN AN IDEA

Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign offers yet another model. Two ideas became strongly associated with his candidacy: HOPE. CHANGE.

These were extraordinarily simple words, but they provided a large emotional territory within which numerous policies and speeches could sit. Obama himself later described the 2008 campaign as having been about a collective vision of change rather than simply about him personally. Again, the lesson is not whether one agrees with Obama. The lesson is that strong political communication creates an association. Mention the candidate and an idea comes to mind. Mention the idea and the candidate may come to mind. That is powerful positioning.

SO WHAT IS YOUR CANDIDATE’S WORD?

Imagine a simple exercise. Write your candidate’s name in the centre of a blank sheet of paper. Now ask ten members of the campaign team separately:

“In one sentence, what does our candidate stand for?”

If you receive ten substantially different answers, there may be a positioning problem.

Ask ten reasonably informed voters the same question. If the answers become even more scattered, the problem is bigger. A strong political brand needs what marketers might call mental real estate: some identifiable territory in the citizen’s mind:

• Perhaps that territory is reform.
• Perhaps competence.
• Perhaps renewal.
• Perhaps economic opportunity.
• Perhaps security.
• Perhaps inclusion.

The strategic choice belongs to the campaign, based on the candidate, circumstances, research and electorate. But something must be chosen.

CANDIDATE’S POSITIONING MUST BE BELIEVABLE

There is an important warning. A campaign cannot simply choose an attractive word and attach it to a candidate. Positioning must have permission to believe:

• If you claim competence, where is the evidence?
• If you promise change, what demonstrates that you represent change?
• If you promise renewed hope, will you be able to substantiate same?
• If your territory is economic transformation, what experience, programme or record supports it?
• If you position around integrity, does the candidate’s public history reinforce that proposition?

Political positioning therefore sits at the intersection of three things:

1. What citizens need.
2. What the candidate can credibly represent.
3. What meaning differentiates the candidate from alternatives.

Where these three intersect, potentially powerful positioning begins.

(AND LET’S BE CLEAR): REPETITION IS NOT BORING

Campaign organisations often become tired of their own messages long before voters have absorbed them. Someone inevitably says: “We’ve said this already. Let’s say something new.” That instinct can destroy positioning.

Coca-Cola does not abandon refreshment because it has communicated it before.

Nike does not abandon achievement because consumers have heard it before.

Strong brands build meaning through consistent reinforcement. Political brands are no different.

• Different executions? Certainly.
• Different stories? Absolutely.
• Different media? Of course.

But underneath them should remain a recognisable strategic idea. Because when everything becomes important, nothing is important. And when a candidate appears to stand for everything, voters may eventually struggle to explain what the candidate stands for at all. Before asking voters to choose your candidate, therefore, answer the more fundamental question: What do you want your candidate to mean?

That is positioning.

Next in MSS-08.3, we will examine the next topic in the theme series:

Building & Sustaining The Political Brand: Strategy, Message & Communication

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‘Lolu Akinwunmi

Publisher, The MarCom Strategic Series (MSS)

 lakinwunmi@primagarnetafrica.com