Political branding.
I thought this piece by Vincent Lee was extremely entertaining. Got this off his blog but I actually read it off StarBiz.
Political Branding - Perception or Reality?
Much has been said and written since the aftermath of the March elections. Over 5 months, 161 days or 3864 hours has gone by and we still don’t seem to have conclusion to this election. The opposition is still behaving like an opposition and the government is as removed from reality as it was before the so called ’shock to the system’.
Complacency is a recurrent and often fatal condition in politics.Caught in between all this is the poor Rakyat, grappling with high food and fuel prices, they remain in the dark. Salaries aren’t going up and everything under the sun is sky rocketing.? Another by-election is the least priority in the minds of the people.
In the early days of democracy the Romans believed in a concept of ‘panem et circus’(bread and circuses), which had a simple success formula- ‘keep the peoples bellies filled and distract them with circuses’. Gladiators fed to lions were thus standard fare.
We in turn today, are fed with tons of rumors and scandals daily, either through the main stream papers or the digital media. In the first couple of weeks this was indeed entertaining rojak of Bollywood and Sex and the City. But an over dose of slime slinging will only make this country sillier than what’s happening across the Atlantic - a Paris Hilton spoof now running for campaign talk, that epitomizes what one journalist aptly called the devolution to ‘the politics of nothing’.
Perception or reality?
Contrary to popular belief, the last election was not decided by what was badly done, nor not done by the government, but by what was perceived to be done and not done. Time and again we have heard that politics is a perception game and even the old timers kept
harping on this. Yet politicians are so poor in managing perception. One might ask why?The answer is simple. The old guard failed to listen! Listening is an art. Politicians need to train their ears, for unlike the mouth which one uses daily the ear seldom performs the way it should- if not trained properly. Political hierarchies are such that the higher one is, the less one hears. Leaders can calcify after years of giving orders and listening to sweet platitudes from the people. Power does not merely corrupt, it can definitely deafen. After all within a group of yes-men that tell leaders what they want to hear or think they want to hear, it is not easy to absorb the truth. More often than not, the truth hurts. Think about it - If you don’t use your limbs for a year, imagine what will happen to them. Paralysis.
Anwar – the Challenger brand
In the world of branding, there is always the incumbent, established brand leader. Then comes the challenger brand. Challengers are often fiery and do the unexpected to gain attention as well as sympathy. Typically too the target prospects are young, anti-establishment and willing to try new products or services. The older voters can never be the target for the simple reason that they are used to the old and tested brand and dare not take risk. Often they will ask questions like; Will it work? Will it backfires? Will it be a waste of money? ‘
Anwar, played this branding game perfectly, he positioned himself as the ‘CHANGE” agent right from the start. And he is consistent enough to repeat it time and time again. He is able to embrace the frustration of the people, the needs of the new generation as well as the scepticism within the ranks of government. From the onset, his Keadilan logo was well done. The famous black eye was well transformed into a winning strategy. No doubt he had branding consultants help him professionally.
The rule of thumb in politics on the ‘anti incumbent swing vote’ is that thirty percent of people will be against you even if you are a saint. It worked wonders for the Anwar brand. He just needed to fire up another twenty odd percent to win over the majority. And he has just done that. In the minds of some people, Anwar is the brand of hope and an exciting friend. They are emotionally predisposed to this brand and hence he can do no wrong for the time being. Even when he makes mistakes, it will be quickly forgotten or forgiven. That’s the power of a strong brand. Similarly, how many people will really stop wearing Nike if it exploits workers in some god forsaken place in Timbuktu? Nike will claim its helping third world enterprise, and most people will just buy it- the storyline and the shoe!
Umno/ Barisan brand
Sometime in 2001 the UK press was all onto a leaked focus group study that said that Tony Blair was the new labour brand and that the brand was contaminated. The vibrant discourse that ensued on political branding finally agreed that it was not so much the man as his failed government in handling healthcare, education, pensions etc that impacted on the leader as a brand. Today, here in Malaysia we have the reverse analogy. At the level of brand architecture it shows that Barisan is the mother brand, but in true sense we know that what really drives the nation is Umno. And hence, we shall look at Umno brand verses the Anwar brand here. (Keadilan is the brand on paper, but in reality it is nothing without Anwar) .It is a little like trying to think of Air Asia and not have Tony Fernadez come to mind.
Dinosaur politics
For fifty years, Umno has not changed their brand fight; they kept selling on the same brand promise and even up-ed their ante. Though the promise is still relevant to some, especially the old guard the new generation has somewhat relegated that need to number four or five in
the order of importance. The top three drivers of political change would be transparency,
corruption and? the economy. Just imagine, in product terms its like Umno still selling a hand set mobile phone the size of a massager and lugging the car battery along. (Remember the time when handset phones were first introduced way back in 70’s?).Oversell and Undersell
To be fair to the Pak Lah government, when he first burst onto the scene the brand promise was somewhat ahead of delivery and hence the blame should go to his communication department. At other times, when areas of significant achievements were met it did not communicate effectively to the nation. Most political observers will agree that Pak Lah should be single minded in his pursuits. He should not be a PM for everything and anything. He should be a reformist as promised. His political outcome can stand up for it- as we look through his achievements he has done reasonably well.
Despite the hype, in areas of Judiciary, GLCs and civil service he out performs Tun Mahathir by a long chalk.
The real Legacy - a snapshot scorecard
Pak Lah gave us the Royal commission, last time we only have the loyal commission. On GLCs, Malaysian Airlines has turned around and is making profits now under the aegis of Datuk Idris Jala. Proton is also making all the right moves and Khazanah is one of the most sought after work places to work in the country. Previously, the tax payer’s money burnt bonfires of vanities and inefficiency in these companies. In the civil service, and in e-Government we now have one day passports, before this we were sent from pillar to post. Car licenses, business licenses and you name it licenses are just a click away now compared to five years ago. It is the small things that ease the burden of the people that count. Not monuments to ego, that bleed the treasury.
With all these changes, how on earth is he perceived to be bad? No thanks to the opposition’s ability in a pre-emptive brand representation of Pak Lah as the ineffective leader - soft and slow and sleepy. His team just could not shake off this brand tag!? But unlike the Blair analogy the Pak Lah government has delivered to some extent and as time runs out for writing his? legacy Abdullah must rise to the occasion- better late than never. He must reveal the real contamination is not Pak Lah but Umno. He needs to focus, to pick on a pragmatic reform strategy for Umno, be honest about it and consistently communicate to the nation his own
perestroika or open agenda.- Malaysia Reformasi.
I enjoyed his observation as to how we actually don’t need a by-election right now to distract us from more pressing issues at hand. But the by-election is just the necessary procedure for Anwar to enter Parliament in hope that it will pave steps to either pressure the government to step up in dealing with society’s problems effectively or bow down with grace (I could only wish! You can bet your bottom dollar Umno will not bow down). So we will put up with the by-elections and the sandiwara that comes with it, for now. As for what comes later, get ready to put on your activist shoes!
His analogies are brilliant. The way he breaks our politics down into public relations and branding strategies - priceless. When people say politicians need better PR, you know they damn well do!
Who said politics is boring? It really depends who’s writing about it :)