The Conservatives are hiding their USP
Like Picasso or Apple, the Tories need to simplify and exaggerate their brand to be successful
Great brands replicate religions – with charismatic leaders, credible beliefs, objects of reverence and eager congregations. Like the Orthodox faithful performing their prostrations before an ikonostasis of the Mother of God, iphone devotees flocked to the annual Apple Developers’ Conference in San Francisco where the late Steve Jobs practised his own divine magic.
The Dormition of the Mother of God or a slickly packaged iphone – in brand terms, their power is identical.
Then there is the idea of an individual as a brand, an invention of Picasso’s. At some level, he realised that merely being a prodigally talented artist was not enough. Cleverly, he dumped his given-name of Pablo Diego Jose Francisco De Paula Nepomuceno Maria de Los Angeles Remedios Cipriano de la Santissima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso and became no more nor less than “Picasso”. Brand management of genius!
But great brands can fail. Who would have thought Santa Fe Railroad, Polaroid, Xerox, Kodak and Saab would die? Well, they did. Because they lost track of meaning. They did not sense the future. They made the mistake of being fearful of making mistakes. They had rotten products. And the consumer – the congregation – became disenchanted very quickly.
This is not a proud moment for the Conservative brand, but a connection has been made to the future: Theresa May has a draft brief for a rebrand after market research found the party was seen as ‘‘not caring enough’’.
MPS have been told they should campaign on issues such as housing, education, the environment and animal welfare, with a focus on creating better, higher-paying jobs and ‘‘tackling injustices’’ in a renewed attempt to reposition the party brand as compassionate and inclusive.
These are sound attributes, but more than a spiffy new logo will be needed. Like all great products, the party must find a simple, powerful message. The Conservative Unique Selling Proposition is a compelling one, but now hidden by imprecision, muddle, doubt and fear. And this is why the value of its brand is so woefully diminished.
The secret of effective communications is to simplify, then exaggerate. Minutiae are unimportant. iphone users do not need to know about embedded M11 motion coprocessors. You can read this article without understanding the chemical composition of printer’s ink. Christianity, winningly, promised not better battery life, but an entire afterlife. Never mind that the afterlife is a promise impossible to verify, never mind its imprecision. It worked.
So, let’s do it, as Nike, one of the very greatest religions, insists we should.
On the whole, Conservatives feel the well-managed creation of new wealth brings more humane benefits than the confiscation of existing wealth. And, like Pascal’s wager about Heaven, it’s pleasant to believe that most people thrive and prosper when incentivised to do so. That’s a brand proposition to humble even Picasso.
In our world, the intangibles have similar significance to ikons in Byzantium: the sense of something is as valuable as its substance. In his great 1961 book The Image – a guide to pseudo-events in America – Daniel Boorstin described a conversation between two proud mothers. Mother 1: “What a beautiful baby!” Mother 2: “Yes, but you should see his photograph!”
Brands may be promises, but they are also illusions. I enjoy illusions. And I think most people do. I want to drink an ice-cold Coca-cola to participate in The American Dream, not to kill myself with a cynical obesity product. Successful brands are collaborations between priest and congregation, consumer and producer, in a piece of theatre: playwright and actor working on an agreed script.
Conservatives naturally want things to stay the same. Still, I wonder if “Conservative” now suggests confused torpor rather than a noble respect for tradition.
But hang on. Guinness became Diageo. Norwich Union became Aviva. Conservatives need urgent product development. And they also need to remember Lampedusa’s resonant apothegm: if you want things to stay the same, they must change.
‘Signs of Life – Why Brands Matter’ by Stephen Bayley (Circa Press)