You can add ‘politics’ to the long list of subjects that I studied at school and have retained absolutely no knowledge. So, please forgive any holes in my arguments below due to general ignorance of our political system.
But I do know a little bit about marketing and what I have found fascinating about this week (other than the interesting Machiavellian slights of hand and Pavlovian responses) is the marketing issue at the heart of it all...
What does your brand stand for?
And what do you do when what your brand stands for is no longer relevant to the market?
I found the comments by MP Sophie Mirabella who resigned from the Shadow Cabinet to demonstrate her lack of support for the Leader and the policy was very telling: She rejected the ‘new’ values as represented by the Emissions Trading (Carbon Reduction) Scheme because it would make the Liberal Party a pale imitation of the Labor Party.
From a marketing point of view she is half right – You need to be differentiated from your competitors.
And then communicate that differentiation to your potential customers.
That is positioning.
But you can’t be so focused on your point of difference from your competitors that you fail to reflect what is important to your customers.
I think that part of Liberal Party management have failed to recognise that the values of their customers has changed – and that their brand needs to be seen to reflect that change.
Channel 9 are going through this dilemma. One of my old radio stations is in a similar position. 3MP’s audience is aging (and literally dying off).
The challenge therefore is how do you re-position yourself to reflect the new values and increase your relevance to a growingly diverse (and in their case younger) market - whilst still satisfying an ever declining core audience?
Is there are large enough customer base to make the Liberal Party’s position on climate change viable?
Another interesting example of branding this week has been the de-positioning that both Malcolm Turnbull, and then Julia Guillard, have undertaken in describing the far right Liberal party members (the Abbotts, Minchins, et al) as climate change sceptics or deniers. Some of these guys have in turn denied that accusation and claimed they are only anti the current ETS. But the de-positioning has been so strong that the view they are in denial has ‘won’ many hearts and minds.
From a branding point of view, the ‘personal brand’ of the leader reflects upon the Party brand, and visa versa. So with Abbott as Leader competitors are likely to de-position the Liberals as old-hat, climate change sceptics/deniers, anti-abortion, anti-women, and so on...
The challenge for the Liberal Party is to build a brand value that counters those negatives, builds upon the core (heritage) brand foundation, and provides relevance to a viably-sized customer base.
The only question is....how?
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Comments
They don't get marketing and they sure don't get selling.
The ill-fated "Fight Back" package of John Hewson failed miserably to win the "campaign that couldn't fail". I was teaching marketing workshops why it couldn't win more than a year before the doomed election.
Keating didn't really get marketing either. But he was cunning enough to know how to create widespread fear around the "Fight Back" package and totally neutralize the Libs' self-righteous "this is what Australia NEEDS" positioning. The whole debacle was a forgone conclusion.
Looks like nothing has changed in all that time.