In conversation with a marketing student and Lib Dem member the other day we discussed their membership's obvious problem with a leadership which seems completely oblivious to the crash course the party is headed on.
While we talked and touched upon the challenge coalition parties have in Europe it occurred to me that their problem is not entirely a problem of the now - their misfortunes could have been written in stone months and months ago.
Of course I'm not in any way justifying the actions of Nick Clegg and the other Lib Dems in government, but from a marketing perspective there is a very simple problem of brand identification which is in danger of completely annhilating the party and the hard work of thousands of members and councillors who are about to pay the penalty for having to face the electorate and do exactly that - justify their existence.
As our discussion continued we touched on the Lib Dems fundamental problem - they can't take credit for whatever good they have brought to the coalition (if any). They have a fundamental brand identification problem.
During the General Election (when they presumably assumed they weren't going to win), the Liberal Democrats campaigned as an equal against the other two political parties. With the benefit of hindsight, its clear they should have chosen a completely different path.
Let's just pretend that the Liberal Democrats had only campaigned on issues of economic growth - their manifesto had been full of ideas and decisions about the economic priorities of our country.
For a start, the coalition might actually have a plan for growth.... but also any ideas that did surface would be identified as Liberal Democrat ideas.
The size of the rightward swing of the government has subsumed the efforts of a small party to locate itself in the centre. Depending on the left-right spectrum as a means to define your party in coalition politics is quite frankly, so last year.....
Instead, the Liberal Democrats need to learn a distinctive voice - not just to be the 'other' voice - and in doing so accept that they are not one of the larger political parties but an influencer, a powerful additive. In marketing terms, they are the mixer people add to their drink of choice.
In making this change, the political landscape in Britain may be changed forever. Oh, wait, it's too late - that might have happened already..........
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
But it is therefore inherently a problem of the Lib Dems acting like a political party.
To do as you suggest - to choose a single issue such as economic priorities - would be to relegate them to a protest group. Why not be an economic think thank?
I despise the lib dems becaise of their duplicituous politics and I am glad they are being exposed.
Perhaps the great thing they do in this coalition, far from being policy influence, is to demonstrate to the British people just how ridiculous they are.
Don't disagree.
The idea was actually prompted by how European parties single themselves out. Because coalitions are almost permanent, parties act like pressure groups and think tanks, only with electoral representation. I think this is the only way the Lib
Dems will survive - I make (almost) no comment on whether it is a good thing.....
After the 2005 GE, I was taking to a prominent Lib Dem and congratulated him on doubling the number of NW MPs. I then said their biggest problem was now going to be deciding which party they are.. "what do you mean?" he said. Anyone in either Labour or the Tories knows that the Lib Dems are two political parties of opposite ideology held together by their campaigning. I was surprised at how little analysis he had done of his own party, that this was news to him.......
Post a Comment