The Scottish Liberal Democrat conference is coming up in the next couple of weeks and having spoken at it in previous years I am unable to attend on this, the first with Willie Rennie at the helm.
However I spent some time this weekend contemplating if any of the Laws of Marketing that I use in my day job could be applied to the Scottish Lib Dems. I recognise in doing this I may be burnt at the stake by some of my more open-toed Liberal friends, but feel free to discard whichever of the Laws you feel are unapplicable. Enjoy…
1.The Law of Leadership
Many Lib Dems believe that the basic issue in politics is convincing voters that you have better policies than the other lot. I would argue that this is not the case. If the Lib Dems have a smaller percentage of the vote and we are battling with bigger and better-funded parties then our strategy was probably the wrong one in the first place. We violated the first law. It’s the law of leadership. An essential issue in politics is being first in your category. It’s better to be first than to be better.
2. The Law of Category
What’s the name of the first person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo? Charles Lindbergh. And the second? You probably don’t know. The second person was Bert Hinkler and he was a better pilot than Lindbergh because he flew faster and consumed less fuel. Yet very few people ever heard of Hinkler because he was second. Leadership of a category is incredibly important. The Lib Dems need to decide in which categories they will be first. If we can’t be first in categories like social justice or equality (in all its guises) then we better be first in something else.
3. The Law of Mind
It is better to be first in the mind than first in the marketplace. The Lib Dems are always falling foul of this one. We come up with some brilliant policy ideas at conference only to see another party take it as it’s own and take the credit for getting it implemented (smoking ban anyone?). Apple was not the first in home computing but how many of us remember the Commodore Pet or MITS Altair 8800? If the Lib Dems want to make a big impression on the Scottish electorate we cannot hope to worm our way into the minds and then slowly build up a favourable opinion over time. The electorate’s mind doesn’t work that way. As a party we need to blast our way into the electorate’s mind.
4. The Law of Perception
There is no objective reality. There are no facts. There is no ‘best’ policy. All that exists in the politics are perceptions in the minds of the electorate. Their perception is reality and everything else is an illusion. Get over it. The art of politics is partly a battle of perceptions. The public perceive that in going into a coalition with the Conservatives we sold our own granny and as a result lost the trust of many left-leaning Lib Dem voters. We might like to give rational excuses for why we went into the coalition but that’s not the point. People, myself included, vote and buy products for emotional reasons. As Lib Dems we think that the quality and intelligence of our policies should speak for themselves. If as a party we collectively feel that then we do not deserve the public’s vote. It’s about winning voters hearts as well as their minds and that is a big battle to fight.
5. Law of Focus
The most powerful thing in politics is owning a word in the electorate’s mind. Volvo owns safety, Crest owns cavities, Salmond owns cunning, Brown owns dull, Labour owns extinct (only kidding). What word do we want the Scottish Liberal Democrat’s to own in the public’s mind? Freedom? Equality? Honesty? Whatever it is we need to burn it into the collective mind by narrowing our focus to a single word or concept. If we don’t decide the word then our opponents will help the electorate do it for us.
6. The Law of the Ladder
Which rung of the political ladder do the Scottish Lib Dems sit on? The answer to this will determine our strategy. While being the first in the electorate’s mind ought to be our main objective, the battle isn’t lost if we fail to do this as a party. There are strategies to use for No.2 and No.3. As a party we need to admit we are number four in Scotland. As much as I would love to believe otherwise I do not think we are going to be No.1 anytime soon. I know that the issue of where the Lib Dems are on the political ladder is one that Willie Rennie will have already given a great deal of thought to. The strategy for the position needs to be realistic. Perhaps we should adopt the Tory strategy of focusing on regional seats as opposed to constituencies? There will no doubt be howls of derision from some fellow Lib Dems as they read this but it is an important question.
7. The Law of Duality
Every councillor knows that in the long run, every election becomes a two-horse race and for the Lib Dems the classic ‘it’s a two-horse race’ bar graph is a perennial in election leaflets. But it’s true. When you take the long view of politics, you find that it usually ends up as a titanic struggle between two major players – usually the old reliable one and the upstart. All things being equal only parties that are No.1 or No.2 in their ward, county, region or country can win in an increasingly competitive environment.
8. The Law of Opposites
If the Lib Dems are shooting for second place then our strategy is determined by the leader (the SNP). Much like a wrestler uses his opponent’s strength against him, the Lib Dems should leverage the SNP’s strength into a weakness. Where are the SNP strong? How do we turn that into a weakness? We need to discover the essence of the leader and then present the electorate with the opposite. In other words the Lib Dems must not try to be better, we must try to be different. There are those that want to vote for the leader and there are those that don’t want to vote for the leader. The Lib Dems need to appeal to the latter group. In positioning ourselves strongly against the SNP, we take votes away from all the other alternatives to the SNP. As Caron points out we are already seeing Willie Rennie adopt this law with gusto.
Coming tomorrow… Part 2, and Laws 9 to 16!
I’m sure you’ll disagree with me on some or all of these laws. You may think that it’s wrong to make direct comparisons between marketing and politics and you may be right. However I hope you take these ‘Laws’ in the spirit in which they were written. What I hoped to do here is think about how we position ourselves as a party and get our message across. So what would your Laws of Politics look like? Feel free to comment below.
* James Taylor is a serial entrepreneur working in the UK and USA, as well as a former Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate. He is on Twitter @liberalthought and his website is www.jamestaylor.me.
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8 Comments
I think this is an excellent framework for analysing the situation we face in Scotland (and anywhere else for that matter)
The key thing I would add is that the starting point is something about deciding who you are, what are your core principles, then what is your analysis of the problems around you and what do you think are the best solutions. Once you have done some groundwork on those then you can and should apply James’ framework of thinking.
Either way we are building from the bottom again. The good thing is that that gives us some advantages.
Interesting analysis, but I’d stick to a top five! While in principle these are good starting points in practice the Lib Dems won’t come back in Scotland until they stop being defenders of the Union. There was more of this in Birmingham earlier in the week and it is entirely counter productive in my view. Here’s what I said a while back about Michael Moore putting roadblocks in the way of the Nat government:
http://livingonwords.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-moore-is-wrong-on-two-scottish.html
Once I started laughing I found I could not stop. The entirety of your ethos, James, is summed in this corker – “There is no objective reality. There are no facts. There is no ‘best’ policy. All that exists in the politics are perceptions in the minds of the electorate.”
Right, so we lost support and councillors and popular respect for reasons that were illusory, that right? So the cuts to services and the job losses, ah, they weren’t what influenced people, eh?
The kind of marketing panacea you’re promulgating, whatever the element of tongue-in-cheek, is simply a system of illusions itself. Ah, but why should I go on and on about it when Bill Hicks said it far better than I ever could. Take it away, Bill –
No, Dan Falchikov, the Lib Dem collapse in Scotland has nothing to do with their support for the union, and everything to do with their support for the Tories. Scottish Lib Dem voters tend not to vote Tory and not to vote Labour for tribal reasons, hence the drift to the SNP. Even Alex Salmond knows that a vote for the SNP is not a vote for independence.
Thanks for all your comments so far.
Gavin – I think you are correct in saying that identifying what is important to the party becomes even more critical when you are looking to position yourself.
Dan – I agree with you and I actually spoke in favour of one referendum at a previous Scottish conference.
Mike – I probably won’t take Bill Hick’s suggestion to kill myself but thanks for the link anyway. Each of us (MP, MSP, councillor, voter) look at the world through a pair of eyes and a certain worldview. If there is objective truth out there, how would we know it? Who would measure it? Who would tell us? It could only be another person looking at the same situation through a different pair of eyes. Truth is nothing more than one expert’s perception. I am pretty sure that the politicians of 300 years ago would have held an absolute belief in their policies. However in the 21st Century we look back and see there were wrong about 80% of their beliefs and policies.
I’d disagree that there are no objective reality and no facts. This said broadly, although I sometimes wasn’t so keen on the tone or some fine details, your post is completely correct. But it applies as much to the UK party as to the Scottish party.
To be honest, had the Scottish Lib Dems gone into coalition with the SNP last time around in Holyrood the party might not have been in so much of a mess in 2011 (even with the Westminister coalition), and whenever the crest of the SNP eventually crashes the Scottish Lib Dems will have a great opportunity to regain lost support. The problems with the federal party are, I think, more serious in the medium term, as there is no obvious moment coming in a few years where there is an opportunity to regain lost ground in the UK as a whole.
Point 4 is probably the single most important point in politics, and how I (having never had elected office) can realise that but the party leadership cannot is beyond me. I am thinking particularly of Clegg and the negotiation team for the coalition here, specifically tuition fees. Most of the people who would accept coalition with the Conservatives at all would be willing to forgive a lot of perceived wrongs if that totemic policy had been kept intact, I don’t even mean attempting to get what was in the manifesto. If the coalition agreement had allowed LDs to vote against the tuition fee rises and most MPs had done so that would have done a lot of good. Laws and co made a big misstep here, one of a few in the agreement.
Points 6, 7 and 8 are also very important. Though with point 6 it’s a bit difficult to , regaining strongholds should be the priority and that means fighting mainly the SNP in 2016. Aiming for 1st is impossible in one go, aiming for 3rd is underambitious in Scotland but aiming for 2nd is also probably too ambitious, unless Labour truly falters and the LDs truly make the most of a bad situation.
In Scotland the LDs were sunk the moment they refused to join the first salmond govt. Had they done so, they could hav gone to the nation this year on the basis fo 4 years of competent government, rather than the perception being that they had put preseving the Union before stable govt by ruling out working with the SNP because of their commitment to a referendum. Even if being in govt meant that they had lost half of their seats in 2011 as a result, that would have been so much better than what actually happened.
And I’ve said before, opposing the referendum was illiberal and undemocratic – and please don’t tror out ‘but it would have cost so much’ as a reason for denying self-determination to a small, but rightly proud, nation. Go and read the preamble to the liberal constitution instead.
As for the future, now that Salmond has seen off all of the main party leaders – except the Green who was in colaition with the SNP before anyway – and even forced the Scots Tories to consider changing their name (!), the pathway is clear – – seek, belatedly, to work with the SNP and then after the referendum try to find an appropriate USP. But, with a clear and competent record in office now, the SNP will be very hard to shift. We could have shared that with them.
James, I am impressed with this analysis even though I don’t agree with all of it.
I totally agree, and have been saying for a long time, that we need to be much more emotional in the language we use and the way we express what we’re about.
What we can’t do, though, is change what we’re about, which is why you can’t market a political party in the same way as you can a car or an ice cream. We believe in liberty, equality and community. These values will never change and we need to show how that thinking underpins everything we do.
I think marketing has a role, though – we know a lot about people’s behaviour and perceptions and it would be foolish not to use some of that knowledge – as long as it’s based on principle.
I like the way Willie has very instinctively started to talk about 3 core values. The way he describes them is allowing people to get up and get on in life, trusting local people and no quick fixes, but long term solutions. He’s very good at bringing things back down to reality and practicality so people can feel it relating to them.