Don’t Mistake a Slogan for a Brand

Bonnie Siegel
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read
Adam Gottlieb Collection

On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke about losing the 2016 election, and whether he realized it or not, admitted the Democrats have a major issue with brand identity.

“The number one thing that we did wrong is we didn’t tell people what we stood for,” Schumer explained.

Coming from the corporate world of branding, I speak from experience when I say not knowing what you stand for is major problem — and can quickly lead to the demise of a company or candidate, or in this case, an entire party.

Schumer went on to say that the Democratic party has plans to unveil a new agenda, complete with a brand new slogan that he says, everyone will adopt: “A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future.”

Now, I’m not sure how far along the Democrats are with their rebranding process or what other components this new brand will encompass, but I will tell you that a slogan is not a brand — nor is an agenda or issues.

You can’t simply make up a new agenda and slogan, and expect your brand identity, brand proposition and brand promise to magically appear. Nor can you define the party or every candidate within the party to fall in line with a few simple words — candidates are not robots.

As I’ve said time and time again, a pretty logo, a catchy tagline and slick website — while they are all very strong components of your brand identity, they are NOT your brand. That’s why it’s absolutely imperative that a strong brand identity is established BEFORE these components are created.

Remember: A slogan doesn’t make a brand, a brand and the essence of that brand makes a slogan.

And I’ll go even further than that — strong brand identity, especially political brand identity — is not necessarily driven by party affiliation anymore, but more by the individual candidates, themselves.

The Democrats, while definitely in an identity crisis (and I believe the Republicans face this, too, for different reasons — I will explore this in a future blog post), did not lose because their donkey lost its way. They lost because their candidate lost her way using an old, outdated map.

Hillary Clinton thought she knew what her brand represented; but didn’t. Her brand identity often confused people because, well, she simply didn’t have one. Her brand was defined by others — a total recipe for disaster, by the way — leaving her with a brand that not only failed to capture the essence of her individual brand, but also led to her being unable to control her message. This led to an ineffective brand promise, which in turn, cost her the election.

So, you see, while yes, the Republicans and Democrats both face serious brand identity issues, what the 2016 election showed the nation is that voters aren’t necessarily as concerned anymore about the “R” and “D” appearing after a candidate’s name — they are becoming more and more invested in the individual candidates.

And while I commend the Democratic party for recognizing they have a problem with brand identity and perception, we have entered into a new political frontier where it’s less about the party and more about the candidate. And if that candidate lacks strong political brand identity and authenticity, that candidate will most likely lose.

That said, it would be wise for campaigns to invest more in creating and solidifying strong political brand identities for their candidates — before creating a logo, a slogan or website. After all, what’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing, the same way over and over again, and hoping for different results.

No matter how awesome your logo, slogan, website and even party is, these things don’t win elections — candidates with a strong brand identity do. And if Republicans want to win midterms, I strongly recommend they begin identifying and solidifying their own brands, now.

Bonnie is the founder of PoliticalBranding Associates, and consults with Republican political campaigns and teams, leading, guiding, melding, creating, implementing, managing and ultimately bringing to market, a candidate’s political brand identity. Find out more at www.politicalbrandingassociates.com.

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