A word-of-mouth election campaign – but what is the message?

Last Saturday's Guardian front page spelled out the Labour Party's approach to communicating their key messages in the run up to the election. http://bit.ly/c0UlfT
In the article, Patrick Wintour quotes 'election co-ordinator' Douglas Alexander as saying, the Labour Party's '...key campaigning insight in an age of cynicism about politicians is word of mouth. The Conservative are fighting a broadcast election in a networked age. What we are going to offer is not a one way communication, but one-to-one communication.'

This is all fine and good – and clearly shows an awareness of the new, social channels. But what is the message. For Obama it was about change, with the slogan 'Yes, we can'. But the past year has been a reality check, turning 'Yes we can' into 'but not right now, and not as much as we want, and not how you think...'.

Cameron's simple message has already been diluted – 'Year for Change' suffers from all the same issues that Obama's slogan has – people need something short, but they also need soemthing distinctive and memorable.

These kinds of short slogans are a throwback to old-school marketing every bit as much as posters and TV commercials. If tey are going to tap into these social networks, Political Parties need to abandon slogans and embrace the 'nugget'.

The 'nugget' is the smallest unit of social media. It is a compact set of pieces of information. It is the message PLUS the information someone needs to pass that message on to other people. In Verbal-Id this means who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters.

The 'nugget' means that people quickly understand the distinction, and know who might be interested in it, and why they should pass it on.

Take the Rage Against the Machine campaign that emerged over the X-Factor – the message was wonderfully compact, and to the point, but it also clearly identified the kinds of people who it was for (and the kind it was against) which allowed people to see if it was for them, but also pass it on to others even if they themselves were not that bothered. Pure peer to peer communication needs the nugget!

Alexander is 100% right in descrying the Tories use of ancient media in a modern world, but let's see if Labour wastes this social media opportunity with lumpen, leaden slogans when they could start a nice goldrush with a well written 'nugget'.

Don't get the cart before the horse - strategic vs tactical

Branding is neither 'dark art' or 'rocket science' - it is mostly just common sense. As with so many simple things, there are a few simple rules. Here is one that has been much on my mind this week: keep strategic and tactical ideas separate.

Tactical ideas are for the day to day. They include campaigns, advertising, direct mail, blogs, tweets, web content that sort of stuff.

Strategic ideas are bigger, broader, more long-term. They include guidelines, plans, vision, values, that kind of thing. Verbal-id works at a strategic level.

They both have their place – and more specifically – they need to be kept in the right order.

Strategic ideas come before tactical solutions.

Although it is possible to achieve tactical objectives without the strategic work, the chances of success are lower, and there is less chance you'll be able to build on previous campaigns. There is also more chance that the project will run into complex arguments, confusion or contradiction. And that will cost time and money.

In general, it is best to get the strategic 'big ideas' agreed first, before tackling the tactical...

It's tempting to throw them a curveball, but you can't expect design and marketing agencies to be able to come up with web pages, advertising, direct mail, packaging or even stationery, before the big ideas are in place. They need the big, strategic ideas to be in place to really let their creativity fly...