Changing the Euro Narrative

By the end of 2014 I was getting mightily sick of the word ‘curation’. Nobody did any marketing, they just curated stuff. By the end of last year my irritation was with the word ‘narrative’. Nobody does any marketing or frankly much of anything, they just change the narrative. With the Referendum on Brexit looming, there is now a mad scramble to change the narrative about Europe and the UK’s relationship within or without it. I’d like to suggest that what sits under the bonnet of ‘changing the narrative’ is some good old-fashioned marketing. Here is what the opposing factions will be trying to do.

The art of brand positioning is to reposition the opposition. Classic example was when Apple repositioned IBM as ‘Big Brother’, which by definition positioned Apple as the cool iconoclasts. Very smart. So watch as the two sides attempt to reposition each other. The Leave campaign will say, for example, we are not leaving Europe, it is more the case that Europe has left us by pursuing integration. The Remain campaign has already repositioned Boris as leading his own campaign to be PM and framed the Leave mob as UKIP centric. This is not about economic and political security, the Leavers retort, it is about Sovereignty – we are fighting to save the Queen. There will be more of this.

Buy with your heart, justify with your head. We tend to make brand choices based on a fairly visceral attraction to something or a genetically programmed fear of change and anything different. The job of the marketer is then to provide the post-rationalization, the reasons to believe as we used to call them. We’ve made our choice, we just need some plausible arguments to avoid looking dumb among our mates. Research may not be very good at helping to create the visceral attraction or sustain a genetic inertia but it can help identify the post-rationalizations that get most traction. At the moment all sorts of things are getting thrown out there by both sides, but their researchers will help them focus on a tighter list of killer ‘facts’.

Heuristics work. We respond to strong logo’s, tag-lines, consistent short messages, which is why all good brands have them. Cameron weighed in immediately with the sound-bites – “stronger, safer, better off; best of both worlds”. The Leave campaign is a bit fragmented right now – do you mean ‘Leave Leave’ or threaten to leave to get a better deal? Consequently they are slow off the mark with their heuristics and they need to get their act together. I want to see a big strong logo and some simple acronym that sums up the argument to Leave. They have some work to do because the genetic inertia to avoid change is the stronger force – the visceral attraction to change needs to be very compelling.

On the other hand – sell benefits, not features. Getting me scared of Brussels or scared of an uncertain isolation will only get you so far. At some point you will need to point out the benefits of either routes. And money off trumps most things so best make it an economic benefit not just some woolly ideological thing.

Be like a cut diamond, one clear sparkling heart but lots of different windows to look through  - depending on your situation. I could have said ‘segment the market’ but the diamond is a much more interesting metaphor and makes the point that you cannot be all things to all people but you can shift weight in terms of your messages by audience (and medium). The trick as always is to choose the right way to segment the audience. As I’ve always said, left handed or right handed is of no interest to any marketer unless of course you sell golf clubs or guitars. So what is relevant in terms of this historic decision? Age, race, sex? North versus South? Attitudes to Europe? Dunno – but if I were advising the two teams I’d be suggesting they find out fast.

Focus your energy on the undecided and get into their consideration set. Switching brands is probably the most unhelpful notion in marketing. Brands grow by getting more people to consider you as a viable choice and then swaying them from undecided to trial. You don’t switch brands, you take a step closer and then sort of fall in. Forget rejecters or enthusiasts, focus everything on the persuadable undecided.

Momentum, momentum, momentum - the 3 most important words in brand marketing and politics. You don’t have to be winning, you just have to be seen (felt) to be gaining ground.  I’ve always thought that of all the rules of good marketing politicians get this one better than the marketers. Look at Trump in the USA – he has created, quite deliberately and thoughtfully, a sense of momentum. No, the majority don’t like him, and/or are scared of him but they sense he is gaining support. And as humans we tend to copy what we see others doing. We follow the herd.

All of the above will unfold over the next 4-5 months. They won’t call it marketing – politicians never do – they will say they are changing or driving the narrative.

Read more from Mark Sherrington here.