Political branding has always been more important than people think. You only have to look at the fractured state of the Tories right now to know that. All brands morph, and political parties are no different.
I was giving a talk about branding to Interbrand last week, discussing everything from the Evening Standard to Gucci, and unsurprisingly there was a huge amount of interest in politics, namely because things are so different to how they were five years ago — especially in the Labour Party.
The effect Sir Keir Starmer has had on his party has been transformative, and the Labour rebrand has been one of the most successful of the past five years. To rebrand a soft drink or a sneaker company, a hotel or even a newspaper, those are pretty big jobs. But rebranding a political party? How the hell do you do that? Well, Starmer appeared to do it in a matter of moments. He showed but didn’t tell. He just got on with it.
If you ask Alastair Campbell what New Labour’s greatest achievement was, he’ll say getting elected. If you ask David Cameron a similar thing, he’ll say forming a coalition with Sir Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats.
In years to come, Starmer’s greatest achievement could conceivably be turning the Labour Party into a party that is fit for purpose. Starmer not only managed to calm the unions, but also (largely) purged the party of its antisemitic narrative and move it to the centre ground.
Whether Starmer was being intuitive, or whether he just thought it would be more politically expedient to sort out his problems without broadcasting it, he made the right decisions.
Starmer knew what was wrong with his brand and he went and sorted it out, far away from the madding crowd
Because what Starmer did was what a lot of us forget when we’re thinking of rebranding: he did everything out of the public eye. He didn’t tell us what he was up to. He didn’t tell us what he was going to do. He didn’t even really seek any advice, let alone do any focus groups. He didn’t need to. He knew what was wrong with his brand and he went and sorted it out, far away from the madding crowd, where none of us could see him.
Of course, he was burdened with the traditional political strictures, and occasionally made noisy pronouncements about how much he was going to change things. But we tend not to listen to stuff like this anymore because it’s all just white noise. In February 2023, the Labour leader pledged his “five bold missions that will form the backbone of Labour’s election manifesto”. But I bet you can’t remember them. And I bet he can’t either. Life moves on, the carnival speeds up, and the daily news cycle means you have to adapt or die. Which is what he’s done.
Starmer’s rebrand wasn’t the result of a lot of marketing, it was the result of hard work. He didn’t explain, he just did it. And we could all learn a lot from that.
Because what Starmer did is very different from everything I see around me right now. What I see right now is the third gear of virtue-signalling of brands proclaiming to be better than they used to be, better than their peers, better than their competitors and better, probably, than we are as consumers.
Not an hour goes by when I don’t see some brand telling me that diversity and sustainability are at the heart of their business. Well, if it isn’t at the heart of their business, it’s sure at the heart of their messaging.
Regardless of your politics, no one can deny that Starmer’s rebranding has been anything but comprehensively successful; a rebranding he achieved by stealth and by doing everything behind closed doors.
This reminds me of the great Alan McGee, the man who discovered Oasis. He was brought up in the same part of Glasgow as Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie and attended King’s Park Secondary School. This wasn’t a private school, and I think it’s fair to say McGee grew up rough. He told me once that if someone says they’re about to hit you, then they most certainly are not. The people who hit you are the ones who don’t announce it, they just walk up to you and punch you in the face.
