A top marketing strategist has been left unimpressed by Labour's campaign. Photo / NZME
OPINION:
An Italian advertisement for the Fiat Motor Company released earlier this year provided a lesson in marketing strategy that the Labour Party would have done well to pay attention to in the lead-up to this election.
In the ad, Fiat CEO Olivier Francois walks through the vibrant streets of the town of Lerici in Italy, talking directly to the camera about the fact that grey is the single most common car colour on streets around the world.
“German grey, Japanese grey, French… It’s an easy sell… it always sells. But here we’re not talking about Germany, or Japan, or France. We’re talking about Italy.”
After that careful set-up, Francois then proceeds to promise that Fiat would outright stop the production of any grey cars.
By excluding grey, Francois tells us that Fiat stands for the colour and vibrancy that has always represented Italy.
The act of exclusion is not reductive; it actually enhances our understanding of what the brand stands for.
As renowned marketing professor Mark Ritson has explained: “Louis Vuitton never discounts… Patagonia does not promote anything during Black Friday. Dom Perignon skips years when production quality is not perfect. Fiat no longer makes grey cars.”
The best brands in the world are often defined by the things that they do not do.
This brings us to Labour under the tenure of Chris Hipkins as Prime Minister following the departure of Jacinda Ardern.
Hipkins’ leadership has been defined, in part, by discontinuing activities started by his predecessors. The so-called “policy bonfire” saw Labour jettison the TVNZ-RNZ merger, the clean car upgrade, the social insurance scheme, alcohol reforms, the biofuels mandate and hate speech legislation among many others. Labour has also shifted its tone on law and order becoming tougher on crime despite previously focusing more on rehabilitation.
The problem with each new exclusion is that they didn’t provide any clarity on what differentiated the party from the competition. If anything, it has led to criticism that Labour is starting to look a bit too much like National.
At best, Labour’s policy bonfire could be described as focusing on the centre; at worst, it could be derided as an opportunistic ploy to gather more votes. Political commentator Chris Trotter offered an acerbic view on this issue: “Hipkins’ ‘policy bonfire’ was a mistake for Labour as it’s looking now like the party has burnt down its own house by abandoning its principles.”
This was perhaps best captured this week on Newstalk ZB when broadcaster Mike Hosking challenged National leader Christopher Luxon with the accusation that he wasn’t offering anything different from Labour.
This barb aimed at Luxon tells you more about Labour’s progression to the centre than it does about what National stands for.
The Spinoff writer Duncan Greive wrote earlier in the election campaign that what voters seem to want is a National Party Government run by Chris Hipkins – a statement reflective of the polling at the time, which showed National ahead but Hipkins leading in the preferred Prime Minister stakes.
Those preferred PM ratings have since levelled out but Greive’s real point is that it wouldn’t be far-fetched to imagine Hipkins donning a blue tie. His rhetoric on being tough on crime, his bread-and-butter economics, and his aversion to wealth or capital gains taxes all feel like they could have been plucked from a National Party manifesto.
Former Labour leader Jacinda Ardern had put pressure on the Greens to prove their differentiation given how quickly she had moved onto their turf, but under Hipkins the party has gone the other way. And while the Greens and National have held steady on either side, Labour has started looking more uncertain about what its brand actually stands for.
This shows in the internal tension within the party about major issues like wealth and capital gains taxes. When your Revenue Minister tells you that holding his portfolio was untenable under the current parameters, then there’s a clear disconnect within the party about what Labour should and shouldn’t stand for. That disconnect also appears to extend to voters. The recent Newshub-Reid Research poll showed that the party had slid to 26.6 per cent, while Greens are up at 14.2 per cent and National is steadily moving towards forming the next Government.
Perceptions can shift quite quickly, but Labour isn’t being helped by a milquetoast advertising campaign that doesn’t offer the urgency or the forward momentum being presented by the other parties.
Labour hoardings around the country have been emblazoned with the phrase “in it for you,” which denotes a sense of stagnation rather than progression.
In her series of LinkedIn posts on the quality of the campaigns she had seen from the parties, respected independent marketing strategist Kate Smith gave the Labour Party’s approach an effectiveness score of two out of 10.
“The only rationale I can come up with is that Labour is trying to imply that other parties are not in it for you, said Smith in the post.
“I don’t think that washes when most people do vote for their own self-interest and parties to the left of Labour, like the Greens, will pick up votes from people looking for leadership and action on collective issues like poverty, equity and climate change. I think it’s confused, weak and indicative of where Labour is at the moment - out of ideas, vanilla, directionless.”
In a recent series of ads released on television, Labour has been working hard to show its differentiation by attacking some of the policies that National and Act are planning to launch.
This has been described as unnecessarily negative by some commentators, but it’s imperative for Labour to show voters that there are still fundamental differences between what they and the opposition offer.
Labour also understands that Hipkins remains the biggest asset for the Party having him front a series of more positive ads in which he smiles broadly and says: “I’ve got your back, I’m in it for you.”
It’s an important reminder that a vote for Labour is also a vote for Hipkins, the individual who played a major role in driving this country’s Covid response.
The problem is that memories are short. And what Labour is currently left with is a brand that looks distinctly grey in a landscape of alternative colours.
- Damien Venuto is an Auckland-based journalist with a background in business reporting, with a particular interest in marketing and advertising. He joined the Herald in 2017 and currently hosts The Front Page, the Herald’s daily news podcast.
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