Political brands

There is nothing particularly controversial in this column, so if you are looking for that scroll on or grab a newspaper.

I am troubled by the current tenor of the 2024 elections. What I perceive is that my political freedom hinges on casting a vote for a party that makes promises which will not be delivered. Consider for instance the promise of mass housing. Regular promises have been made in past elections but have failed to materialize. Bureaucracy, corruption and unfeasible expense have so far put paid to that. Youth employment is emerging as a promise. There is also the suggestion that Namibia needs its own satellite.

A political party is a brand, the same as any product or service. The political brand will respond to a set of practices that are used to craft leading global product brands.

Using my favourite brand strategist, Kevin Lane Keller, I will use two core facets of his equity plan to show how a political brand can work: performance and the psychosocial aspect of belonging entailed in resonance. As you read onwards, note that both are interlinked. Keller’s concepts of imagery, judgements and feelings also play a role, but they combine in the top of the equity architecture, resonance.

My economics lecturer made a comment which stuck with me, that your political aspiration is an economic choice. Using Keller’s performance, what will be the tangible benefit to you of your political party winning the election? This can be broken down into attributes and benefits. For example, in the case of mass housing the attribute will be construction of houses and the benefit will be availability of an affordable house, presumably for the person who votes.

As the exercise of democracy is a collective endeavor, resonance entails group association, the sense of belonging and exercise of ‘strength in numbers’, which leads to a collective decision and desired performance. Through the collective desire and decision, the political party obtains resonance, the sense of relevance to the individual voter. Plus, there is the security of validation of the group.

Ideally, the political brand should have a balance of performance and resonance, but this is seldom the case. European protests show that the brand can be linked to the performance aspect with a clear result. On the other hand, the US democratic process shows that a brand can be almost entirely emotive and unreasoned as is the case with Trump voters who will vote against lower priced medical care, for instance. The latter is also true for Namibia, where a personal vote entails a choice of promises which are unlikely to materialize.

What is interesting is the placement of the political brand on the performance-resonance continuum. Placement of the brand on the continuum is fluid and can shift with attitude, needs and wants. In the long term, this continuum is where the political campaign manager should go to work.

The manager should ideally validate performance with clear proof in the form of statistics. But the manager should also ensure that the ideology and policies are valid in the current context, worthy of resonance. Bear in mind that the political party is a value creator. Following historian Arnold Toynbee, if performance and resonance fail to match one another in the medium to long term, the relevance of the political party erodes.

There is currently no Namibian party that can adequately claim apparent medium-term performance (through effective regional administration) and effectively translate that into resonance. This implies erosion, if not of votes for parties, then the electoral process itself.

The elections will be telling. So will be the evolution that follows.