Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament

Rita Clifton is chairman of Interbrand and a speaker and media commentator on all areas of brands, reputation, sustainability, marketing and communications around the world.

I love Greece.

And I read ancient Greek
and Latin at university.

And then of course
I proceeded to go into a career

that had absolutely
nothing to do with those.

What it has enabled me
to do is to be incredibly

annoying and pedantic
about spelling and grammar.

And also, at least,
when we are on holiday with the family

I can read some of the signs in Greek.

But I have to say I never imagined
that my student-self,

my grown-up self would actually be able

to find some sort of accommodation.

And I'll explain
what I mean by that, I hope,

over the next few minutes.

I'll also explain what I mean by

including this gentleman here,

whom I'm sure you recognize,
but this is Pericles.

And Pericles was one of the earliest

and most successful democratic
leaders in ancient Greece.

It is very difficult to find a sculpture,

or a statue of Pericles
without this helmet on.

And actually, this helmet
was a symbol of his position.

But actually, the rumor was

it was because he had weird-shaped head.

But nevertheless,
it was a very strong branded look.

So I suppose you could say
that about it, too.

But actually, on a more serious note,

what was interesting about
ancient Greek democracy was,

of course, it was a direct democracy.

People expected to get involved
in a whole range of issues.

It wasn't just about one vote
every few years

and representing people for that time.

So maybe there are some
interesting parallels

for our conversations
and our democracy today.

But when it comes to that democracy,

at the moment democracy has a bad rep.

A bit of a bad reputation.

Whether or not that's about wars,
or whether it's failure

to tackle issues like climate change,

whether or not it's attached
to democracy's difficulty

of getting people to vote
for pain rather than pleasure

at the moment.

I guess what we all want is for
democracy to really succeed.

Because that,
I think we'd all believe,

is the way to get people
to live healthier,

happier, more productive, safer lives.

Now what good branding does,
is it does manage to connect with people

to touch people on their daily lives.

And I know what you might say,

buying a household brand
is not exactly the same

as voting for someone
who's going to represent your life.

It's on a rather different level.

However, because brands
do manage to touch people

across boundaries, and by the way

I'm talking about brands
that can be in any sector.

It can be retail, it can be corporate,
it can be product,

it can of course be not-for-profit.

And often when people talk about brands,

they can forget that some of the world's

most powerful brands,
most influential brands,

are in the not-for-profit sector.

Because when I talk about brands,
I'm not just talking about

the top bit, the logo.

I mean frankly, the week doesn't go past

if we see silly headlines about you know,

this company has been renamed
that cost 50 million pounds.

And frankly, if any of those
amounts had been true,

I'd have retired to the Caribbean
a long time ago.

But it's so easy for people
to get distracted by

the top bit of branding.

You know the name, and the logo,

and the packaging, and everything else.

And I have to say, that working
sometimes with political parties,

when you talk about re-branding,

what they really mean
is could you give us a new squiggle,

and could you give us a new slogan?

What makes good brands really work

is the substance that lies beneath.

You know, the shared vision.

And the minute you start talking

about that substance and shared vision,

you might start thinking about
some issues with democracy,

is there a shared vision for democracy?

And certainly from what I've seen so far,
maybe there isn't.

Now, if branding has got some challenges,

then, democracy has, too.

And just on the challenges for branding,

I talked about some headlines
but also this book,

for example, became a bestseller.

What I'd like to say,
and it was interesting that

"The Economist" ran this front cover,
in retort to some of the books

that have been written on the subject.

It was basically talking
about pro-logo, that actually

branding is a very successful,
sustainable engine for economies.

And what's more, sometimes people
underestimate this,

if you've got a strong brand,

you've got a loyal customer.

If you've got a loyal customer,

that means more security of earnings,
more security of income,

and actually more security of employment.

And that in itself
is quite an important issue.

And what's more,
is strongly-branded organizations

got a reputation to protect.

So they're likely to try
and do the right thing.

However, I guess
the thing that you'd also say

is that in today's digital age,

unless you are doing the right thing,

unless you are who you say you are,

and you do what you say
you're going to do,

you'll get found out,
with a speed and a scale

that will take your breath away.

And the same with political parties,
and also political leaders.

So absolutely, beware.

Now there are some learnings in my view,

because brands can connect with people,
get them to vote for people every day,

either in their purchases,
or their influence.

I just want to use an example of that.

What was so interesting
in some of the latest elections

in Greece or in France,
is again how difficult it is

to get the people to vote
for difficult things.

And the temptation so often,
in politics, and in parties,

is to do equivalent of a BOGOF.

Have you heard of BOGOF?

Buy one get one free.

So coming up to elections

and what political parties
start saying is, retire at 50?

Absolutely. We'll have that
supermarket special offer.

Do you want to, you know,
get a full pension, etc?

Absolutely, we'll do that.

So, politicians privately say,
"Oh my goodness,

we know that we're promising
things that we can't deliver

and can't afford to deliver,

but we do need to get voted in."

It's a very compromising thing.

And what's more,
when they can't deliver at a later date,

that makes people rather cynical,

and not supportive of politics,

and the temptation to make
promises that you can't keep.

Not a great commercial,
often for democracy.

Now I'm just going to talk
briefly about this very strong brand here.

Apple hardly ever discounts,
it doesn't do deals,

it's very engaging with its consumers,

and with apologies to a previous speaker,

it does have a strong vision.

It talks about, man shall not be
subordinate to machine.

And it's easy to be cynical
about this kind of stuff,

and actually in the UK sometimes

we've elevated cynicism to a fine art.

On the other hand, it really
does connect with people,

it really has engaged with people.

And what's more of course,
Apple had a leader

who enthralled enough consumers

to vote for Apple to make it the world's
most valuable company.

And that's despite the fact
that it's incredibly expensive,

relatively speaking.

It occasionally makes mistakes,
and whisper it,

occasionally it can be
a little bit arrogant.

So, I don't think
we'd say that Apple employees

felt that it was particularly democratic.

But what we would say though,
if you just looked in a market place,

at what's happening here,

so you look at these declines,

even if those are little blip at the end
of some of these graphs,

and you would say,

"Hm, you need a bit of innovation,

you need some radical, strategic input,

you need some new brands,
for goodness sake."

And again, these are the numbers
of people who are not voting.

This is the decline

in numbers of voters just across the UK,

and across the USA.

So clearly, we need to do something.

No wonder people are disengaged.

No wonder people are disengaged.

Because of course,
you can only vote for people

every few years.

You can't make your views felt

you can't make your views count,

in a democratic process,
more often than that.

And that again,
compared with what you can do

in the commercial space these days,

you can shape brands,
you can make your views felt,

you can really make some changes.

And yet actually in politics,
in democracy,

it's really quite difficult to do that.

So we need some innovation,

and we need to send
these graphs, in my view,

in the opposite direction.

You can compare the shape of these

with for example what happens with
strongly branded businesses over time.

And just see how strongly

well-branded businesses outperform
the average of others.

And I guess that we can do
with a little bit of movement in this way,

in democracy itself.

And the take-up of democracy as well.

Because if you were to look
at those previous charts,

you'd say, actually
there's a problem here,

the management is pretty rubbish.

And not doing a great job.

And again, we need
to break out and do something

very different.

So are there some lessons
we can learn from

branding to democracy that doesn't involve

a spanking new logo
or indeed a new slogan?

If you were to take the top 100 brands,

we've looked at them
for about last 15 years

there are three key
characteristics that come up

time after time.

And what makes a strong brand
that might be very good

as a comparator with democracy.

And the first one is about clarity.

Clarity of what the brand stands for,

how it's different from the competitors,

and of course right now
you look at democracy and say,

is it very clear what we mean by democracy

is that a shared vision?

I mean half of the world
live in some sort of democracy,

only 11% live in a full democracy.

But of course, there are different
ways of doing that for democracy,

either forced or otherwise voluntary.

And many different points of view
about how to engage.

Now if you are going to be creating
a global brand

and take some lessons from there,

you'd actually bother
to ask the people who really matter,

like your customers.

Your consumers.

How about asking people around the world

because in the moment,
what happens, with democracies,

is that it always act like export brands,

and of course, if you've got
an American export brand

or Western-European export brand,

that might not go down
very well the way it is done,

in other parts of the world.

So, if you wanted
to create a global brand,

you'd start with a global perspective.

You might get some experts
from around the world.

Possibly not politicians,
who've come to think about

what are the best practices
and evidence-base to the best practice,

for how you absolutely deliver democracy

in a way that was most likely to deliver

the healthiest, wealthiest,
and safest societies.

So clarity and consistency,
if you just think about

consistency in a political context,

and you'd say, actually,
a lot of political parties

for example, they're not
executed consistently.

What about coherence in policies?

This currently doesn't work
as well as it might do.

And of course,

the final characteristic of a very
successful brand is about leadership.

And leadership is obviously about

who runs the organization,
who symbolizes the organization.

As of course, it can apply
both to commercial

and also to political parties.

But it also means restlessness,

it means innovation,
it means setting the agenda in markets.

And maybe that isn't always done in,

if I can call it,
the political market, too.

When one thinks about leadership,

and RIP Steve Jobs,

but what he did do though,
he absolutely symbolized

all the best characteristics
of the Apple brand.

And I wonder how it will survive
and thrive after he has gone.

And then when one thinks
about the political world,

obviously there are some political leaders

who've been rather
more successful than others.

And rather more successful
people at persuading

that through the pain, there will be
some pleasure at the end of it,

and that it's worth
absolutely sticking through that.

But just back to Pericles
and back to ancient Greece, again,

coming back to direct democracy,

ways of getting people involved
in the political process,

on a much more active level,
this has to be absolutely,

the way forward and it would be great,

I've shared some ideas maybe how to use
the principles of branding,

to engage people in a democracy,

and I'd be fascinated
with your ideas, too,

and thank you to Greece
and thank you to Pericles

for the inspiration.

Many thanks for listening.

(Applause)