Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament
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0:11 - 0:13I love Greece.
-
0:13 - 0:18And I read ancient Greek
and Latin at university. -
0:18 - 0:20And then of course
I proceeded to go into a career -
0:20 - 0:23that had absolutely
nothing to do with those. -
0:23 - 0:25What it has enabled me
to do is to be incredibly -
0:25 - 0:29annoying and pedantic
about spelling and grammar. -
0:29 - 0:32And also, at least,
when we are on holiday with the family -
0:32 - 0:34I can read some of the signs in Greek.
-
0:34 - 0:38But I have to say I never imagined
that my student-self, -
0:38 - 0:40my grown-up self would actually be able
-
0:40 - 0:43to find some sort of accommodation.
-
0:43 - 0:46And I'll explain
what I mean by that, I hope, -
0:46 - 0:48over the next few minutes.
-
0:49 - 0:51I'll also explain what I mean by
-
0:51 - 0:53including this gentleman here,
-
0:53 - 0:56whom I'm sure you recognize,
but this is Pericles. -
0:57 - 0:59And Pericles was one of the earliest
-
0:59 - 1:03and most successful democratic
leaders in ancient Greece. -
1:04 - 1:07It is very difficult to find a sculpture,
-
1:07 - 1:10or a statue of Pericles
without this helmet on. -
1:11 - 1:15And actually, this helmet
was a symbol of his position. -
1:15 - 1:17But actually, the rumor was
-
1:17 - 1:20it was because he had weird-shaped head.
-
1:20 - 1:23But nevertheless,
it was a very strong branded look. -
1:23 - 1:26So I suppose you could say
that about it, too. -
1:26 - 1:28But actually, on a more serious note,
-
1:28 - 1:32what was interesting about
ancient Greek democracy was, -
1:32 - 1:34of course, it was a direct democracy.
-
1:34 - 1:38People expected to get involved
in a whole range of issues. -
1:38 - 1:41It wasn't just about one vote
every few years -
1:41 - 1:45and representing people for that time.
-
1:45 - 1:47So maybe there are some
interesting parallels -
1:47 - 1:50for our conversations
and our democracy today. -
1:51 - 1:53But when it comes to that democracy,
-
1:53 - 1:56at the moment democracy has a bad rep.
-
1:57 - 1:59A bit of a bad reputation.
-
1:59 - 2:02Whether or not that's about wars,
or whether it's failure -
2:02 - 2:04to tackle issues like climate change,
-
2:04 - 2:07whether or not it's attached
to democracy's difficulty -
2:07 - 2:11of getting people to vote
for pain rather than pleasure -
2:11 - 2:13at the moment.
-
2:13 - 2:16I guess what we all want is for
democracy to really succeed. -
2:16 - 2:18Because that,
I think we'd all believe, -
2:18 - 2:20is the way to get people
to live healthier, -
2:20 - 2:24happier, more productive, safer lives.
-
2:26 - 2:30Now what good branding does,
is it does manage to connect with people -
2:30 - 2:33to touch people on their daily lives.
-
2:33 - 2:34And I know what you might say,
-
2:34 - 2:37buying a household brand
is not exactly the same -
2:37 - 2:41as voting for someone
who's going to represent your life. -
2:41 - 2:43It's on a rather different level.
-
2:44 - 2:47However, because brands
do manage to touch people -
2:47 - 2:49across boundaries, and by the way
-
2:49 - 2:52I'm talking about brands
that can be in any sector. -
2:52 - 2:55It can be retail, it can be corporate,
it can be product, -
2:55 - 2:57it can of course be not-for-profit.
-
2:57 - 2:59And often when people talk about brands,
-
2:59 - 3:01they can forget that some of the world's
-
3:01 - 3:04most powerful brands,
most influential brands, -
3:04 - 3:06are in the not-for-profit sector.
-
3:06 - 3:10Because when I talk about brands,
I'm not just talking about -
3:10 - 3:12the top bit, the logo.
-
3:12 - 3:15I mean frankly, the week doesn't go past
-
3:15 - 3:17if we see silly headlines about you know,
-
3:17 - 3:21this company has been renamed
that cost 50 million pounds. -
3:21 - 3:24And frankly, if any of those
amounts had been true, -
3:24 - 3:27I'd have retired to the Caribbean
a long time ago. -
3:27 - 3:30But it's so easy for people
to get distracted by -
3:30 - 3:31the top bit of branding.
-
3:31 - 3:33You know the name, and the logo,
-
3:33 - 3:35and the packaging, and everything else.
-
3:35 - 3:38And I have to say, that working
sometimes with political parties, -
3:38 - 3:39when you talk about re-branding,
-
3:39 - 3:42what they really mean
is could you give us a new squiggle, -
3:42 - 3:44and could you give us a new slogan?
-
3:44 - 3:46What makes good brands really work
-
3:46 - 3:48is the substance that lies beneath.
-
3:48 - 3:51You know, the shared vision.
-
3:51 - 3:52And the minute you start talking
-
3:52 - 3:55about that substance and shared vision,
-
3:55 - 3:58you might start thinking about
some issues with democracy, -
3:58 - 4:01is there a shared vision for democracy?
-
4:01 - 4:06And certainly from what I've seen so far,
maybe there isn't. -
4:06 - 4:09Now, if branding has got some challenges,
-
4:09 - 4:12then, democracy has, too.
-
4:12 - 4:16And just on the challenges for branding,
-
4:16 - 4:19I talked about some headlines
but also this book, -
4:19 - 4:22for example, became a bestseller.
-
4:24 - 4:26What I'd like to say,
and it was interesting that -
4:26 - 4:32"The Economist" ran this front cover,
in retort to some of the books -
4:32 - 4:34that have been written on the subject.
-
4:34 - 4:37It was basically talking
about pro-logo, that actually -
4:37 - 4:41branding is a very successful,
sustainable engine for economies. -
4:42 - 4:45And what's more, sometimes people
underestimate this, -
4:45 - 4:46if you've got a strong brand,
-
4:46 - 4:48you've got a loyal customer.
-
4:48 - 4:50If you've got a loyal customer,
-
4:50 - 4:52that means more security of earnings,
more security of income, -
4:52 - 4:55and actually more security of employment.
-
4:55 - 4:57And that in itself
is quite an important issue. -
4:57 - 5:00And what's more,
is strongly-branded organizations -
5:00 - 5:02got a reputation to protect.
-
5:02 - 5:05So they're likely to try
and do the right thing. -
5:05 - 5:08However, I guess
the thing that you'd also say -
5:08 - 5:10is that in today's digital age,
-
5:10 - 5:12unless you are doing the right thing,
-
5:12 - 5:14unless you are who you say you are,
-
5:14 - 5:16and you do what you say
you're going to do, -
5:16 - 5:18you'll get found out,
with a speed and a scale -
5:18 - 5:20that will take your breath away.
-
5:20 - 5:24And the same with political parties,
and also political leaders. -
5:24 - 5:26So absolutely, beware.
-
5:28 - 5:31Now there are some learnings in my view,
-
5:31 - 5:35because brands can connect with people,
get them to vote for people every day, -
5:35 - 5:38either in their purchases,
or their influence. -
5:38 - 5:41I just want to use an example of that.
-
5:42 - 5:46What was so interesting
in some of the latest elections -
5:46 - 5:50in Greece or in France,
is again how difficult it is -
5:50 - 5:53to get the people to vote
for difficult things. -
5:54 - 5:58And the temptation so often,
in politics, and in parties, -
5:58 - 6:01is to do equivalent of a BOGOF.
-
6:01 - 6:02Have you heard of BOGOF?
-
6:02 - 6:05Buy one get one free.
-
6:05 - 6:06So coming up to elections
-
6:06 - 6:09and what political parties
start saying is, retire at 50? -
6:09 - 6:12Absolutely. We'll have that
supermarket special offer. -
6:12 - 6:15Do you want to, you know,
get a full pension, etc? -
6:15 - 6:17Absolutely, we'll do that.
-
6:17 - 6:20So, politicians privately say,
"Oh my goodness, -
6:20 - 6:24we know that we're promising
things that we can't deliver -
6:24 - 6:25and can't afford to deliver,
-
6:25 - 6:27but we do need to get voted in."
-
6:27 - 6:29It's a very compromising thing.
-
6:29 - 6:32And what's more,
when they can't deliver at a later date, -
6:32 - 6:33that makes people rather cynical,
-
6:33 - 6:36and not supportive of politics,
-
6:36 - 6:39and the temptation to make
promises that you can't keep. -
6:39 - 6:43Not a great commercial,
often for democracy. -
6:43 - 6:47Now I'm just going to talk
briefly about this very strong brand here. -
6:48 - 6:51Apple hardly ever discounts,
it doesn't do deals, -
6:51 - 6:55it's very engaging with its consumers,
-
6:55 - 6:58and with apologies to a previous speaker,
-
6:58 - 7:00it does have a strong vision.
-
7:00 - 7:04It talks about, man shall not be
subordinate to machine. -
7:04 - 7:07And it's easy to be cynical
about this kind of stuff, -
7:07 - 7:08and actually in the UK sometimes
-
7:08 - 7:11we've elevated cynicism to a fine art.
-
7:11 - 7:14On the other hand, it really
does connect with people, -
7:14 - 7:17it really has engaged with people.
-
7:17 - 7:19And what's more of course,
Apple had a leader -
7:19 - 7:22who enthralled enough consumers
-
7:22 - 7:25to vote for Apple to make it the world's
most valuable company. -
7:25 - 7:28And that's despite the fact
that it's incredibly expensive, -
7:28 - 7:30relatively speaking.
-
7:30 - 7:33It occasionally makes mistakes,
and whisper it, -
7:33 - 7:36occasionally it can be
a little bit arrogant. -
7:36 - 7:40So, I don't think
we'd say that Apple employees -
7:40 - 7:43felt that it was particularly democratic.
-
7:44 - 7:49But what we would say though,
if you just looked in a market place, -
7:49 - 7:52at what's happening here,
-
7:52 - 7:54so you look at these declines,
-
7:54 - 7:58even if those are little blip at the end
of some of these graphs, -
7:58 - 8:00and you would say,
-
8:00 - 8:02"Hm, you need a bit of innovation,
-
8:02 - 8:05you need some radical, strategic input,
-
8:05 - 8:08you need some new brands,
for goodness sake." -
8:08 - 8:12And again, these are the numbers
of people who are not voting. -
8:12 - 8:13This is the decline
-
8:13 - 8:16in numbers of voters just across the UK,
-
8:16 - 8:18and across the USA.
-
8:19 - 8:21So clearly, we need to do something.
-
8:21 - 8:24No wonder people are disengaged.
-
8:24 - 8:26No wonder people are disengaged.
-
8:26 - 8:29Because of course,
you can only vote for people -
8:29 - 8:31every few years.
-
8:31 - 8:33You can't make your views felt
-
8:33 - 8:34you can't make your views count,
-
8:34 - 8:38in a democratic process,
more often than that. -
8:38 - 8:41And that again,
compared with what you can do -
8:41 - 8:43in the commercial space these days,
-
8:43 - 8:46you can shape brands,
you can make your views felt, -
8:46 - 8:49you can really make some changes.
-
8:49 - 8:53And yet actually in politics,
in democracy, -
8:53 - 8:55it's really quite difficult to do that.
-
8:55 - 8:57So we need some innovation,
-
8:57 - 9:00and we need to send
these graphs, in my view, -
9:00 - 9:02in the opposite direction.
-
9:02 - 9:05You can compare the shape of these
-
9:05 - 9:09with for example what happens with
strongly branded businesses over time. -
9:10 - 9:12And just see how strongly
-
9:12 - 9:16well-branded businesses outperform
the average of others. -
9:16 - 9:20And I guess that we can do
with a little bit of movement in this way, -
9:20 - 9:22in democracy itself.
-
9:22 - 9:25And the take-up of democracy as well.
-
9:25 - 9:27Because if you were to look
at those previous charts, -
9:27 - 9:29you'd say, actually
there's a problem here, -
9:29 - 9:31the management is pretty rubbish.
-
9:31 - 9:33And not doing a great job.
-
9:33 - 9:36And again, we need
to break out and do something -
9:36 - 9:37very different.
-
9:37 - 9:40So are there some lessons
we can learn from -
9:40 - 9:44branding to democracy that doesn't involve
-
9:44 - 9:48a spanking new logo
or indeed a new slogan? -
9:49 - 9:51If you were to take the top 100 brands,
-
9:51 - 9:55we've looked at them
for about last 15 years -
9:55 - 9:57there are three key
characteristics that come up -
9:57 - 9:59time after time.
-
10:00 - 10:03And what makes a strong brand
that might be very good -
10:03 - 10:06as a comparator with democracy.
-
10:07 - 10:08And the first one is about clarity.
-
10:08 - 10:11Clarity of what the brand stands for,
-
10:11 - 10:13how it's different from the competitors,
-
10:13 - 10:16and of course right now
you look at democracy and say, -
10:16 - 10:19is it very clear what we mean by democracy
-
10:19 - 10:21is that a shared vision?
-
10:21 - 10:24I mean half of the world
live in some sort of democracy, -
10:24 - 10:27only 11% live in a full democracy.
-
10:27 - 10:30But of course, there are different
ways of doing that for democracy, -
10:30 - 10:32either forced or otherwise voluntary.
-
10:32 - 10:35And many different points of view
about how to engage. -
10:35 - 10:39Now if you are going to be creating
a global brand -
10:39 - 10:41and take some lessons from there,
-
10:41 - 10:44you'd actually bother
to ask the people who really matter, -
10:44 - 10:45like your customers.
-
10:45 - 10:46Your consumers.
-
10:46 - 10:48How about asking people around the world
-
10:48 - 10:52because in the moment,
what happens, with democracies, -
10:52 - 10:56is that it always act like export brands,
-
10:56 - 10:58and of course, if you've got
an American export brand -
10:58 - 11:00or Western-European export brand,
-
11:00 - 11:03that might not go down
very well the way it is done, -
11:03 - 11:04in other parts of the world.
-
11:04 - 11:06So, if you wanted
to create a global brand, -
11:06 - 11:09you'd start with a global perspective.
-
11:09 - 11:11You might get some experts
from around the world. -
11:11 - 11:14Possibly not politicians,
who've come to think about -
11:14 - 11:18what are the best practices
and evidence-base to the best practice, -
11:18 - 11:20for how you absolutely deliver democracy
-
11:20 - 11:23in a way that was most likely to deliver
-
11:23 - 11:28the healthiest, wealthiest,
and safest societies. -
11:29 - 11:32So clarity and consistency,
if you just think about -
11:32 - 11:35consistency in a political context,
-
11:35 - 11:39and you'd say, actually,
a lot of political parties -
11:39 - 11:41for example, they're not
executed consistently. -
11:41 - 11:44What about coherence in policies?
-
11:44 - 11:48This currently doesn't work
as well as it might do. -
11:49 - 11:50And of course,
-
11:50 - 11:54the final characteristic of a very
successful brand is about leadership. -
11:54 - 11:56And leadership is obviously about
-
11:56 - 12:00who runs the organization,
who symbolizes the organization. -
12:00 - 12:03As of course, it can apply
both to commercial -
12:03 - 12:06and also to political parties.
-
12:06 - 12:08But it also means restlessness,
-
12:08 - 12:12it means innovation,
it means setting the agenda in markets. -
12:12 - 12:14And maybe that isn't always done in,
-
12:14 - 12:18if I can call it,
the political market, too. -
12:20 - 12:23When one thinks about leadership,
-
12:23 - 12:26and RIP Steve Jobs,
-
12:26 - 12:29but what he did do though,
he absolutely symbolized -
12:29 - 12:32all the best characteristics
of the Apple brand. -
12:32 - 12:37And I wonder how it will survive
and thrive after he has gone. -
12:38 - 12:41And then when one thinks
about the political world, -
12:41 - 12:44obviously there are some political leaders
-
12:44 - 12:46who've been rather
more successful than others. -
12:46 - 12:49And rather more successful
people at persuading -
12:49 - 12:53that through the pain, there will be
some pleasure at the end of it, -
12:53 - 12:57and that it's worth
absolutely sticking through that. -
12:59 - 13:05But just back to Pericles
and back to ancient Greece, again, -
13:05 - 13:09coming back to direct democracy,
-
13:09 - 13:13ways of getting people involved
in the political process, -
13:13 - 13:18on a much more active level,
this has to be absolutely, -
13:18 - 13:21the way forward and it would be great,
-
13:21 - 13:25I've shared some ideas maybe how to use
the principles of branding, -
13:25 - 13:27to engage people in a democracy,
-
13:27 - 13:30and I'd be fascinated
with your ideas, too, -
13:30 - 13:33and thank you to Greece
and thank you to Pericles -
13:33 - 13:34for the inspiration.
-
13:34 - 13:35Many thanks for listening.
-
13:35 - 13:38(Applause)
- Title:
- Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament
- Description:
-
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.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 13:44
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament | ||
Ivana Korom approved English subtitles for Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament | ||
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Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament | ||
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Lena Capa edited English subtitles for Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament | ||
Lena Capa edited English subtitles for Branding Democracy |Rita Clifton | TEDxHousesofParliament |