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In this excerpt from First Among Unequals, edited by Alex Marland and Matthew Kerby, Marland provides an extensive and fascinating overview of the branding strategies during provincial election campaigns in Canada.
An emerging area of practice and study looks at political parties as “brands”. Branding is concerned with the overall psychological impression conveyed through the sum of all communications. The idea is that synonymous and interconnected messages repeated across a variety of media platforms are much more likely to cause people to recall the overall desired brand positioning and to forget other details. Branding is about communicating symbolism rather than substance, since most audiences do not engage in a deep scrutiny of available information.
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The obvious place to look for information about the branding of provincial parties and premiers is in studies of sub-national elections in Canada. However, empirical research has emphasized voter behaviour, which finds that Canadians tend to have stronger attachments to provincial parties than to federal ones and that incumbents have significant electoral advantages. Comparing provincial leaders across Canada is rare, and most of the published work is behaviouralist, journalistic, and reflective.
If there is no available research about the use of branding in provincial politics, then we are resigned to identifying nuggets of information that can provide some foundation of knowledge. A half dozen themes run through the literature. The first theme in studies of provincial politics is that, as we would expect, components of political marketing have become more sophisticated over time. In Newfoundland, opinion polls were used to inform the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party’s decision to emphasize their leader in the 1975 campaign, and the news media paid little attention to policy issues, while professional advertising featured Premier Frank Moores touring the province. Campaign ads in 1979, including ads sponsored by local candidates, emphasized what Robert Paine (88) called the “brand name” by referring to “a Peckford government.” However, the cost of mass media techniques combined with the sense of community in Newfoundland has meant that old-style tactics such as touring, speeches, rallies, debates, and motorcades with vehicles broadcasting music over loudspeakers have an entrenched place in its politics. Newfoundland politicians have also developed a reputation for soundbites and photo-ops, such as Brian Tobin’s quip to international media, while standing in front of a fishing net and RCMP officers in New York City, about the need to protect “the last lonely, unloved, unattractive little turbot clinging by its fingernails to the Grand Banks”. By necessity, Newfoundland leaders learn to master inexpensive communication techniques, and while they are aware of their public images, they do not appear to think of themselves as brands.
Second, provincial parties seek to play up or play down their relationship with the federal brand. Premier Joey Smallwood routinely promoted his connections to the governing federal Liberal government, especially to Minister Jack Pickersgill, and even ran the federal party’s campaigns in Newfoundland. In Nova Scotia, PC premier John Buchanan called a snap election in 1984 to ride off the coattails of new Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, whose PC Party of Canada had just won a landslide. Conversely, if the national brand is seriously damaged, then provincial parties keep their distance. After the collapse of the PC Party in the 1993 federal election, it was sensible for the Manitoba PCs to bring attention to Gary Filmon’s leadership and not the party label in the 1995 provincial campaign.
The brand linkage between national and provincial parties is further illustrated by the similarities between party names at both levels of government. One notable exception is the current continuance of provincial Progressive Conservative parties in the absence of a national counterpart. Nevertheless, as Anna Esselment has shown, there is considerable electoral collaboration between federal and provincial parties, though she does note that the “bitter feud” between Newfoundland premier Danny Williams and Prime Minister Stephen Harper was a “striking exception”.
A third theme in provincial literature is that a governing party readily uses public resources as part of a permanent campaign to reinforce its brand. Traditional pork-barrel politics is now complemented by government funds being used for political marketing. In the 1970s, the Frank Moores government spent $56,000 on opinion polls to inform its communications decisions, and in the late 1990s, the British Columbia NDP government used polling and advertising to generate support for the Nisga’a Treaty and by extension for the party. Tourism advertising is a common way to build and sustain a positive mythos about the place and a provincial identity. In Alberta, governments and politicians have communicated a theme of freedom, in Saskatchewan it has been security, and in Manitoba moderation has been promoted. In 2006, the Manitoba Image Project was launched to develop a positive new image for the province in a manner that was similar to the governing NDP’s brand values. That same year, a new “brand signature” was unveiled in Newfoundland which was designed to coincide with Premier Williams’ efforts to project “a renewed sense of pride and optimism”. By comparison, in 2007 the Manitoba PCs, the Newfoundland Liberals, and the Newfoundland NDP could not finance effective election campaigns.
A fourth theme is that party leaders increasingly use image management techniques to project and maintain a desired public persona. Appealing to a local identity and cultivating a personal brand as a commoner is a universal tactic. PEI premiers have often evoked their connections to the family farm, including John Walter Jones, who wanted to be known as “Farmer Jones”, and Alex Campbell, who hired a Toronto advertising agency to film him mingling with Islanders throughout the province. In Nova Scotia, Premier Buchanan would “wrap himself in the tartan”, and in Quebec the leader of the Parti Québécois is positioned as the guardian of a national identity. Joey Smallwood so embodied the Newfoundland persona that his portrait could be found in kitchens and bedrooms throughout the province.
Conversely, in an attempt to communicate a message of economic growth, a party leader may be positioned as a business person. New Brunswick Liberal leader Frank McKenna’s handlers made sure that he wore “only dark suits, white shirts, striped ties and black knee socks”, and in 2003 the Newfoundland PC Party promoted “The New Approach” of a government led by businessman Danny Williams (figure 5.2). Alberta politics suggests that leaders’ personal brands may ebb and flow. In advertising during the 1971 election, Premier Peter Lougheed was carefully projected as a modern educated businessman. His successor, Don Getty, is thought to have failed to be seen as a common man because of “his strong aversion to political marketing”. In contrast, Premier Ralph Klein’s handlers conducted surveys, polling, and roundtables when constructing a personal brand of humble beginnings, which was sustained by advertising, brochures, and slogans coordinated through the government’s Public Affairs Bureau. Likewise, in Newfoundland the apolitical, moral, and conservative image of Liberal Clyde Wells contrasted with the more entertaining style of his predecessors, Brian Peckford and Tom Rideout, and with his successor, Brian Tobin.
A fifth observation is that recent descriptions of provincial contests highlight the role of the Internet in personal and party branding. In 2008 provincial elections, the leader of Québec Solidaire answered questions on her party’s website when she was not invited to participate in the televised leaders debate, and the Alberta PCs purchased online advertising to promote their video spots. However, as recently as the 2007 election, the Internet had a minuscule presence in Newfoundland politics, where electioneering tends to be “traditional, localized, and frugal” rather than innovative. Yet within one electoral cycle the Internet, in particular Kathy Dunderdale’s use of Twitter, played a significant role in shaping Newfoundland’s political discourse.
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