Page 161 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

In designing the strategy, as we noted earlier, marketing and
research consultants must first establish the ‘core values’ of the party’s
target audience, which then become the basis for selling the
organisation as the one best able to defend and reflect those values.
The previous chapter examined the uses of advertising in political
communication. Other techniques available to the image-maker
include the design of party logos and other signifiers of corporate
identity. In the mid-1970s the Conservative Party adopted its ‘torch’
logo. Ten years later, as part of its overhauling of communication
strategy, Labour abandoned the symbolism of the red flag (viewed
by the leadership as a sign with negative connotations of bureaucratic,
Soviet-style socialism) in favour of the ‘red rose’, a logo first
successfully employed by the French socialists. Both parties, as already
noted, expend great efforts in the design of conference backdrops,
seeking to symbolise with colour and form their core political values.
Another important marketing technique is that of ‘product
endorsement’. In commercial terms this is achieved by positioning
the product (in an advertisement or promotional event) alongside a
well-known and popular personality, usually from the worlds of
entertainment and sport. In politics this approach has been used since
the 1960s when Harold Wilson received the Beatles in 10 Downing
Street. Whether or not Mr Wilson enjoyed the Beatles music, it was
certainly clear to him that large numbers of the British electorate
did. To be photographed and filmed with the Beatles was an attempt
to appropriate this image and its connotations; to have his ‘product’
endorsed by young, trendy musicians. In the late 1980s, towards the
end of her period in office, Margaret Thatcher tried a similar trick
with football star Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne. If some of his working-
class ‘blokishness’ could rub off on her, she apparently felt, it would
assist her to retain popularity. In the end she, like Gazza, was to fall
from grace. In the Blair government’s first year in office, the prime
minister hosted several parties for celebrities from the worlds of art,
entertainment and youth culture at 10 Downing Street. Meetings
with Oasis’ writer and manager (Noel Gallagher and Alan McGee
respectively) were photographed and widely publicised (although the
Gallagher brothers’ fondness for cocaine and marijuana was in some
contradiction to the new government’s anti-drugs policy).
During election campaigns, rallies have become opportunities for
parties to display the stars of stage, screen and sports arena who
support them. At a rally in 1983 the Conservatives enlisted the aid
of popular young comedians like Kenny Everett, as well as more
well-known Conservative supporters like Cilla Black and Jimmy

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