There will be many observations made about this election in June 2017, but here’s mine.
There’s a very simple set of principles in advertising.
Over the years, if you watch closely, you can see them played out in various campaigns to great effect. You can also see when those principles are ignored and disasters ensue.
Principles like how a brand leader behaves and how a challenger brand behaves.
There is one area where the two major brands constantly swop roles and can behave differently depending on their position at any given time. Indeed how they behave can define their role.
One could argue that, going in to the election, the Conservatives were the brand leader in this case with the polls predicting a landslide and labour was the challenger.
If you are a brand leader you don’t concern yourself with your challenger brands.
You don’t find Coke talking about Pepsi. You don’t see Apple talking about Samsung. If you are a brand leader you set out your stall with confidence in the knowledge your offering is superior.
Samsung talks about Apple though. That’s the challenger’s role. What’s so great about Apple phones anyway? we have this that and the other and they don’t.
The challenger needs to disrupt, bite at the heels of the brand leader. We’re number 2, so we try harder.
So here’s my theory.
Over the course of the election Labour adopted the brand leader positioning and Conservatives were adopting a challenger role.
Nobody had told them they didn’t need to challenge labour.
The Conservative’s approach was a ‘strong and stable’ leadership. No solid policies, no clear manifesto. Their strategy was ‘we’re not that bunch of deadbeats’.
‘Not being something else’ is never great when its said from a superior position. It just sounds smug.
The Left went for a clear and honest manifesto. They didn’t try and slag off Theresa May, they left that to the electorate.
This somehow put the Labour party in to a positioning of brand leader. They were looking straight ahead, this is what we are going to do. Make your choice.
While the Tories insisted they were the only choice, without giving us much of a reason.
And lo and behold the Labour vote surged.
Sometimes the only thing holding a brand back is the way it talks and behaves. Alpha people behave like alpha people, they don’t need permission.
The Tories campaign came from what research must have told them. People want a strong and stable leadership, so they kept saying ‘we’re strong and stable’. It was the political equivalent of a 1950’s ad campaign with an annoying slogan that just gets repeated over and over.
‘You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent”
People often confuse what they say with how they want to be perceived.
Labour behaved strong and stable and won the argument.
They came across as honest, earnest and thought through, a few minor Dianne Abbot interviews notwithstanding.
Maybe it wasn’t quite enough, but in terms of brands Labour went from no hopers to contenders in a very short space of time.
Now somehow we’re in a world where May won but lost and Corbyn lost but won.
But I know who’ll be keeping their job.
ollycaporn's blag 
Was having this very same conversation the other day.
I remember one of the first lessons I learned from a CD in pharma marketing: never tell the customer they can or should have confidence in a product. Tell them about the attributes that will give them confidence, and they will come to that conclusion themselves.
Tories correctly saw there was suspicion of Corbyn and lack of confidence in Labour. That was a truth – that perception was already out there – there was no need to reinforce it, let alone make it the prime strategy. Instead, they went all-in on a Labour-bashing campaign that achieved the opposite effect. It made them look smug, insubstantial and weak.
Glad you agree…I guarantee they only listened to the data and forgot they were dealing with humans.