I’ve never been much of a sloganeer. I’ve always been much more comfortable nailing a subject in a thousand words than in three.
Don’t get me wrong, I like a good slogan. ‘Just do it’. ‘Every little helps’. Fay Weldon’s ‘Go to work on an egg’. Or ‘Beans Means Heinz’, written by Y&R creative director Mo Drake in a pub in 1967. I like the sound of Mo.
But they’re the exceptions. The rest are generally dismal. And bad political slogans are the dismalest of all.
Over the last two weeks, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have both announced their election slogans. So what’s the verdict? Poetry? Or pish?
The Tories’ slogan – Vote For Change – was unveiled on Sunday. On the plus side, it’s short, it’s single-minded and it’s got a pleasing punchy rhythm. It leads with a strong verb. It sets out a simple, albeit well-trodden, proposition. But I have a few reservations. Vote For Change comes across more as a plea than a promise to me. It seems to reveal an electoral rather than a political focus. And it’s not clear what kind of change we’re talking about. Will it be a good one? One of those ones that’s as good as a rest? Or a bad change, the kind that happens just for change’s sake? The party seems to be suggesting that any kind of change is better than sticking with the government we’ve got. They’re hoping the voters agree.
Contrast that with Labour’s approach. ‘A future fair for all’ is definitely more promise than plea. This is a deliberate decision. An incumbent government can’t argue against a change agenda: they have to change the nature of the choice. So instead of it being ‘change’ versus ‘more of the same’, they want to make it ‘change’ versus a ‘fair future’.
Strategically, then, bang on. But again, I have a few reservations. OK, lots of reservations.
1. They’ve used it before. Bournemouth. 2003. They had seven years to deliver that fair future. What happened? How much fairer can things get?
2. It’s not unique territory. The Green Party says that ‘Fair is worth fighting for’. The Lib Dems are ‘Building a fairer Britain’. This fair’s looking pretty crowded all of a sudden.
3. There’s no verb. Gordon’s got form in this department. Independent sketchwriter Simon Carr once noted that the closer you got to the end of one of the former Chancellor’s Budget speeches, the more he tended to dispense with verbs altogether. Jobs not cuts. An end to boom and bust. Prudence our watchword. Fairness our goal. Yada yada yada.
4. It’s missing a comma. Some straplines – like Direct Line’s ‘A good deal better’ or O2’s ‘We’re better, connected’ – play with this. This one doesn’t.
5. It sounds like it was written by Yoda. 99 out of 100 people would say ‘a fair future’. Come on, they just would. Campaign chief Douglas Alexander defended the future fair by saying voters in focus groups found it less clichéd and more intriguing than the more conventional word order. Which lame sounds excuse a like. It certainly generated a lot of internet chatter, although most of that centred on the very important question: will there be dodgems? And some Tory wags labelled it ‘a fete worse than death’.
6. It sounds like something the doctor might prescribe for an eye infection. Or is that just me? Phuturphepherol. 500mg. Three drops daily. Keep refrigerated.
I don’t know if lines like these change the way people vote. I think, rather than revealing meaning, they sometimes just obscure it behind a natty turn of phrase. Look beyond them and you’ll find substance in both parties’ policies, of course. But in the hands of the sloganeer, all that subtlety and nuance just becomes glib cliché.
I’ve never been much of a sloganeer. I’ve always been much more comfortable nailing a subject in a thousand words than in three.
Don’t get me wrong, I like a good slogan. ‘Just do it’. That’s a cracker. ‘Every little helps’. Fay Weldon’s ‘Go to work on an egg’. Or ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz’, written by Y&R creative director Mo Drake in a pub in 1967. (I like the sound of Mo.)
But they’re the exceptions. The rest are generally dismal. And bad political slogans are the dismalest of all.
Over the last two weeks, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have both announced their election slogans. So what’s the verdict? Poetry? Or pish?
The Tories’ slogan – Vote For Change – was unveiled on Sunday. On the plus side, it’s short, it’s single-minded and it’s got a pleasing punchy rhythm. It leads with a strong verb. It sets out a simple, albeit well-trodden, proposition. But I have a few reservations. Vote For Change comes across more as a plea than a promise to me. It seems to reveal an electoral rather than a political focus. And it’s not clear what kind of change we’re talking about. Will it be a good one? One of those ones that’s as good as a rest? Or a bad change, the kind that happens just for change’s sake? The party seems to be suggesting that any kind of change is better than sticking with the government we’ve got. They’re hoping the voters agree.
Contrast that with Labour’s approach. ‘A future fair for all’ is definitely more promise than plea. This is a deliberate decision. An incumbent government can’t argue against a change agenda: they have to change the nature of the choice. So instead of it being ‘change’ versus ‘more of the same’, they want to make it ‘change’ versus a ‘fair future’.
Strategically, then, bang on. But again, I have a few reservations. OK, lots of reservations.
1. They’ve used it before. Bournemouth. 2003. They had seven years to deliver that fair future. What happened? How much fairer can things get?
2. It’s not unique territory. The Green Party says that ‘Fair is worth fighting for’. The Lib Dems are ‘Building a fairer Britain’. I’m all for consensus, but this fair’s looking pretty crowded all of a sudden.
3. There’s no verb. Gordon’s got form in this department. Independent sketchwriter Simon Carr once noted that the closer you got to the end of one of the former Chancellor’s Budget speeches, the more he tended to dispense with verbs altogether. Jobs not cuts. An end to boom and bust. Prudence our watchword. Fairness our goal. Yada yada yada.
4. It’s missing a comma. Some straplines – like Direct Line’s ‘A good deal better’ or O2’s ‘We’re better, connected’ – play with this. This one doesn’t.
5. It sounds like it was written by Yoda. 99 out of 100 people would say ‘a fair future’. Come on, they just would. Campaign chief Douglas Alexander defended the future fair by saying voters in focus groups found it less clichéd and more intriguing than the more conventional word order. Which lame sounds excuse a like. It certainly generated a lot of internet chatter, although most of that centred on the very important question: will there be dodgems? Some Tory wags labelled it ‘a fete worse than death’.
6. It sounds like something the doctor might prescribe for an eye infection. Or is that just me? Phuturphepherol. 500mg. Three drops daily. Keep refrigerated.
I don’t know if lines like these change the way people vote. I think, rather than revealing meaning, they sometimes just obscure it behind a natty turn of phrase. Look beyond them and you’ll find substance in both parties’ policies, of course. But in the hands of the sloganeer, all that subtlety and nuance just becomes glib cliché.
