Newington's Clem Cowton looks at the lessons that can be learnt from politics by business when considering any external communication.
There are some occasions when business and politics can learn from each other, and there is no more fertile ground for this than in the art of communications. When we advise clients on external comms our starting point is to define their overarching objective, and from this build a coherent strategy supported by clear messaging. This has two structural benefits: it keeps activity focused and measurable by ensuring every proposed tactical intervention is judged according to its contribution to the overall strategy; and it ensures that anything the company says to an external stakeholder feeds in to the narrative of the campaign. The same should also be true of political campaigns – a look to politics in recent days, and the continuing grind of the Brexit debate, gives some interesting examples of the pitfalls of deviating from this approach.
Firstly, an example from the Conservatives. Theresa May has managed the interesting feat of maintaining message discipline without actually having a clear story to tell, a strategy for Brexit being as yet forthcoming. While this means the electorate more or less know what she’s about – a cautious, considered negotiator who keeps her cards close to her chest – the absence of a strategy, even one that is not publically available, is problematic. Not only has it led to a high profile, and politically embarrassing, resignation of the UK’s permanent representative to the EU, but she has been unable to develop her narrative beyond ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Contrast this with the ‘long term economic plan’ slogan of the Tories in the run up to the 2015 General Election. This phrase was a thematic basis for policy development under an overarching strategy to convince the electorate that the economy was safe in Tory hands. Without such a crucial strategic foundation, May’s message is sounding increasingly hollow, and creating a vacuum into which others can step – and potentially hijack the debate.
Luckily for Mrs May, Labour is failing to colonise this space as it, too, is struggling to define a strategy. Indeed, Tom Watson effectively admitted at the weekend that the Party is simply waiting for the Conservatives to show their hand first, so that it can take the opposite position, rather than seeking to put across its own vision for a post-Brexit future. Yesterday’s embarrassing series of ‘u-turns’ from Jeremy Corbyn on immigration were in fact a symptom of the difficulty in articulating a message when the strategy behind taking that position has yet to be defined.
And Labour’s trouble may be even more fundamental. Many in the Party darkly speculate that even the first step, of defining the objective, has yet to be completed, with Corbyn seemingly undecided whether this should be to win the next election or permanently move the Party to the left. This interpretation makes Corbyn’s decision to throw in a curveball on ‘maximum wage’ look less like a failure of message discipline and more a reflection of the internal division over the direction of the Party itself.
Businesses, like political parties, should take note of these cautionary tales, and be careful when considering any external communication to take time first to define the fundamentals.
