Spectrum Rewind: Election 2012 pt. 1
How the opposition became the government, and the government became the opposition
Open Happiness.
Change we can believe in.
More saving. More doing.
We Deliver.
I'm Lovin' It.
Believe in America.
Believe in The Bahamas.
The truth is advertising makes and breaks political parties, just as it can sell more or less of a product. While political parties are rightfully considered brands of their own, they are unique because they are not just free to change their slogans every election cycle, they are often expected to. This results in several millions of dollars going to advertising agencies who are all tasked with dressing up political parties for a date with their voters.
Today I want to examine why the Progressive Liberal Party moved from opposition to the government in 5 years while the Free National Movement did the opposite. In keeping with the overall spirit of this blog, I'm speaking purely from an advertising and tactics perspective. I'll sprinkle a few references to commercials here and there, but please don't expect a traditional political breakdown as that's been written before by persons far more enthusiastic about that stuff than I am.
So, is it just me, or did the events of 2012 feel impossibly large in scale? Perhaps I think this way because the last general election was the first one I was old enough to actively follow, or maybe it's because it was easily the most expensive election in Bahamian history. The Free National Movement spent their dollars trying to convince voters that they were worthy of a fourth non-consecutive term, while the Progressive Liberal Party attempted to bounce back from their narrow defeat in 2007. As usual in our democracy, most of the money spent turned into flashy rallies every night, hollow speeches and impossibly long lists of campaign promises. Amongst the deluge of rhetoric, several common themes began to emerge from the political offerings. For example, it appeared that the PLP decided that it was tired of being called 'old' and 'weak' very early in the election season. These perceptions were considered to be the main reasons why they lost their 2007 re-election bid, which is why their first advertisement marked the beginning of a massive re-branding strategy for the gold team.
Instead of focusing on PLP leader Perry Christie, arguably their greatest weakness, all of the PLP's early TV spots showcased new candidates for the upcoming election. This included the likes of Dion Smith, Kendal Major, Dr. Andre Rollins and Renward Wells. In hindsight this is a funny footnote, but at the time it was a fresh approach to promoting the PLP brand. In addition, the new ads featured crisp typography and a distinct focus on creating jobs in the midst of a recession. A few thousand brand new T-shirts and pamphlets later, the “Believe in The Bahamas” slogan was sweeping across the country in a gold rush.
All of this occurred without a peep from the FNM, whose election machinery remained strangely dormant while the PLP’s was firing on all cylinders. I remember the Punch trying to stir up trouble by suggesting the red party was having trouble finding persons willing to run under their banner. The FNM waited until the eleventh hour, or January of 2012 to be more specific, to formally begin their campaign with a candidate launch event at the Crystal Palace Resort and Casino. Here, Hubert Ingraham publicly readied his party for battle by introducing dozens of previously unseen party faces. To the FNM’s credit, no time was wasted after the event as red posters found their way onto lamp poles everywhere seemingly overnight. The FNM mounted a sharp campaign based around the idea of leadership, despite their late start - they even went out of their way to chastise the PLP for saying "woulda, coulda, shoulda" in opposition. You might be surprised to learn that I think “we deliver” was a near-perfectly executed mantra.
But, you see, nothing the FNM could've said would've prepared them for the blow they received from a vicious PLP attack ad. I am referring to the "unbelievable, unthinkable" nuclear bomb that featured a clip of Hubert Ingraham suggesting that he should call himself a failure in front of the Bahamian people. I talked about it in my first Spectrum Rewind article, but watch it again below:
This ad was already pretty devastating, but it didn't help that the FNM anchored their whole campaign on Hubert Ingraham's leadership. That meant that if the PLP found something that would damage Ingraham's image, it was a sure bet that they would publicize it and cause the FNM's campaign would falter. Falter it did, because although the FNM tried to take the "unbelievable and unthinkable" quote in stride and crack a few jokes about it, the damage was done. The ad of the campaign turned into the running joke of the election, and the rest is history. I won't say that the Progressive Liberal Party executed their tactical plan to win back the support of the electorate flawlessly, but I have to commend their internationally-based advertising team for a job well done. The party found an approach that emphasized the “we” of teamwork over the "I" of leadership, and won an election in the process. Good advertising makes all the difference.
Let me cover my bases on this one, before someone calls me out on an apparent inconsistency. I can already hear someone suggesting that by my own logic the FNM must have had an excellent slogan, since the word ‘we’ was baked right into their “we deliver” mantra. I even said that it was near-perfectly executed. While that’s true, the problem is I don't think that slogan should have been executed at all. The difference between the PLP’s campaign and the FNM’s campaign stemmed from who that word 'we' was meant to refer to; in the PLP’s case, ‘we’ usually included the party and the Bahamian people together, while for the FNM it almost always referred to the Ingraham administration. By using the word in this manner, the FNM continuously pumped more air into the balloon that was their political ego. Surely it was the party’s intention to portray itself as a strong government in challenging times, but that is not what most Bahamians took away from their campaign. I continue to believe that the Bahamian people became angry with the FNM for being so sure of their own ability to govern while the country itself appeared to be in chaos, and booted them out of office as a result. They tried to coax the public into believing that things were going great thanks to “proven leadership”, but it was that same ambitious claim that made voters push back and link Hubert Ingraham to the not-so-good times they were facing. Of course, while the FNM was busying trying to convince us that things actually weren't that bad, the PLP played off the public’s discontent by trying to inspire Bahamians and provide us with optimism for the future. To put it as simply as I can, the FNM focused on the past while the PLP attacked the present and sold an alternative future.
If there is a lesson to be learned by the FNM in all of this, it is that humility counts for something. Marketing yourself is important, but stubbornly pushing your opinion is to ignore the dissatisfaction of your populace. Since it is not a secret that incumbent governments become natural scapegoats in elections, the FNM might have been better suited challenging their aggressiveness into a “we’ve (as in the government and the public) got work to do” message, as opposed to trying to convince us that things didn’t suck. Nobody likes to be told that they’re wrong, especially not Bahamians. Maybe the FNM's campaign would've felt less abrasive to the swing voter had it emphasized togetherness and perseverance, which were ideals that helped Barack Obama win re-election in 2012. If he of all people could defy his low approval ratings and the sluggish American economy and still succeed, then I believe the FNM could've done the same.
Easier said than done, of course.
In a future article, I promise to re-visit the strategies of the PLP and FNM and say why I don't think they will work in 2017. Before I publish that piece though, I have noticeably left out a political party. Don’t worry though, the DNA is definitely not exempt from criticism or analysis. It will just take a whole article to get through them!
