A branding lesson from Scottish Labour’s collapse

Build revenue. Grow followers. Sell ketchup. Win elections. Whatever your organisation needs to do to survive, your brand is just a tool to help you get there. A container for the values, loyalty and emotional associations you need to achieve what you want.

To do this, all brands are built on strategy. Carefully and slowly, they painstakingly shape themselves around achieving whatever goal they’re set. It can, and normally does, take years. And in politics, it’s an arc that usually lasts a generation.

Labour knew they needed to un-radicalise their brand in the 80s. It took them until 1997 to achieve it fully. The SNP knew they needed to normalise the concept of independence. It took them decades. The Tories are still trying to detoxify from Major and Thatcher.

As Scottish Labour surveys the damage of near electoral oblivion, the inevitable question is asked: where did it all go wrong? The uncomfortable answer is that, in one way, it didn’t.

Scottish Labour had a brand strategy in 2014. They implemented it consistently and confidently. And it worked. It won them their most important victory at that time: the independence referendum.

Structuring the Labour movement north of the border solely around unionism, paired with a broadly negative campaign, was a plan that delivered the 55 per cent they needed in September.

But now they’re paying the price. Playing (and continuing to play) a divisive and tribal game has naturally solidified many who were once their base against them. As the 55 per cent fractured back along old party lines, a wipe out this May became inevitable.

Even offering a binary choice with the Tories and arguably more left wing policies was too little, too late. People are attracted to brands with values, not logic.

And herein lies the lesson for businesses and organisations elsewhere. Yes your brand needs to deliver results now. Sometimes you have to focus on the obstacle dead ahead of you – be it an ad campaign, product launch or a major event.

But someone needs to have an eye on the long game. There is no point winning one victory in a way that scuppers your next. Brand equity and loyalty take years to build. So don’t just plan to win. Plan to keep winning.

Mark Cullen is a planner at brand consultancy Good