How to market a political movement: The Women’s Equality Party on grassroots branding, comms and strategy in the digital age
The headquarters of the Women’s Equality Party aren’t housed inside prime real estate in spitting distance from Westminster – they’re buried in an industrial block in Southwark. Its meeting room isn’t a glass shell with views over Millbank and mahogany furniture; in fact the table used for policy discussions is pockmarked by the staple guns used to make placards for the latest spate of women’s marches.
Sophie Walker (centre) leads the party
The grassroots of the UK’s newest party are still visible, despite a moderately successful run in the London Mayoral elections last year and high profile support from the likes of Sandi Toksvig. It was formed two years ago, almost by accident, at the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World festival: former Time editor Catherine Mayer suggested the concept of a party for women’s equality on stage, told those interested to join her at the bar afterwards and, after she drew further interest in a Facebook post that night, the wheels were in motion.
“Facebook was the original generating tool,” said Catherine Riley, the party’s head of communications. “Social media has opened up feminism, not only in the UK but globally, and changed the conversation completely. Everything we’ve done has been really collaborative, and quite a lot of that has come through social media.”
When the Women’s Equality Party talks of collaboration with its electorate it means more than a lacklustre focus group – it went as far as to crowdsource its policies. But it did this with speed, determining six initial areas (equal pay, equal parenting, equal care giving, equality in the media, equal representation and ending violence against women), sending them out into the ether, filtering the feedback and consolidating the response: a task near-impossible to accomplish before the age of the internet.
Now the party is well-established, it uses Facebook as a forum, Instagram to capture its events and branding and Twitter as a space to communicate news and policy goals to the masses, as well as to the power holders in Westminster. The latter is important because the Women’s Equality Party is, uniquely, non-partisan.
“We work with all parties and none to get our policies enacted and we are unique in that we’re the only political party that wants to put ourselves out of business,” explained Riley. “The idea is we get this done, and we all go home.”
Members – importantly both men and women – are welcome to join even if they are a signed up member of another party. This offering is reflected quite ingeniously in the party’s logo, which began life in the 20th century suffrage tones of green, purple and white but now comes in a host of different colours.
“[Designer] Kate Barker designed a palate of logos in a range of different colours to show that we aren’t wedded to this tribalist idea of what our identity looks like, and also to emphasise the diversity and inclusion of our movement,” said Riley.
“It’s the idea that traditional party political colours can be combined into our branding,” added Rachel Statham, political campaigns coordinator. “It’s a really useful and easy way to explain to people what we’re about.”
The logo, which can be found on a range of merchandise produced by the party, also clearly spells out its full name.
“Other parties have names that are acronyms like the SNP and UKIP,” Statham said. “Those aren’t words, so the name doesn’t necessarily show what the party is about; people can project their own interpretations onto the name. Whereas for us we do what it says on the tin.”
“We’re very clear that we have to be called the Women’s Equality Party because the laser-like focus that we have on women’s equality is our very raison d’être,” said Riley. “We always want to talk about women. And it’s right because women have been off the agenda for so long.”
What about using ‘the F-word’, which has been party to both an outpouring of devotion and hatred in recent years?
“I don’t think we deliberately avoid using the term feminism in our comms,” said Riley. “But we’ve got a tone that we’ve set that’s mindful of all the barriers we face. I mean, we’re co-founded by a standup comedian. It helps to have an aspect of lightness in what we’re saying.”
She continued: “People are so put off by politics and the concept of dishonesty that seems to run through political comms at the moment. It helps that we have a national treasure who is fronting some of the work that we do and it’s an immediate counter to the identity of the toadish politician. People listen when you’re fun. You can’t change the world by shouting, you have to communicate.”
A perfect example of this stance came at Valentine’s Day, when a mailer was sent out around a campaign for compulsory sex and relationships education.
“The subject line was ‘Let’s talk about sex’,” said Statham. “I think we could afford to do that because of our brand. We can talk about these issues in a way that’s a lot lighter.”
In a similar vein, a Women’s Equality Party email from anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali had the subject ‘Fanny defenders’. “It had one of the best open rates we’ve seen,” recalled digital campaigns coordinator Charlotte Binns. “It made people open an email about female genital mutilation, rather than go: ‘Oh I’d rather not think about that right now’.”
The team now feels early goals, such as getting out of the lifestyle pages and into the political section, have pretty much been accomplished. The London Mayoral Elections gave the party further credence in the form of a primetime, party election broadcast: a form of advertising that “100% worked” according to Riley, as it automatically reached a substantially higher audience than the party’s other campaigns.
Having worked with the likes of Cheil and new lead agency Now, the focus is currently about getting men on board, as well as keeping up the unprecedented momentum of the women’s marches. A ‘Women’s Day Off’ – a poignant re-enactment of the 1975 Icelandic movement (coincidentally distinct from the forthcoming Day Without Women) – has been in development for more than a year, and is planned for 2018 to celebrate a century of women’s suffrage in the UK. ‘Activist training camps’ are also in the pipeline to encourage more supporters to proactively demonstrate their support for women’s equality.
“Our message for 2017 is: it doesn’t have to be like this,” said Riley. “We have plans to make things better. Instead of feeling despairing, join us.”