Labour’s conference reminds us of need for optimism in political comms

The Labour City proved to be a good choice for hosting the event. A mix-up in venue meant that Labour held the final party conference of the season. Like superstitious agencies wanting to pitch last, Labour had the chance to fine-tune its speeches in response to Conservative comments the previous week. ‘Consign them to the seven bins of history!’ joked Ed Miliband, referring to Rishi Sunak’s curious claim about rubbish regulation.

In contrast to the Tory conference, there was a real sense of optimism at Labour’s best-attended gig. Sixteen thousand delegates were excited by the national mood shift in their favor, boosted by a comprehensive by-election victory over the SNP in Rutherglen. What can we discern about Labour’s approach to the oncoming campaign?

In any repositioning exercise, it’s essential to reignite interest in what was always true about the brand and be clear about what’s changed in the product. Political movements focus on three types of emotional response: a sense of loss (‘take back control’), a need to fix something (‘build back better’), or a simple desire for ‘change.’

Labour’s conference slogan, ‘Let’s Get Britain’s Future Back,’ tries to combine all three. A mash-up of all the recent memorable slogans, but when shortened to ‘Britain’s Future’ on the backdrop for TV, it makes more sense.

Labour has distinctive brand assets. The semiotics (visual cues dominating decision-making) indeed show intent. The traditional red is bold and active, symbolizing energy and power. It also has connotations of defiance, as revolutionaries have used the red flag since the 18^th century, and it is more familiar to us as a marker for important emails.

Adding the Union Jack to the design language is a deliberate effort to appeal to wavering voters. Arguably, the persistent use of the flag in all those Tory minister press interviews will come back to bite them, as sticking Starmer in front of it makes him look official.

The event’s staging has all the hallmarks of a party readying for the government. The fundamentals of Labour’s strategy over the last two years: 1) shift the party to an electable center, 2) show how toxic the Tories are, and 3) offer a realistic alternative.

Serious work has been done on the speechwriting. Starmer, who is not a natural orator, gave a speech with a healthy balance of personal and policy. Even a sparkly protestor gave him an opportunity to quip that they had changed to being a party of power, not a party of protest, as he rolled up his sleeves to speak.

He said it’d take ten years before describing ambition for 1.5 million homes; he said it’d include public ownership, improved services and plenty of touching stories about how inflation hurts. There were a few clever jibes at Sunak: “It’s not so much that he’s lying to you, it more that he doesn’t understand what he’s saying,” referring to the idea that Sunak is out of touch with real people.

The most remarkable speeches get you to think differently at the end than you did at the start.

Conference speeches are more about motivating the party faithful, of interest to politics nerds, and not exactly a ‘consumer’ event. In this context, it was a very good speech. There were others: Yvette Cooper, David Lammy and Rachel Reeves stood out for me. And getting the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney to endorse Rachel Reeves as chancellor is a real coup.

In the real world, however, it wasn’t all plain sailing. Pollster Savanta UK took the temperature with a ‘one word to describe Keir Starmer’ survey immediately after his speech. The result? ‘boring, good, honest’ were the top three, followed by a long list of negative associations. As the accountants say, boring is good, but there’s a long way to go.

Finally, the most important pillar of successful repositioning is taken into view. Will the new strategy engage existing audiences or target new ones?

As 2019 demonstrated, electoral success will depend on those ‘light buyers’ having the confidence to vote Labour again, or for the first time.

Anticipating that the coming election is going to be nasty, they’ve done a good job of professionalizing their communications. However, it’s still not clear who’s going to deliver the knockout in the coming fight.

• The Tory conference proves we need more creative political slogans