So transport minister Tom Harris has told people to stop being so miserable. For once a politician may have a point… but only to an extent. Yes, we are one of the wealthiest nations on the planet and yes our health systems, education etc. are comparatively excellent and our general standard of living is very high. The problem (without getting into a discussion of how rising living costs will affect the poorest and most vulnerable in the country firmly excluding Harris with his very comfortable wage) is that we just find it galling to take this kind of criticism from a politician- they are not exactly the number one trusted brand. We amuse ourselves with the picture of the politician coming into the office for a spot of brand consultancy to try to re-engage with these ‘miserable, apathetic’ voters. We image the conversation going something like this:

Foundry34: So let’s start with the basics- what is your key message, what is your brand trying to say to your audience?Unspecified politician: Well really we don’t have one message what we do is provide a whole heap of policies and promises with some impressive sounding figures to try and confuse people and give them the impression we might do something worthwhile at some point- then sit and argue with the shadow cabinet who thought of the idea first.
Foundry34: Okay, so you make a brand promise and then you deliver it to build a rapport up with your audience and become a familiar trusted brand?
Unspecified politician: Well no, what we like to do is make those promises then once we are in power don’t deliver them or sometimes just deny we ever made the promise in the first place.
Foundry34: Don’t you find that this upsets your key audience and loses you market share?
Unspecified politician: Actually we gave up having any ‘key’ market years ago, we just try to be all things to all people with some centre centre bias, in fact, you can’t really tell either of the parties apart anymore. We’ve found it much more effective to have no clear differentiators and simply rely on the fact we have a young, charismatic charm monkey and the other party has some stuffy old duffer.
Foundry34: That’s the other way around now though isn’t it?
Unspecified politician: Well yes
Foundry34: Have you considered contacting any other brand agencies?

Enough