ThinkingSparks

Political brands, again...

Apparently my focus is on Dutch politics at the moment. Did I talk about the SP last week, now the Dutch liberal party is the prime example on how to destroy a brand. The VVD-brand that is. Unfortunately it all seems to be the doing of one person. Which goes to show and prove how much influence one person can have.

For the non-Dutch among us…. We had elections last week and all parties present a list of candidates the citizens can vote on. The liberal party chose their new political leader less than half a year ago and the person chosen only won by a small margin to the now number two on the voting list. What followed was an election in which the number two on the list gets more votes than the number two. So now the number two wants to be the leader.

She doesn’t explicitly say so but after the counting of votes is final she didn’t want to speak out. Totally “flabbergasted” by the news – which everyone saw coming since election night – she wanted to sleep on it, not commenting on the outcome. Today she held a press conference in a bar but did not show up at the time promised.

Pledging allegiance to the political leader chosen by the party could have been done without the press conference and at the time announced. But she made it a big deal and chose to make a show out of it. She pledged allegiance but suggested at the same time to the party leadership that she wanted a commission to speak out on this unique – it never happened before – result. Thereby throwing the party into a period of turmoil and completely ruining any chances for the VVD to be seen as a – last resort – choice for government by the Christian Democrats.

It goes to show how one person, through one action can bungle a brand and mess up her personal brand in the process.

Jan Marijnissen gets internal branding!

Let me make clear that I did not vote for this guy!  And I'm almost sorry I didn't but  I understand why so many people did.  In a world where politicians are anything but authentic, he is.  You can agree to disagree with him on his politics, but I cannot imagine anyone accusing him of being a phoney.

Yesterday he and his newly elected members of parliament featured in the talkshow Pauw & Witteman.  Marijnissen having flirted with Maoism more than 30 years ago, was still confronted with that on the show.  Apparently on the weblog of Rood (Red), the youth branch of his Socialist Party, a Maoist cartoon had been featured.  Renske Leijten (27) who is president of Rood, is also the number nine on the candidate list of the SP.  When asked for her opinion on the Maoist cartoon she said it was no big deal.  Stating that one of the participants in the weblog just used it for a post in order to announce something he organized and nothing was meant by it.

In the studio setting Jan Marijnissen was the sole interviewee sitting at the table with the journalists.  The new members of parliament were sitting elsewhere.  What struck me after Renske made her statement was that the interviewers continued on, but Jan wanted to add something to what was being said.

In many organizations and groups what he did next would've been considered very strange. However, as Jan Marijnissen said: we are very open within the SP. Renske nodding her head in admittance. And he continued to say that the person posting the image gave cause to bad press and didn't know his history.  He concluded in saying that "we can play this down, but obviously the person in question hasn't grasped what the SP stands for".

This scene was of great value, as it showed that someone in such a vulnerable position was being open and authentic.  Marijnissen knows exactly how to internalize the SP brand although he probably doesn't have much use for branding and brands in general and least of all internal branding. I think that the SP shows strong leadership as well as a healthy organizational culture, which makes all the difference in being a strong brand and thus being successful.  And this is exactly what Jan Marijnissen gets!