* Simon Canning
* From: The Australian
* December 07, 2009 12:00AM
HOW do you market the Mad Monk? Just days after his surprise ascendancy to the leadership of the Liberals, this is now the question exercising the brains of the party machine.
They may have little time to reform the Abbott brand in the minds of electors before Kevin Rudd decides to go to the polls.
Hours after Abbott unseated Malcolm Turnbull as the leader of the opposition, Liberal strategists were already at work measuring the worth of the Abbott brand in the marketplace and beginning to chart a course for the party and its new leader to follow.
In the modern media environment speed is of the essence and an entire strategy framed on the leadership of Turnbull has had to be scrapped overnight and retooled to fit the very different model that Abbott presents.
It will be anchored on a tagline, a few simple words that encapsulate the essence of the Abbott leadership and what he would offer at the helm of the nation.
If Kevin were 07 and Obama were Hope, how would marketing gurus package the new leader?
Advertising and marketing experts agree that despite coming to the role with the not insignificant baggage of having been the party’s headkicking hardman for more than a decade, Abbott has qualities that will be a marketer’s dream.
Denis Mamo, creative director of Sydney advertising agency Ursa, says Abbott’s often criticised ability to speak his mind regardless of the consequences might prove to be the element that sets him apart.
“He has a lot of attributes that are distinct, so it is not like you are going to be short on things to pick,” Mamo says. “He is a man who speaks his mind and if you look at that point you have to look at the honesty route.”
Mamo and creative colleague at Ursa Luke Martin crafted a possible campaign poster for the new leader based on his pre-spill surf outing in a skimpy pair of Speedos.
“Tony Abbott,” the poster reads, “Nothing to Hide.”
“Even the budgie smugglers work,” Mamo says, “because it makes him more human.”
http://video.ak.fbcdn.net/cfs-ak-snc4/48322/643/1240116303490_9160.mp4
Mamo says the development of the Abbott image may ultimately mirror the making of Bob Hawke as a national leader.
The hard union man used his larrikin credentials to create an everyman image in the marketplace, and Abbott’s minders may well follow the same path.
Mike Newman, who crafted Labor’s election campaigns in the 1990s at Saatchi & Saatchi and now runs agency Seizmic, is another who sees a marketing hook in Abbott’s personality.
“He carries a lot of baggage and he was a spectacular problem at the last election,” Newman says.
“But also what he stands for is a kind of authenticity.
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“There is so much spin and weasel words in politics, but he comes across as the guy who is prepared to run things up the flagpole.
“He is an ideals-driven man and he is a blokey character.”
Newman jokes that the line that could deliver Abbott election victory is one that again talks to the former Howard heartland.
“The Liberals are back to the future,” he suggests.
“I think Abbott can get the public engaged and that is a huge part of marketing him.”
Rowan Dean, creative director of Euro RSCG, which last year created a lauded campaign for the Democrats on the ABC TV show The Gruen Transfer that the denuded party later adopted, says the brand makers should not fear having some fun with Abbott’s image.
“Budgie smugglers, not people smugglers,” Dean says. “Or for the women, `With ears like these I will always listen’.”
Dean is another who believes Abbott’s authenticity is the key.
“If he stays true to himself he will go OK,” Dean says. “There is an honesty about him I think people understand, but if he starts spinning he is dead because that is not who he is.”
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The female vote poses a particular branding challenge for Abbott, and the marketers agree that his hardline stance on issues such as abortion, which has alienated many feminists, will require particular finesse to overcome.
“I think the women are going to be a tough call,” Mamo says. “So (in marketing Abbott) they will need to find things that unite people.”
Whereas Kevin Rudd’s brand was formed in the softly, softly mock aggression of his Sunrise stints alongside failed Liberal leadership candidate Joe Hockey, Abbott’s image has been formed in the blast furnace of Lateline, The Australian and The Bulletin.
When Rudd claimed the Labor leadership, one of the first marketing moves made by the party was to run an Australia Day advertisement of Rudd introducing himself to the Australian public, and the experts agree a “meet the real Tony Abbott” approach could be a campaign ice breaker and a way in which to eject some of his baggage.
Cyberspace will also prove critical to the Abbott brand.
Whereas Rudd and Obama embraced You Tube, Facebook and MySpace, Abbott and Rudd will go head to head on Twitter. And it is here, where the voters become the flagbearers of the brand, that the success or failure of marketing the Mad Monk will first become apparent.
Long before Labor pulls the election trigger, the support that YouTubers and Twitterer’s show for the Abbott brand will be like a canary in the coalition coalmine.
For the duration of his record term as Prime Minster, John Howard owed part of his electoral success to the efforts of lauded creative director Ted Horton and marketing consultant Toby Ralph.
Horton’s ability to tap into the psyche of middle Australia was legendary and was only found wanting in the end by a tired government, new marketing technology and desire for change. Tony Abbott will be the marketing challenge of 2010. That is the only result without doubt.
