Total Politics 2010 Election Map

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Decontaminating your brand

 

Jonathan Isaby

 

When Total Politics invited journalist Jonathan Isaby to complete a personal branding course and write about his experience he wasn't sure if he should be offended, or seize the opportunity. He chose the latter. Here he writes frankly about the experience.

 

Much has been written over the past few years about how David Cameron - faithfully aided by his adviser and strategist, Steve Hilton - successfully went about 'decontaminating' the Tory brand. Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair did the same thing for Labour in the late 1980s and 1990s.


 

So when the editor of Total Politics explained that she had booked me some sessions with one of the country's leading personal branding consultants, I wondered if she was trying to tell me something. Is the Isaby brand contaminated?! Not at all, she insisted. I was simply going to be the Total Politics guinea pig and undergo the Louise Mowbray treatment - with the remit of sharing my experience with readers, of course. So here goes...


 

It was with a slight sense of foreboding that I arrived at a plush building in Knightsbridge for the first of three meetings with Louise Mowbray. I had no idea what to expect, but she immediately put me at ease and it quickly became clear she was not going to lecture me. It was very much a conversation, exploring different aspects of my
professional life and analysing how I was perceived by those around me.


 

Louise held a variety of jobs in the corporate world in both Britain and the Middle East before returning to London to set up her consultancy, Mowbray by Design. A broad range of people use her services of whom, she estimates, 60 per cent are in business - bankers, lawyers, entrepreneurs and so on. But the remaining 40 per cent are
people in the public eye, including sportsmen, authors and politicians. Client confi dentiality is key, so she
won't name names, but this final category is a growing market.


 

"Clients in the political sphere have been steadily increasing over the last 18 months, across the full spectrum, including their partners," she says. "As we see personalities and their rise - and sometimes fall - played out so much more in the public eye than ever before, so too have people become aware of the need to manage their
image and personal brands.


 

"Inevitably, being in the public eye presents a unique set of challenges, extremes and rewards that many other
people simply do not experience. There is no more obvious arena where personal brands have an impact on any individual's success. With this in mind, there needs to be a focused approach, although the fundamentalprinciples remain the same."

 

And what are they exactly?
"The four core principles of a powerful personal brand are: being compelling (memorable, different, relevant, interesting, unique), authentic, consistent and - finally - making it well known.

 

"The secret behind a powerful personal brand is that we are remembered for our area of expertise and when somebody needs us, they remember us and know where to find us," Mowbray told me. "Ultimately the ideal brand is working for you when you're not there." Crucially as far as our careers go, she pointed out, it is when we are not there that key decisions are made by others about our own future advancement.

 

First impressions are very important, she said, and one of the first things we talked about was how I would introduce myself to a stranger. Merely stating one's name and job title - as I indicated I would - was hardly going to leave a lasting impression, so we explored ideas of what I could say to be more enticing and memorable.

 

Then there is the way we look. We spent a little while discussing the colour of the suit, shirt and tie I was wearing (a pale suit, a blue shirt and a pink tie). She said that whilst appearing "approachable, friendly and inviting", these colours lacked authority and she suggested that I might want to wear more authoritative colour combinations - like a dark suit, a white shirt and a red tie - if that was the impression I wanted to give others.

 

She added that the way we speak and the body language we use are also incredibly important, with what we actually say to people only accounting for 7 percent of what we communicate.

 


During the first consultation, Louise likes to know what a client's ambitions and goals are, in order to identify their markets and audiences, and what those different people are likely to be looking for. She asks how you think those people perceive you at the moment and then drops something of a bombshell: you are going to have to ask them for yourself!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jonathan Isaby is Co-Editor of ConservativeHome.com

Back I went to fire off emails to a selection of people from those various markets to ask them for honest, warts-and-all feedback about their first impressions of me, how they would describe me and whether there were areas they feel need work.


 

This is really the most crucial part of the exercise and I found it incredibly informative and constructive. What I found especially interesting was that the various friends and contacts who responded to me all said very similar things. Many agreed on one particular area for improvement which I would never have predicted. "What was that?" you are doubtless wondering. Well, a number of the people I consulted used the words "shy" and "reserved" to describe me - something which I genuinely would not have expected. But then they also generally agreed - as I would have hoped - that I am a good listener, knowledgeable, trustworthy and loyal.


 

These responses formed the basis of the two further consultation sessions, during which Louise and I picked through what everyone said and considered the areas where I needed to focus my efforts.


 

That said, she emphasisedthe importance of not trying be something you are not. "The premise of building,  developing and managing our brands is authenticity," she says."There is no point in attempting to be something
that we are not. It will not sit well and it certainly won't be believable."


 

At the end of my final session, I took the opportunity to ask Louise how she perceived the personal brands of some of our leading politicians. I suggested that someone who could do with a bumper Louise Mowbray course is
none other than the Prime Minister.


 

"We perceive Gordon Brown as the dour Scotsman, little in the way of statesmanlike charisma," she asserted. "We relate to people on an emotional level and I have seen attempts on Mr Brown's part to connect to the general public in this way. However, it doesn't appear to come naturally and therefore we are left with a sense of distrust."


 

But one senior Labour figure whom she reckoned to be pretty clued up about all of this is the Business Secretary."Peter Mandelson makes little apology for who he is and what he stands for. He has a strong, authentic personal brand."


 

There was no such praise for David Cameron. Louise is yet to be convinced about his personal brand."David  Cameron is a breath of fresh air, although he lacks a sense of gravitas so vital for a world leader," she
reckoned. "We are waiting to discover whether he has the gritty edge necessary for the job".


 

Boris Johnson, on the other hand, has nothing to worry about and she does not expect the London Mayor to come knocking on her door anytime soon.


 

"Boris's camp almost got it very wrong in attempting to play down all that makes him appealing to Londoners leading up to the election. He has a powerful, distinct personal brand and history has shown that people buy people with their personality traits, quirks and so on. There's a vital lesson in that: no-one buys vanilla - we are all looking for a little flavour to be able to relate."


 

Now there's a thought: if our politicians were ice creams, which flavours would they be?
Answers on a postcard...

 

 

 

Successful Rebranders

 

Milk snatcher to the Iron Lady
Rebrand rating: 5/5

 As Education Secretary in Ted Heath's government (1970- 74), Margaret Thatcher was perceived as "elitist",  "strident" and "hectoring". When she withdrew free school milk for the over sevens she was branded "Thatcher, Thatcher the Milk Snatcher".

Under the direction of Gordon Reece, a former TV producer turned image consultant, she took lessons to lower the her voice so she sounded more authoritative. He also persuaded her to stop wearing hats and adopt a softer hairstyle and wear pastel shades. With his help, she won the Conservative Party leadership, the 1979 general election and left Downing Street 11 years later no longer the Milk Snatcher, but the Iron Lady.
 

 

Red Leftie to Comeback Mayor
Rebrand rating: 3/5

When Margaret Thatcher abolished the Greater London Council in 1986 she must have hoped she had seen the last of its newt-loving socialist Labour leader 'Red' Ken Livingstone. From hanging the unemployment statistics from County Hall to declaring London a "nuclearfree zone", he antagonised many who didn't subscribe to his socialist views. However, a period of relative obscurity on the backbenches, during which he shaved his moustache and toned-down some of his more radical views, led to a comeback in 2000 as Mayor of London. His new populist, antiestablishment cheeky-chappy persona led to votes from across the political divide.

 

Military Michael to Media Lovey
Rebrand rating: 4/5

A poster boy of the Conservative right during John Major's premiership, caricatured by Spitting Image as a military general, Michael Portillo was seen as Margaret Thatcher's natural successor. His defeat in 1997 by Labour's Stephen Twigg was a shock. He later returned to the Commons, but stood down in 2005 after losing the
Conservative party leadership race in 2001. He has gone on to reinvent himself as a centrist media figure, forming an unlikely double act with Labour MP Diane Abbott on BBC 1's This Week, hosting his own discussion show (Dinner with Portillo) and fronting documentaries on capital punishment and mental health.