Some very interesting research by the GfK Roper Group into what reasons were important when deciding to buy a brand may be of some use for unions thinking about recruitment.

The research (from 1992) looked at the reasons that people bought brands, and according to the report, “knowing what to expect from a product because of past experience was the most common reason for buying a particular brand.”

Roper Report - Consumer Reasons for Brand Choice (1992)

The next strongest associations are likely to be formed on the basis of word-of-mouth (friends, family, colleagues, etc) or other non-commercial sources of information (consumer groups, media, etc). The report notes that word of mouth is likely to be particularly important for service organisations. “Company-influenced sources of information such as advertising are often likely to create the weakest associations and thus may be the most easily changed.”

What does this mean for unions?

Brand associations are critical determinants of what information will be recalled by someone, and therefore affects their “brand decisions” — that is, their choices to buy a product or service, or join a union. The strength of an association depends on how the information is initially processed as it enters someone’s memory and where it is actually locarted as a result. There are two ways to build “brand association” — commonly known as encoding and storage.

Encoding is two things: the quantity of information a person receives and the quality of their processing that information. Simply, this means the more times a person is exposed to a brand, the more likely they are to recall it, and likewise, the more they focus their attention on a brand, the more likely they are to recall it (and vice versa, exposure when the person is distracted means they are less likely to recall the brand). Other factors like consistency and congruity come into play as well (for example, the ease at which new information can be integrated with existing perceptions, or the brand’s inherent simplicity or vividness).

Storage is affected by a range of things, like the presence of other brand information, exposure time and “retrieval cues” (when a brand name is on the tip of the tongue).

Simply put, the more a union symbol is present in the workplace, the more it is encoded — similarly, positive word of mouth from colleagues improves the quality of the encoding.

For unions there are two take-aways from this research:

1. Someone’s past experience with a union is likely to be the most important determinant of whether they will join a union. This means that unions should think carefully about non-member outreach, how non-members are treated and referred to, and how the union is generally perceived. For an organiser, it may mean that a non-member with a “bad union experience” may not be worth trying to join up, whereas former members (even from other unions) should be prime targets. For lead organisers and union communicators, it is worth remembering that non-member “experience” the union even when they are not members — and even this second-hand experience can be important.

More generally, it suggests that peak bodies like the ACTU or trades halls should try to keep a record of past-members that can be accessed by union growth-teams. Knowing that someone has previously been a union member from another sector may dramatically increase their likelihood of joining a new union. When someone resigns from a union, their name could be passed on to the ACTU register. Unions undertaking a recruitment drive could enter in names of prospects or non-member lists into the database and see who was previous a union member.

2. Building a union’s presence in the workplace is important in shaping experience and fostering word of mouth. I’ve written before about the power of social proof and endorsements. With a growing number of people in Australia (and the world) never having a direct experience of joining a union, unions must increasingly shape second-hand experience to build positive engagement with future members. Of course, the most powerful brand advocates for unions are existing members and delegates, who should be encouraged to display union signs and symbols to create social norms.

The final, less important, take-away is that media exposure and the attitudes of political leaders is much less important than union leaders and organisers often think it is. Although Howard and the News Ltd media demonised unions, what is more important is personal experience, word of mouth and things in the union’s own control (price, quality).

Addendum

What is obviously not covered in this research is the question of union brands themselves. Do unions have their own individual (“corporate”) brands? Is there just a single “Brand Union”? Do people see the difference between one union and another at a brand level?

The ACTU did a lot of work creating the campaign brand “Your Rights at Work” — but four years on from the defeat of the Howard Government, how many people outside of the union movement and politics remember the brand or the campaign? The ACTU unsuccessfully tried to create a “Australian Unions” meta-brand to sit across individual union brands. But without the money to spend on seriously creating brand equity, the project was never going to succeed.

For individual unions, the answer will influence how much a union may decide to try to create their own brand. Some unions may have very high brand recall — like the teachers union (AEU) or construction union (CFMEU). For those unions, high investment in branding exercises is probably appropriate. For smaller unions though… are the efforts of the broader movement likely to overwhelm their individual efforts? A topic for future research.

Related posts:

1. Using endorsements for your union recruitment
2. Lessons from Museum Exhibit Labels for Union Communications
3. What union members want from their union's communications

The “marketing bible” The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout sets out marketing laws that the ALP routinely violates. The result of breaking these rules has seen dire consequences for this party: massive slump in support, a collapse in membership, policy drift and an inability to “cut through” in the media.

In my previous post, I covered the first five of the immutable laws. This post goes into rules six to fourteen. Many of these rules, like the earlier five, refer to each other. This demonstrates that you can’t follow, for example, only half of the rules but not the others. Success comes from following all of the 22 rules. Violating any of them risks failure or, at best, half-hearted success.

6. The Law of Exclusivity

Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind

The Law of Exclusivity means that two companies (or parties) cannot own the same concept or policy category as another. The first company to own the word precludes anyone else from owning it. For example, when you think chocolate, you think Cadbury. The question “which bank” summons the answer “Commonwealth Bank”. Panadol owns “pain relief”. No amount of advertising, bar a massive shock, will change those associations.

In politics, as I wrote in the first post, two political parties can’t own the same policy category as another. The Liberals own “economic management”. Labor challenged this by adding “in the interests of working families” because Labor owns “workers”. Howard tried to undermine this with “battlers”. However, in each case, the war of position was not over direct ownership of the concept, but to capture a sub-set of the category. When the Liberal/Nations try to own “education”, it is laughable, because that is Labor’s word, and the same with “health”. Labor can’t own “national security”, because the Liberal/Nationals own it.

The ALP and the Law of Exclusivity

The ALP at the moment is intent of fighting for concepts, words and policy categories that it can never own. This is because of a misunderstanding of market research. Focus groups and polling say that voters want the government to be “tough on boat people” and to “protect our borders”. So the ALP dutifully produces policies and ministers make speeches using terms of “hard head, soft heart” and “we condemn people smugglers”, and come up with the Malaysia Solution.

This fundamentally violates the Law of Exclusivity: Labor can never own in the minds of voters the “tough on boat people” policy category. Voters will always think the Liberal/Nationals are tougher. Marketing (and politics) is a war of perception; it doesn’t matter whether Labor’s policies are better, it is how they are perceived. On areas that the Liberal/Nationals own, they will always own.

We need to find different policy categories or sub-categories; Labor needs to use its own language, not the language of the Liberal/Nationals.

7. The Law of the Ladder

The strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder

The Law of the Ladder is a powerful rule in business and even moreso in politics. It is something the Greens Party have cottoned on to recently. Because all products are not equal, most people make their purchasing decisions based on a mental short-hand that Ries and Trout call the “ladder” – where on the product ladder are you located. Most people make a decision based on the ladder — they prefer the product or service on the top rung (that is, the brand that is the category leader).

Acknowledging your rank on the ladder is important because consumers (and voters) because most people make intuitive decisions based on your rung. There’s no point in pretending you’re the market leader if you’re second or third place, and people won’t accept it.

For example, Hertz is the world leader in car rental, with Avis coming in at number two. When Avis began a marketing campaign saying “we try harder”, it recognised its second place and as a result won a lot of customers.

When marketing, you need to market appropriately to your place on the ladder.

The ALP and the Law of the Ladder

There are lots of different ladders, for each issue category, and sitting over all of that is the polls and the election.

Labor is struggling with the Law of the Ladder because it did not win a majority of seats in the last election, yet is the government. In the mind of voters, it is not acting according to its “rung” placement. The wheeling and dealing in the 17 days following the election of the hung parliament in 2010 left a sour taste in the mouth of many people. Unfortunately, this is not a problem that Labor can easily combat, except by winning the next election.

However, a problem that the Rudd Government had was that it was the market leader, yet did not act like it. Rudd was a constant apologist for previous Labor governments, praised the economic record of Howard and Costello, and appointed Liberals to government and diplomatic posts. He acted in many ways like he was on the second rung in the voters’ minds, yet he was first.

Similarly, now Labor is second in the polls, it makes acting like we’re ahead difficult.

Of course, there are many rungs for many issues. And as Ries and Trout point out, marketing is about perceptions and positions, not products or quality. Your strategy must be based on accepting the run you occupy in the mind of the customer.

The Greens Party have shown they understand this, even if it is intuitive. They have accepted they are a minor party, and refer to Labor and Liberal/Nationals as “majors”. They stick mostly to policy areas where they are positioned as leader or second.

8. The Law of Duality

In the long run, every market becomes a two horse race

In mature markets are the typically only two major players. In desktop operating systems, there are two leaders, but lots of brands — Windows, Apple OS and then lots of little ones that no one’s really heard of. In soft drinks, there’s Coke and Pepsi, then lots of little brands. In shoes, there’re Nike and Reebok. In fast food, there’s McDonalds and Hungry Jacks.

The reason for this is that most consumers don’t have the mental space to manage scores of competing brands and find it easier in a stable market place to make a choice between two brands. As a market gets very mature, it will tolerate the presence of more than two players.  However, the top two will have the lion’s share of the market.  All other players are essentially in niche segments.

In most political systems, the same applies. Labor and Liberal, Labour and Tories, Democrats and Republicans. There are other parties (Greens, Liberal Democrats, etc), but they are bit players.

The two main players can be challenged or collapse. IBM was once synonymous with personal computers, but over time was successfully challenged by others like Dell and HP (and of course, Apple is still basically the number 2 player in the “computer” category). Similarly, a major crisis can dislodge a major player. Borders was once the number one bookseller in the world, but collapsed almost overnight due to debts.

Just because there’s duality, doesn’t mean the same two brands (or parties) will be there forever. (Don’t forget, the two main parties in Australia used to be the Protectionists and the Free Trade parties, and the Liberals and the Tories in the UK — then Labor & Labour came onto the scene.)

The ALP and the Law of Duality

This is one rule that the ALP benefits from at a meta-level. In a two party system, Labor benefits by being one of the two parties. However, when looked at from an issue category point of view (which often are changeable, immature “markets”), minor parties can compete. For example, the two leading parties on climate change are the Greens Party and Labor. The National Party competes with Labor in Victoria for the bush.

Labor is in trouble if it ignores the risk of being eaten by The Greens on multiple issue categories. They are aggressively positioning themselves in areas where it is just a Labor vs Greens contest, rather than a three-cornered race with the Liberal/Nationals. They are only focusing on niche policy areas and identity politics.  This is also why the Liberals won’t go near issues like gay marriage — it’s a war of positioning fought by Labor and the Greens Party.

While Labor benefits from this law, it is not guaranteed that it will be in the two-horse race forever. We’ve seen the Liberal/Nationals realise this in Queensland, where they merged. They’ve turned three-cornered contests into two. They vacated the field in strategic seats during the Victorian election, turning inner-city contests into Labor-Greens Party battles.

9. The Law of the Opposite

If you’re shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader

When you’re number two, don’t copy number one. Do the opposite. The worst thing a secondary brand can do is copy the leading brand. Don’t be better, be different.

By positioning yourself against the leader, you take business away from all the other alternatives to No 1. If you are not the leader in a category but want to be a strong second, you need to position your brand opposite the leader (because as was explained in the previous rule, every market becomes a two horse race).

Ries and Trout use the example of Coke and the Pepsi (in the US). Pepsi used the advertising campaign of “taste of a new generation” to position itself against the market leader Coke, thereby targeting young people. If old people drink Coke and young people drink Pepsi, there is nobody left to drink other brands in the soft-drink category.

The key to this is to focus not on being better than your opposition, but to position yourself as first in your (new) category.

The ALP and the Law of the Opposite

I’ve banged on about this before, but Labor is a serial offender against the Law of the Opposite. Labor has spent years trying to emulate the Liberal/Nationals on key issue categories like economic management and national security. The 2007 election was notable for Rudd’s repeated statements that he was an “economic conservative”.

Similarly, relentless negativity against the opposition won’t promote your product. The obsession over the last twelve months of Labor focusing on Tony Abbott has meant wasted time talking about the other brand, rather than building Labor’s own. This is not to say “don’t criticise your opponent”, but do so in a way that talks up your own brand. Labor did this well when focusing on working families, and when Rudd targeted Malcolm Turnbull over climate change, positioning Labor as the party for action (the “greatest moral challenge”) and Liberals as deniers. Labor’s positives were portrayed favourably to contrast against the Liberal/Nationals’ negatives. Abbott jettisoned the Liberal/Nationals from the climate change issue category (which Howard had got them into in 2007), thus leaving the fight between Labor and the Greens Party.

On refugees, Labor violated the Law of the Opposite, by trying to be tough on border security, by chasing the banner of good economic managers, by obsessing over budget surpluses, and so on — all categories and words that Howard and the Liberal/Nationals own.

The enervating effects of Labor’s violation of this law are apparent in two areas. Firstly, it makes Labor ambiguous in the minds of voters. The old saying “why vote for Liberal-lite when you can vote for the real thing” is true. Furthermore, it opens up space for third-parties to occupy the ground Labor has given up. This explains the rise of the Greens Party. It also explains the inability for Labor to communicate.

Secondly, it has seen Labor’s membership collapse. Labor members join to participate in a party that stands for making Australia a more progressive country. Labor has its own unique language, history, traditions, culture and policy. Underpinning this is the idea that “Labor reforms from government” — but those reforms must be Labor reforms, not Liberal/National reforms. The cognitive dissonance created by chasing the Liberal/Nationals means that Labor members and activists are unable or unwilling to defend Labor or remain members.

10. The Law of Division

Over time, a category will divide and become two or more categories

The Law of Division means that over time, large categories will segment into smaller categories. Trout and Ries use the example of the “car” category. In the early 20th Century, there were only a few models of cars. However, over time, the category divided into “small cars” “luxury cars” “sports cars” ”pick up trucks” “hybrid cars” and so on. Similarly, when computers were first invented, there were only “computers”. Now, there are “laptops” “tablets” “mainframes” “desktops” and “supercomputers” (and more). In television, we once only had a few television stations. Now we have scores of digital and cable TV stations in Australia.

Why is this important in marketing? Because it allows brands to get into new categories as soon as possible and become the leader. For example, Apple has been languishing as secondary brand of computers until it exploited the new segment of “tablets” with the iPad. Although there were lots of makers of tablet computers, it was still a young, undeveloped market, and so allowed Apple to quickly grab first place.

A piece of advice that Ries and Trout emphasise is that when a brand extends to a new category, it is often wise use a new brand. This is because the original brand (if it is a leader) may be associated with the old category as a whole. Going to a new category can create confusion amongst customers. For example, when Toyota expanded into luxury cars, it created the Lexus brand, on the basis that it knew no one wanted to pay $60,000 for a non-prestige brand associated with small, cheap cars. When Volkswagen tried to expand from small cars in the US to the big car market, they not only failed (because no one associated large cars with the maker of the VW Beetle) but it also damaged their original market.

The ALP and the Law of Division

The ALP has shown in the past that it can exploit issue category division — and I’ve already discussed how it used “working families” to get into the lead for “good economic manger for working families“. Labor also “owned” the environment issue category for a generation under Whitlam and Hawke/Keating — until the Greens Party moved into sub-categories like “conservation”, “forestry” (and more recently, identity politics).

Similarly, the “health” category is divided, with the sub-category of “disability” finally emerging as an important issue in the last election. Labor was able win leadership in that category, is delivering major successful reforms in this area, and the disability sector recognises this leadership.

There is a salutary lesson for Labor. Issues are only going to get more fragmented. Labor needs to ensure that it expands to new issue categories that make sense for its existing areas of strength. There are some areas that Labor shouldn’t get into — long costly, pointless wars like Afghanistan. Similarly Labor should avoid fragmenting into two many disparate issue categories. There’s no point in being a big fish in a small pond — or a leading party on an issue that only a small number of voters care about. (This is where the Greens failed in the recent Victorian election; they were narrow-cast to a minority on small niche-issues.)

11. The Law of Perspective

Marketing effects take place over an extended period of time

Marketing is a long game, and short-term tactical gains can lead to long-term pain. Ries and Trout use many examples of brands that pursue short-term goals to their long-term failure.

For example, Donald Trump was man of the moment when he added his name to anything the banks would lend him money for — condos, casinos, airlines, golf courses, shopping centres and more. He was lauded as a success story by the financial media. However, after a few years, he was saddled with $3.5 billion in debt and filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Law of Perspective means that marketing should pursue the long game. Many companies and brands try to move products by holding sales. While sales do move products in the short term, excessive sales lead to consumers undervaluing the product and brand, and results in them never buying the product at full price (since they know they can just wait for another sale).

The ALP and the Law of Perspective

Labor has had scores of tactical wins this year over the Liberal/Nationals — most spectacularly with the change of speaker to Peter Slipper from Harry Jenkins. This was an undoubted tactical victory, but simply reinforces the idea in the minds of voters that Labor only cares about politics not governing.

Marketing is a battle of perceptions. The Malaysia solution was seen as a quick fix rather than a considered policy. The repeated compromises that Labor has made on headline issues, like the mining tax back-down to the mining industry, reinforces the idea that Labor makes decisions on the run, rather than having a long view in the national interest. Rudd’s retreat on climate change and dropping the CPRS after the breakdown at Copenhagen is another example of a short-term tactical decision that caused long-term damage to Labor.

12. The Law of Line Extension

There’s an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand

The Law of Line Extension is the inexorable move towards putting your brand into more and more market categories. This ultimately leads to loss of sales in the original product, declining market share and confusion in the mind of the consumer.

Simply put, the Law of Line Extension says you shouldn’t take one successful brand and try to put it on products in another category. In the long-run, it damages both brands. For example, in the US, Coke tried to get into the clothing market, by producing a range of Coke-branded clothes. For several years, this did very well, but then the trend ended and Coke was left with millions of dollars worth of stock that it couldn’t sell. Dell is well known for making computers, but when it tried to get into Dell-branded smart-phones, it spent several years and millions of dollars and failed, shutting down its smart-phone division.

Politically, more is not better. We saw this with the recent election of Liberal/Nationals governments in NSW and Victoria, where Baillieu and O’Farrell didn’t release policies in a range of important issues. They kept their line focused on areas where Labor was weak (trust in NSW, delivery failures in Victoria) and where they were strong (perception of economic management).

The ALP and the Law of Line Extension

Labor seeks to govern for the majority, rather than narrowly play to a minority of voters. Unfortunately, you can’t be all things to all people. While Labor has successfully (tactically) pursued a widening group of swing voters in non-traditional areas and electorates, this has been to the long-term detriment of the Labor brand.

Labor focused on the “Middle Australia” of mortgage holders, small business people and voters with no traditional commitment to Labor. This won Labor a bunch of seats, federally and at a state level. However, in order to keep those seats, Labor alienated a lot of traditional voters and abandoned positions that long-term supporters cared about.

As the next Law explains, Labor needs to narrow its focus to build a leading position in the mind of the voter. It is better to be strong in a few leading areas, than weak across the board.

13. The Law of Sacrifice

You have to give up something in order to get something

The logical follow-on of the Law of Line Extension is the Law of Sacrifice, which says that you need to reduce your product line rather than expand it. Ries and Trout argue that winning strategies see companies focus on a single category, word or product. The main example they use is Federal Express in the US.

FedEx sacrificed the large package delivery market and aggressively went for the overnight delivery market. They built up a strong brand recognition for this market — and they “owned” the concept and category of “overnight”. This turned them into a massive business. When they then tried to get into the world-wide delivery market, they lost market-share and lost a lot of money. There are many other examples, for example in the clothing market — where successful brands focus only on particular sub-category. Nike makes only sports clothes (not formal wear); the Gap makes casual clothing; Armani makes only high-fashion, and so on.

The Law of Sacrifice is the corollary to the Law of Focus, but takes it further. It says to be successful, you need to sacrifice in three areas: product line, target market, and constant change. Successful brands focus on only a small number of products. They focus on a specific target market. And they resist the temptation to change strategy every financial year.

The ALP and the Law of Sacrifice

Labor’s electoral strategy has been in violation of the Law of Sacrifice. It has been an “all things to all people” strategy; a compromise strategy trying to please two widely divergent groups at once.

Look no further than the Murray Darling Basin plan that was announced recently by the MDB Authority. Led by a former Labor minister, it tried to chart a middle path between the competing demands of the irrigators and conservationists. On the one hand, farmers wanted the bulk of the MDB water for their crops; on the other, conservationists wanted the bulk of water for environmental flows. The compromise pleased no one and in fact, simply angered both.

Labour in the UK broke the Law of Sacrifice when it became seen as pandering to the City and big business, while at the same as introducing strong reforms like the minimum wage and paid parental leave. The incongruity exploded with the loans for peerages scandal, which damaged Labour’s perceptions in both the City and its traditional working-class constituency.

14. The Law of Attributes

For every attribute ther is an opposite, effective attribute

The Law of Attributes says that secondary brands shouldn’t copy the leader. They own the category’s leading words. Ries and Trout advise, instead, to own the opposite word. If Microsoft owns “enterprise”, then Apple owns “designer”. If IBM owns “big” (super computers) then Dell owns “small” (personal computers). The leaders have positive, successful attributes associated with their product or service.

If you end up emulating the winning attributes of the opposition, then you’ll fail. They own those attributes in the mind of the consumer.

Of course, not all attributes are equal. Going after attributes that are too niche, or are negative, obviously won’t work.

The ALP and the Law of Attributes

Labor needs to recognise its successful, powerful attributes it has, and not seek to emulate the Liberal/Nationals.

A good example of Labor’s failing in the Law of Attributes is the debate on uranium mining and export to India. Labor’s attribute of internationalism was a central plank in Labor’s history — establishing the United Nations, signing up to international treaties like Kyoto. We made our name on the world stage through our stellar success with multilateral negotiations on trade and whaling. Labor has always been a principled party and its consistency has gained Labor enormous international respect. We have always opposed the nuclear industry in Australia, and advocated nuclear disarmament.

The incremental steps towards greater acceptance of nuclear energy and uranium mining violates this attribute — and creates confusion for voters. A far better strategy (short of a principled opposition to uranium mining and nuclear energy altogether) would be to wholly embrace the nuclear industry. While this risks “copying” the Liberal/Nationals, it would at least be consistent — and Labor could position it as a solution to climate change (which it is not), which would be a way to tap into existing Labor issue categories.

It is also worth pointing out that the Law of Attributes in a political sense relies on consistency. The Liberals hammered home their primary positive attribute for a decade: “good economic management”. Labor under Rudd (except for a few periods on reconciliation, climate change and health in 2009/10) highlighted a dizzying array of political attributes. During the election, when our main slogan was “Moving Forward”, it was jettisoned (after Press Gallery mocking) after only a week or two. Under Gillard, the problem has been trying to emulate Liberal/National attributes on refugees, and the surplus/economic management. The obsession with “announceables” and the desire to feed the chooks meant that Labor never highlighted its own core, positive attributes.

My next post will cover the remaining Immutable Rules. In the mean time, it’s worth pointing out the warning that Ries and Trout give at the end of their book, which is that much of the advice in their book runs counter to corporate culture and deeply ingrained attitudes to selling products. Most corporations are obsessed with “benchmarking” (the practice of analysing the competitors’ products and services to get industry “best standards” and improving your own product to match or exceed those standards). Most corporations encourage brand extension. Advertising agencies continually want to try new things or appeal to more and more customer segments, rather than follow the Law of Focus.

The same attitudes exist in the ALP. Labor’s campaigning and electoral culture is stuck in a rut, and many decision makers are fixated on tactical victories and “winning” the evening news. There is a weariness to anything long-term, of repeating the same key message over and over, and pressure from all sides to have a policy for every occasion.

A good example of Labor’s unwillingness to learn and adapt is the paper written by David Peebles.

Marketing the ALP

Back in 2005, David Peebles wrote a paper called Marketing the ALP (download it here). While he uses buzz words like “strategic marketing” and “market intelligence” (explaining why few people would have read his paper), many of the conclusions and recommendations he makes are spot on. His key point, which is made in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, is that the “core product” (the Labor’s values) must be aligned to the “tangible product” (the leader, the policies, the candidates). A disconnect between these things creates a credibility gap amongst voters.

I encourage you to read through Peeble’s paper and reflect on the last 12 months, compared to 2007-09.

Related posts:

1. How the ALP violates the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (part1)
2. Lessons from the (Modern) Prince, Part 4: Understanding the Greens in Tasmania
3. Lessons from The (Modern) Prince, Part 1: The CPRS

Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote the “marketing bible” The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing back in 1994, and it remains a marketing classic even today. These two renowned marketing consultants explained that successful marketing follows rules or laws that are violated at a marketer’s peril.

For over a decade, the Australian Labor Party has routinely violated many (most!) of the laws of marketing, and  has paid the price. Except for a brief period in 2007, when it got its act together in the lead up to the “Kevin 07″ Federal Election, Labor’s record during this time has been one of systematically losing elections, losing “market share” (primary vote) and losing “brand advocates” (members).

This post goes through the first five “immutable laws”, briefly explains what it is and how the ALP has violated them. I note that some of the laws are followed (on purpose or inadvertantly), but they are the exception, not the rule. I will go through the other laws in later posts.

1. The Law of Leadership

It is better to be first than be better

The Law of Leadership is about convincing people that you are first in a particular market. This is because it is easier to persuade someone that you are first than it is that you are better. In marketing, the “leading” brand in a category is usually the first entrant into that category.

Because marketing is a battle of perceptions, people perceive that “if you are first, then you must be the best”. This is the case even if subsequent brands enter a category with a better product/service. Secondary entrants are seen as inferior, even if they are not.

The ALP and The Law of Leadership

In politics, marketing “categories” can be thought of as issue areas. Health, education, housing, climate change, national security, and gay marriage can be thought of as “categories”.

The ALP has historically been the category leader for many issue areas: workplace rights, health, education and so on. The traditional strong policy areas for Labor. Labor was founded on progressive outcomes on these policy issues. On these examples, the ALP follows the Law of Leadership.

However, the ALP has violated this law by trying to enter other categories and act as the “market leader” – such as on “economic management” and “national security” – issue categories where the Liberal/National Party are first. Beacuse politics is about perceptions, the ALP cannot be better at those issues because the Coalition was “first” — even if Labor has clearly better policies in these areas.

2. The Law of the Category

If you can’t be the first in a category, set up a new category that you can be first in

The Law of the Category relates to the concept in which the range of products or services are broken down into discrete groups of similar or related products/services. For example, the category of “computer” has sub-categories of “super computer”, “personal computer” “laptop” “tablet” “desktop computer” and so on.

Ries and Trout argue that if you can’t be the first in a particular category, try to find or create a new category. For example, in the category of “cars”, Toyota created a new category of “hybrid cars” in which it is now the global leader.In the world of marketing, “consumers” are always interested in what is new, not necessarily what is better. This is why a marketing strategy of producing a “better” product when you are the second entrant into a category is a failed strategy. It is very difficult to overtake the market-leader.

The ALP and the Law of the Category

I’ve already noted that categories can be seen as policy issue areas, and that the ALP is a leader in several established issue categories. A brief look at the Greens Party shows how political parties can create new categories and be a leader. While the ALP may own the general category of “equality and fairness”, the Greens Party have created a sub-category of “marriage equality” and become the market leaders. Even if the ALP supports same-sex marriage, the Greens Party were the first entrant in the minds of voters (this is not a reason for the ALP not to support same-sex marriage).

This is why the ALP should not talk about “green energy” or “green jobs”. It should create different categories of “clean energy” and “clean energy jobs” to own the issue category. The same goes for categories “owned” by other parties: “Accountability” = Democrats, “tough on border security” = Liberal/Nationals, “looking after forests” = Greens Party. It doesn’t matter how draconian Labor makes its refugee policy, voters will always perceive the Liberal/National Party to be the party that is “tough on boat people”.

The Law of the Category doesn’t mean come up with a new name for existing policy areas. It means thinking creatively about policy challenges and social pressures; the area and difference must also be meaningful. If the category is too small, it won’t matter.

3. The Law of the Mind

It’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace

Marketing, like politics, is a battle of perception. While policies (and products) are important, how they are perceived is more important. The Law of the Mind is about getting your idea or concept into the mind of your target audience (or consumer). Once an idea is there, it’s almost impossible to change (unless there is some major shock or trauma).

For example, Xerox will always be a photocopier company (despite their attempt to make computers), Microsoft will always be a large, evil corporation and a Labor government will always be a “tax and spend” government. In order to change established perceptions, you need to “blast” your way in. For example, Apple managed to blast into our minds with their ipod campaign, which allowed them to transform from a computer company to a media company.

Ries and Trout make the point that to get into the mind, it helps to have a simple product or service name. The simpler the idea is, the more understandable it is. In politics, “stop the boats” is more understandable than “regional processing”, and “axe the tax” is shorter and simpler than “the Clean Energy Future Act” or “carbon trading”.

The ALP and the Law of the Mind

The ALP is a serial offender against the Law of the Mind. While it is associated with certain categories (health, education, etc, as I’ve mentioned), it regularly wastes enormous time and effort trying to change people’s established perceptions. Similarly, it is “first” in people’s minds on a whole bunch of bad issues — like the knifing of Rudd or the “broken promise” on carbon pricing.

The goal of The Law of the Mind is to “own” a word or concept. At the moment, the Liberal/Nationals are trying to make Labor own the words “crisis” “incompetant” and “debt”. Similarly, the ALP is giving up its traditional ownership on words like “compassion” “equality” and “environment” — all to chase after the mind-share of concepts firmly embedded with the Liberals.

This is a classic problem that besets people who don’t understand how to use market research. Pollsters and focus groups would tell the ALP that they want a government that is “tough on boat people” and that ” marriage is between a man and a woman”. Labor’s response has been to “give the voter what they want”, as well as a shopping list of other attributes. This means Labor provides a draconian refugee policy, and Gillard’s pronouncements that she does not support same-sex marriage. Unfortunately, these concepts are already “owned” by the Liberal/Nationals. By chasing those concepts and that mind-share Labor is diluting its ownership over other words, allowing the Greens Party to snatch up the categories.

Additionally, Labor has missed the opportunity to capitalise on conceptual shocks that could have given it ownership over new concepts. The Global Financial Crisis was an opportunity for Labor to seize the mantle of “good economic managers” and how ruinous the Liberal/Nationals were. Instead, Labor spent the crisis talking about how close to ruin we came, then didn’t fight back against accusations of mismanagement (pink batts, school halls) and apologised for the debt. Now, three years later, Labor has yet again been sadled with the “debt” concept — and is reinforcing it by constantly talking about getting back into surplus (therefore highlighting that we’re in debt).

4. The Law of Perception

Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions

The quality of a product is not a determinate of how successful it will be in the market place. A good example is with smart phones. On every spec, the iphone has been outdone by one or more smartphones. Yet the iphone is still the most successful single model of smartphone on the market. Similarly, people take on associations with brands that no amount of marketing can change. When Coke famously introduced New Coke in the USA, market research and over 200,000 blind taste tests proved that it was a better product than Pepsi and “Coke Classic”. Despite a massive advertising campaign, New Coke was third, behind Pepsi and Coke Classic in first place.

The product itself is not central to marketing, it is the perception. Everyone knows that Volvos are the safest cars to drive. This is because Volvo owns the “safety” word, was the leader in the category of “safe cars” and because it has won the perception battle. Even when other brands like Toyota and Ford make cars that are safer than a Volvo, people will still associate Volvo with safety.

The ALP and the Law of Perception

Something I hear quite a bit in Labor is that “if only we had good policies”, then we’d be polling better. Or, “the problem is our bad/ill-conceived/left-wing/right-wing/etc policies”.

The Law of Perceptions means that how people interpret our policies is more important that the detail of the policy itself. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have policies, and it certainly doesn’t mean we should hand over policy-making to marketers, pollsters and focus groups.

What is means is that policies that run counter to people’s perceptions won’t change their mind. They’ve already made up their mind. Our policies should be made within the framework of our values and principles — which means, the positive issue categories that Labor “owns”.

People think that Labor is “weak” on boat people. No amount of tough policies on refugees will change that, no matter how detailed or considered the policy is in reality. The reason that the Liberal/Nationals have such an easy time of talking about policy is because marketing doesn’t happen “in reality”, it happens “in the mind”. They “own” “good economic management” in the mind of the voter, so it doesn’t matter that their costings are missing $70 billion in savings. It’s a losing battle and Labor shouldn’t fight it.

Labor should fight on its strengths. A good example is during 2007 when Labor started talking about “working families”. While the commentariat and many Labor supporters tired of this, it is founded in excellent principles because it created a new issue category and a new word for Labor to own. When polled about “who could manage the economy the best”, most people answered “the Liberals”. When asked “who could manage the economy the best for working families”, most people answered “Labor”. This is because “working families” was a sub-category of “the economy” — Labor was first in the category and because it linked to other issue categories that Labor was associated with (workplace rights, fairness, justice, etc), it won the battle of perceptions. The Liberals can own “the economy” but that was irrelevant as long as the policy debate was about “the economy for working families“.

5. The Law of Focus

The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind

The Law of Focus challenges us to boil our marketing message down to just one idea. Ries and Trout use the example of Coke, which for generations owned the word “refreshment”, while Hoover owned the word “vaccuum-cleaner” and Heinz owned the word “ketchup” (this is an American book afterall).

A key element to the Law of Focus is to resist “line extension” — trying to associate your brand with multiple products in different categories. They use the example of successful companies that have encountered trouble due to line-extension, such as IBM. IBM was once associated with “computers” but extended its brand to many different products across multiple categories, including software, satelites, and so on. As a result, those lines largely failed and the core business, computers, was undermined. Similarly, when Coke tried to extend its brand into clothing and fashion, it worked for a few years, and then the market crashed overnight, saddling Coke with millions of dollars worth of unsellable stock.

In politics, the Law of Focus means staying true to the central tenents of your party. The Liberals for example are damaging their brand by proposing “big government” policies rather than free-market ones (for example, their paid parental leave scheme and their direct action climate policy). Labor damages its brand through a “tough on refugees” policy and (less recently) its indefensible support for the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement back in 2004.

The ALP and the Law of Focus

You can’t be everything to everyone. Branching out into different areas can be dangerous, as it weakens the brand (or in the ALP’s case, the party) as a whole. Ries and Trout say, “No matter how complicated the product, no matter how complicated the needs of the market, it’s always better to focus on one word or benefit than two or three or four.”

This means Labor needs to kill the long, detailed policy explanations and the “policy announcement a day” approach. This is where Labor is unable to communicate about what it has achieved because we’re all over the place.

During the last Federal Election, Labor would announce a new policy every day, and sometimes several policies a day. We had no focus. Although we have lots of great policies, we should concentrate our effort and what we say to one key idea. Less is more. Too much policy information, too many “new” policies, too many new announcements.

The most successful time for Labor was when it spent months talking about the same issue: Rudd rode high on the back of months of talk about the CPRS, climate change and Copenhagen (and was let down because of unfulfilled expectations). Similarly, when he was tanking in 2010 against Abbott, he turned perceptions around by spending a month visiting hospitals and talking about health reform. Because of the focus, the message got through and people started to listen.

While this may infuriate the Canberra Press Gallery, who will complain bitterly on Insiders and in the pages of The Australian, we know that messages become stronger when they are narrowed and repeated.

Concluding thoughts

Marketing is a dirty word in some circles, but much of what Ries and Trout talk about is common sense, and if it were expressed without using the term “marketing” “segments” “products” or “brand”, it would largely be accepted as sound political advice.

(It’s worth acknowledging that although The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is a marketing classic, many contemporary marketers rail against it and consider many of the laws to be out of date or irrelevant.)

Reading books like Inside Kevin 07 and Looking for the Light on the Hill, which purport to be “insider” accounts of Labor from 2007 to 2010, it’s clear that Labor is trying to adopt modern marketing techniques. Unfortunately, while many of the methods of marketing have been adopted — direct mail, television advertising, market research and focus groups, the principles behind the marketing have not.

Because Labor’s membership has hollowed out, mass marketing techniques, branding, and positioning are all filling in the gap left by a once-active membership. Lots of active members serve as ambassadors and chamions for a cause, and ensure that internal forums and discussions are geniunely representative of the community at large. Market research can only go so far when, after the focus group is over, there is no one to champion the meaning behind the information and interpretation is left to party officials and ministerial advisors.

Labor, despite the fact that it regularly violates these laws, can turn itself around.

The discussion within Labor following the Bracks, Carr, Faulkner Review into the 2010 Federal Election has focused on rule reform. This is a red herring. Labor’s problem is not rules, or factions, it is that members don’t know what Labor stands for anymore. Because Labor has given up its issue categories, pursues ones that dilute its brand and has no focus. Strong values and a clear vision will assist with all five of these rules.

In the next post, I’ll cover more rules such as the Law of Exclusivity (why Labor can never own a Liberal concept) and the Law of Duality (why Australia will always have a 2 party system).

Related posts:

1. The ALP and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (part 2)
2. Essential reading: 10 Lessons From Barack Obama’s Online Marketing Strategy
3. Guerrilla marketing at work

In Australia, around 2 million working people are members of a union. Across the world, tens of millions more have joined their union. With the myriad public campaigns, collective bargaining, and workplace activity that unions engage in competing for attention from workers and the community, it is essential that unions effectively community and market their activities. We need to be able to cut through the noise and congestion.

This survey is aimed at understanding what kinds of marketing and communications activities take place within unions, what our strengths and weaknesses are, what our priorities are and where the gaps are. It is primarily aimed at communications and marketing, rather than the organising or industrial support work that unions undertake.

Although I’m in Australia and my experience with unions is Australian, I have tried to make this survey as “international” as possible.

Related posts:

1. Top social media tips for unions – UNI Global Union Communications talk
2. Best practice use of Facebook for unions
3. What union members want from their union's communications

All unions, progressive organisations and political parties produce advertisements (or collateral) — whether posters, brochures, leaflets, billboards and so on. We can easily measure whether the collateral has been successful by whether the intended audience actually stops and consumes the ad. “Where the eye stops, the sale begins” is an old advertising maxim.

With unions under pressure to compete for workers’ attention in an increasingly “noisy” space (workplaces, public areas, television, etc), and relying on limited resources, it is important that their collateral (posters, brochures, etc) are as effective as possible. New research by Rik Pieters, Michel Wedel, & Rajeev Batra into the effectiveness of ads should be of interest to union communicators and progressive designers. Decision makers — union secretaries, lead organisers, campaign managers and marketing managers — can also refer to this research to understand why it is important to invest in good design.

In their article, The Stopping Power of Advertising, in the Journal of Marketing, Pieters, Wedel and Batra distinguish between two elements of design: “feature complexity” and “design complexity”, and the two approaches to design in advertising: simplicity and complexity. They argue that feature and design complexity have different effects on attention and attitude towards the ad.

Feature complexity is defined as:

Advertisements that contain more detail and variation in their basic visual features, color, luminance, and edges are more complex… Researchers have examined this in computer and vision science under the general labels of “visual complexity” (Donderi 2006; Huhmann 2003) or “visual clutter” (Rosenholz, Li, and Nakano 2007).

Images that are high in feature complexity are “visually cluttered” which hinders people in understanding the purpose of the ad:

Advertisements high in feature complexity divert people from carefully looking at the brand, which reduces
attention to the advertisement as a whole… Because the brand receives less attention, people cannot easily determine what the advertisement is for and thus like it less. In general, the processing load caused by high levels of visual clutter should be liked less because consumers’ motivation and ability to process information are low under normal ad-viewing conditions.

Design complexity is very differently defined:

Alternatively, advertisements with more elaborate designs in terms of the shapes, objects, and patterns they contain are also more complex. Whereas feature complexity taps the unstructured variation in the visual features of image pixels, design complexity taps the structured variation in terms of specific shapes, objects, and their arrangements in the advertisement. Researchers have previously examined this under the general label of “complexity” or “structural complexity” (Arnheim 1954; Berlyne 1958; Cox and Cox 1988). Because it resides in the advertisement’s creative design, we call it “design complexity.” Decisions about design complexity are fundamental in ad development and under direct control of advertisers and ad agencies.

The design complexity is purposeful and engaging — and actually aids in the comprehension of the ad’s purpose by the viewer, and can help with the “glueing” process (that is, the stickiness of the ad).

Because the design complexity of advertisements mostly resides in the pictorial rather than in the brand or text, people should pay more attention to the pictorial, which will raise attention to the advertisement as a whole. Because the complex pictorial is more engaging, people are also expected to like the advertisement more.

Similarly, because design complexity “evokes midlevel perceptual processes” and “does not raise visual clutter”, a complex design does not necessarily make it harder for viewers to understand the ad.

The entire article is interesting — and filled with examples of ads with feature complexity and design complexity — but the takeaway is this:

Feature complexity is the density of visual detail in the advertisement in terms of color, luminance, and edges. It hurts brand attention and attitude toward the ad. Design complexity is the intricacy of the creative design of the advertisement in terms of its shapes, objects, and organization. It helps attention to the pictorial and to the advertisement as a whole, ad comprehensibility, and attitude toward the ad. These findings are important because design complexity is under direct control of advertising creatives, agencies, and advertisers. In addition, we proposed and found that visual complexity is distinct from brand identifiability (i.e., the difficulty or ease of identifying the advertised brand). Increased difficulty of identifying the advertised brand harmed ad comprehensibility. Jointly, this reveals that complex advertisements need not be complicated and that the question whether visual complexity harms or helps advertising performance critically depends on where the complexity resides: the features or the design of the advertisement. Feature complexity harms and design complexity helps ad performance.

Design matters. Stuffing your posters, leaflets, brochures, websites, etc, with visual details is actively counterproductive. Visual clutter in your marketing collateral makes it harder for people to understand what the ad is all about and to take away the information contained in the ad.

Having creative designs — designs that tell a story, are creative or aesthetic — actively makes the ad more effective. People look at the ad longer, the message is more “sticky”, has greater comprehensibility and attitudes are more positive.

I completely agree with Pieters, Wedel and Batra, who conclude by recommending that marketers invest in good design. Unions have limited resources at their disposal, and it makes sense to invest in a good designer, rather than waste money distributing poorly designed material that does not achieve its purposes or actively does damage.

Related posts:

1. Fluency, fonts and union design
2. “You look where they look”: research on design
3. The importance of design for political campaigns

Metlink has been sold a terrible marketing campaign to discourage fare evasion. According to Metlink’s media release:

With fare evaders taking more than 225,000 trips each weekday on Victoria’s public transport network, Metlink is stepping up its fight against fare evasion today with the launch of a new advertising campaign.

The campaign includes a television commercial that depicts fare evaders as scribbled out images that have no right to travel on Victoria’s public transport network.

Metlink spokesperson Michelle Herbert said with 13 per cent of passengers not paying their way, the carrying capacity of hundreds of trains, trams and buses are being taken up by freeloaders.

“Fare evaders are occupying valuable space that rightly belongs to fare-paying passengers,” Ms Herbert said.

The Metlink TV commercial was created by Marmalade, a Melbourne agency. The sketched characters represent fare evaders who take up seats and space from paying passengers.

Joel Pront, TVC director from Collider, said: “The idea that an apparently victimless crime like fare evasion is wrong, can be difficult to communicate. Perpetrators can shrug it off, and say that it’s harmless, that’s why the visualisation of this spot was so important.”

“We needed to develop this idea of the fare evader as a pariah, anti-social, unpleasant and a hindrance to the rest of society.”

Watch the video. Can you see what is wrong?

This ad campaign is about changing behaviour. It wants to stop people from fare evading by buying a ticket. I think this advertising campaign seriously misses the mark and may actually increase the number of fare evaders.

1. Firstly, the ad normalises fare evasion by showing how prevalent it is – there are often multiple fare evaders shown. Not only that, but the fare evasion goes unpunished. It creates the clear impression that not only is fare evasion common, but it is safe. Despite saying that there are more ticket inspectors than ever – it does not show them, or show a fare evader being caught.

2.The ad models the undesired behaviour rather than the desired behaviour. The desired behaviour is for passengers to buy tickets. Instead of modeling the desired behaviour, the ad shows people how to perform the undesired behaviour – right up to jumping the ticket barriers at the train station. It promotes and reinforces fare evasion.

3. The other passengers don’t disapprove of fare evaders. In fact, they don’t notice them at all. They don’t take up space and they aren’t a hindrance. The visual of fuzzy lines makes the fare evader non-threatening – certainly not the unpleasant. No one chastises or disapproves of the fare evader in the ad.

4. The fare evader is shown to be a “normal” person. This reinforces that “anyone could be a fare evader”. Fare evaders aren’t anti-social or unpleasant. They’re mop-haired hipsters. They’re your cousin or nephew. They could be anyone.

5. The point where evasion takes place is not mentioned. People chose to fare evade at the ticket gate – by not buying a ticket. This is the primary opportunity to create norms and model desired behaviour – in fact, for behaviour change, this is the main time you would want to model that behaviour.

Basically, this is a 45 second TV commercial promoting fare evasion, not advertising purchasing tickets. I would be very interested in seeing if there is any decrease in fare evading that could be directly attributed to this ad.

Big budget television ads, internet ads and mobile websites are great for making companies (or government agencies) thinking they are doing something – but in reality, nothing actually happens.

What could Metlink (or Marmalade) have done differently? Here are my ideas:

1. Model the desired behaviour – show passengers buying tickets.

2. Use social norms – to discourage fare evasion show people disapproving of the undesired behaviour. For example, the fare evader could be criticised by friends or other passengers.

3. Show the penalty (injuctive norm) – if the major penalty for fare evaders is a fine, show the fare evader getting caught.

4. Use descriptive norms to demonstrate how rare and uncommon fare evasion is – show the majority of passengers paying for their fare.

5. Use social diffusion to promote adoption of the desired behaviour – by emphasising the perceived risk of evasion and how the undesired behaviour is incompatible with values of target audience (e.g. “I’m not the kind of person to fare evade”).

The basis of these ideas is to focus on behaviour change – preventing fare evasion and promoting ticket buying. There’s plenty of research about how to effectively promote behaviour change. Television ads traditionally don’t do well in changing behaviour.

Related posts:

1. Dissecting the Greens Party election ads
2. Universities caught out by public service ethos

An interesting article from our friends across the ditch, about how to use social networking tools. Don’t act like a salesperson. Interact with your potential members/customers/voters in order to build a relationship with them.

Andrea Mitchell writes:

Obama’s campaign sure got it right through social media. As Obama adviser Scott Goodstein said: “Some people only go to MySpace. It’s where they’re on all day. Some only go to LinkedIn. Our goal is to make sure that each supporter online, regardless of where they are, has a connection with Obama. Obama had profiles on more than 15 social networks, including Facebook and MySpace. The count for this success: 3 million online donors, 5 million “friends” across 15 social network platforms (3 million on Facebook alone), nearly 2 000 official YouTube videos watched more than 80 million times, with 135 000 subscribers and 442 000 user-generated videos on YouTube. The list goes on.

Web 2.0 is all about the conversation. Smart politicians (and unions, and businesses) ignore the platform (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and are present where their voters (customers/members) are. If they are on Facebook, be on Facebook. If they are on Twitter, be on Twitter. If they are everywhere, be everywhere. If they are only one place, be there.

People on those social networks don’t want to be sold things. They don’t want a cookie-cutter experience. They want customisation, simplicity and an experience with a real human being. Communicate, don’t sell.

Related posts:

1. Social Media for Unions E-Book
2. Retweeting for fun and advocacy
3. Four pillars of social networking

Unions have little hesitation in spending thousands of dollars, in some cases tens of thousands of dollars, on printed communications – leaflets, posters, newsletters, fact-sheets, stickers and so on.

At the start of a campaign, the first thing many union officials think is: “we need an A4 leaflet and a poster for this campaign”. Unfortunately, a great deal of this money is wasted, due to poor design of materials.

Printed communications should be consistent, have a professional standard of design, and be clearly written.

All communications should be “on message” – and this message should be determined at the start of the campaign. Print communication strategies, like media and public relations strategies, need to be integrated into the main campaign plan. Throughout the campaign, printed materials should keep a common visual style: fonts, colour palette and images.

A lot of union communication materials do not follow basic design principles. This undermines the union’s efforts, wastes time and resources, and can confuse members.

So, here are six tips on producing effective printed communications for union campaigns.

1. Know and write for your audience

Union campaign materials will likely be seen by a diverse number of people. A leaflet intended for members could be seen by the employer. A poster for the community will be seen by members. Despite this, each piece of printed communication should consider its audience.

Think about the concerns and needs of your audience. Communications aimed at members should be different from that aimed at non-members. Keep in mind that your material will be seen by someone other than your intended audience.

For example, in the university sector, some material must specifically address students, rather than staff. While staff are concerned about job security and workloads, this is unlikely to concern most students. Instead, the communications could focus on the effects of high workloads and lack of job security – class sizes, less one-on-one time with tutors and lecturers, quality of education and so on.

In the health sector, unions would need to produce material aimed at patients and their families. These could focus on positive health outcomes that would come from nurses, doctors and paramedics that are not over worked.

2. Have simple, clean design

All union printed communication should be of a professional standard. The materials that our members see day in and day out from other sources (government, employer, advertising) is generally of high quality. There is an expectation that their union appear professional in their printed communications.

Newsletters and leaflets should be visually simple, and should emphasise the content. Fonts and the text should be readable. Do not use a wide variety of fonts for each piece of material. The campaign should have an established style – and the union should also of course have a style guide.

A lot of union communications I see make three common mistakes, rendering the material almost useless.

1. Small, crammed text: the text size is too small – size 9 or even smaller. Ideally, all text in a paragraph (body text) should be between size 10 and 11. This reads well in almost all formats
2. Too much text: Many union publications are overly long and poorly edited. For leaflets and even newsletters, keep the amount of text to a minimum. Write your article, then re-write it and try to reduce the number of words by a quarter.
3. Mismatched colours: Poor colour choices, such as red text on a blue background or similar design errors can render a leaflet or poster unreadable. Additionally, sometimes text goes over a photo or image and cannot be easily read due to contrast.

3. Ensure there is lots of white space

Many union publications like to cram as much information into a leaflet as possible. This reduces the readability of the material. Thick areas of empty space, as borders and between paragraphs increases readability. It may feel like it is wasting space, but research shows that crowded pages decreases readers’ ability to understand and retain information.

4. Large, descriptive headlines

Research shows that most union members only browse through union publications, rather than reading each article individually – eight out of ten people will read a headline, but only two out of ten actually read the text of the article. This means that the headlines or titles in an article, newsletter, leaflet or poster could be the only thing a member reads.

These headlines therefore should be as descriptive as possible, and should be emphasised in the design of the material. The reader should be able to get as much information  as possible, without the headline turning into a long sentence.

5. Use dot points and avoid large slabs of text

Everyone has different levels of education, reading ability and vocabulary. Union publications especially should ensure that they can be read by as many people as possible.

It is not just unions with high levels of non-English speaking backgrounds who should keep things simple; white collar unions in the public service or academia must recognise that the rules of Plain English apply.

Using dot points to convey information is a useful way of condensing complex information, and emphasising important points.

Dot points can also increase readers retention of information.

6. Highlight important information using text boxes and quotes

Newspapers and magazines do this all the time. They take out interesting or informative quotes from an article and emphasise them. This can also be done by putting important information in a text box that is highlighted and differentiated from the surrounding text.

Alongside the headline or title, this information may be the only thing that the reader actually takes in.

Related posts:

1. Top social media tips for unions – UNI Global Union Communications talk
2. What union members want from their union's communications
3. Union print design resources

Database entrepreneur Robert Moore has uncovered a vast guerrilla marketing campaign being waged across the US, and potentially at a global level.

Across America, yard signs advertising localised online singles and dating services point towards an enormous data collection effort. The signs point towards dating sites with a domain-name linked to that town, suburb or locality (e.g. [name]dating.com).

The website is little more than a front for a national data collector; with 1000s of sites registered, each site asks the same questions and collects the same data. The dating company or companies (or contractors) are then responsible for placing yard signs across America.

This campaign, which has been going on for at least two years, potentially nets $1,000,000s, and is hidden behind a veil of secrecy, with obscured domain name registration.

Related posts:

1. Why using free web services for your union campaign website is a bad move
2. Essential reading: 10 Lessons From Barack Obama’s Online Marketing Strategy
3. The ALP and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (part 2)