Is Mr C really Mr K or only Sunny D? Should we blame marketing for political spin?

For quite a long time, 15 years or so, I've had a nagging, amorphous suspicion at the back of my mind. I've chosen not to take it out and examine it more carefully in case I didn't much fancy what I found. Better to leave it there, I thought. If it stays in the dark it may shrivel up and go away. But while still amorphous, it's continued to nag – so I finally decided to confront it.

The suspicion is this. A couple of the most questionable techniques of political persuasion, from the dubious to the despicable, seem to have been lifted from commercial marketing and advertising.

Is this suspicion well founded? If not, why not? If these techniques are dubious and despicable when used for political purposes, why are they not dubious and despicable when used for commercial purposes? Or is there some fundamental difference in principle that allows us, without hypocrisy, to condemn the one while continuing to practise the other? You can see why I was happy to leave my suspicion unexamined and tucked away for so long in a corner of my attic.

MY CONCERNS ARE THESE

Political parties once based their appeal on the promotion of their policies. Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell changed all that. They understood about brands; they understood that voters see political parties as consumers see products: not as an itemised list of functional benefits but holistically and emotionally. Yes: the scrapping of Clause Four was of huge significance to party workers and political commentators – but of far greater significance to the wider electorate was the choice of Tony Blair as leader: young, articulate, enthusiastic, full of hope and optimism; as good as classless, deeply reassuring to southerners and the middle classes; as valuable to his party for what he wasn't as for what he was. Mandelson was surely right: irrespective of policies, Gordon Brown could never have epitomised New Labour as seductively and wordlessly as Blair so triumphantly did.

Despite the Thatcher phenomenon, the Conservative Party failed to follow suit. Perhaps they refrained on principle, believing the deliberate personalisation of parties to be meretricious. Perhaps they simply didn't get it. Looking back, it's clear that under Hague, Duncan-Smith and Howard the Tories never stood a chance. Now that they've got David Cameron, they do. With no high-profile change of direction – with no equivalent to the ditching of Clause Four – perceptions of the party have begun to change. As polls make clear, the electorate's approval of specific Conservative policies has measurably increased – even when those policies have yet to be announced. This, in spades, is an example of the blind versus named product test phenomenon: nobody knows what the policies are but Cameron's are significantly preferred. The name is the only variable.

It used to be said that you couldn't sell a political party as though it were a washing powder. Now it seems that you can't sell one any other way.

ARE WE RIGHT TO FEEL UNEASY?

On reflection, and on this particular issue, I think not. I believe that the majority of people have always chosen their parties as they've chosen their washing powders: on an indivisible blend of function and feeling. It's a perfectly respectable way to arrive at any choice and modern party managers are entirely right to recognise the fact (see Figure 1).

But it is a blend – and that's what saves us. Any politician, just as any brand manager, who believes that all you need is an appealing image – just punt the sizzle and forget the steak – is in for a painful piece of re-education. Feeling without function is never enough – or at least not for long. Had Mr Kipling not made exceedingly good cakes, he'd never have become brand leader. By contrast, Sunny Delight was something of a disappointment. We still don't know if Mr C is a Mr K or only Sunny Dave. People – be they voters or consumers – can spot an empty image from a hundred paces and will eventually reject it. Their rejection will be contemptuous and absolute – and in that lies our insurance. Politicians, too, can be caught marketing.

The longevity of the Blair brand seems to challenge this optimistic interpretation but I think it's explicable. It began as a strong brand – not least because it was almost without challenge. Strong brands acquire one priceless characteristic: they are more readily forgiven by their supporters. Persil was able to survive the Persil Power publicity and return to supremacy mainly because its users wanted it to. Blair, until recently, and in the absence of any beguiling alternative, has been largely forgiven for his many functional failings. It won't look so good in retrospect, however – and I very much doubt if any future political leader will ever be granted such a lengthy stay of judgement.

SPIN VERSUS HYPERBOLE

At question time after a lecture once, I was asked to define the difference between spin and hyperbole. Fortunately, I can't remember how I answered; I know only that I failed. It took me until the following day to work out what I should have said.

Hyperbole doesn't seek to mislead on elemental matters. It may seek to imply that white is whiter than white – or that my white is whiter than your white – but it never sets out to imply that white is black. Spin does. That's the big distinction. Spin sets out deliberately to distort a fundamental truth. And, for me, the most despicable form of spin is what's called conflation.

It's a little unfair on the word conflation, which simply means the merging or blending of two things to make a single whole. Political conflation usually involves something a great deal more sinister than that.

In the western world, and primarily in America, tens of millions of people are convinced that the invasion of Iraq was a direct and necessary response to the events of 11 September 2001. They hold that conviction because they have been knowingly and cynically invited to hold that conviction through a sustained programme of conflation. If you blame Saddam Hussein for 9/11 often enough, and for long enough, and with the backing of the most imposing of authorities, then the two become one. Two factually unrelated occurrences have been conflated; and one of the most deliberate and shameless of lies has become, for countless people, a sort of truth.

Advertising and marketing have long been aware of the value of simple association: often to compensate for some perceived weakness in a brand's reputation. Factory-made products present themselves in sylvan settings; a menthol cigarette is clear as a mountain stream; Captain Birds Eye lends a whiff of sea salt to the humble fish finger; jeans made in Taiwan borrow heavily from the imagery of the Wild West. This technique, I suppose, is a form of conflation – the blending of two conflicting sets of values – and I think I could convince quite a lot of people of its fundamental dishonesty. I can't, however, convince myself.

While not harmless hyperbole, neither is it the knowing perpetration of a demonstrable lie. To my immense relief, I can find no commercial equivalent to the 9/11–Saddam Hussein conflation. The use of attractive associations serves much the same purpose as attractive packaging: adding both to a brand's appeal and its users' enjoyment. And whenever it's employed to disguise some more functional deficiency, we can again take comfort from people's innate ability to spot an empty image and choose not to vote for it again.

That marketing and advertising emerge as reasonably innocent from this brief analysis is not to suggest that we're all people of high-minded principle. The need to win votes on a daily basis is at least as effective in keeping us honest as the Advertising Standards Authority. If politicians, too, had to face daily elections I can't help feeling that they'd suddenly rediscover the attractions of truth.

This article featured in Market Leader, Autumn 2006.

NOTES & EXHIBITS

FIGURE 1: DAVID CAMERON: IS THERE SUBSTANCE BEHIND THE STYLE?