So the election is well underway and all the party manifestos have been launched. Gordon Brown formally kicked off Labour’s campaign with the cabinet at his side at the swanky new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. Cameron opted to launch at Battersea Power Station – with its crumbling façade apparently a metaphor for the Labour government. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems opted for a fairly plain looking conference room, somewhere in the UK. It looked like UKIP launched its manifesto in someone’s front room.

Of course, all parties focused on their plans for economic recovery, with investment in green infrastructure, high speed rail, civic service and taxes all making an appearance.

However, sport – in fact, the whole arts and culture brief – is often overlooked when it comes to election time.

Labour offered the most on sports policy – focusing on both elite and grassroots sport and succeeded in capturing some of the wider, holistic benefits of sport. Many involved in sport will be disappointed by the relative lack of ideas from the Conservatives.

Hugh Robertson, the Conservative shadow sports minister, is an intelligent and influential figure who has floated a number of sound policies in recent months, but his input into the manifesto looks limited.

As ever, the Liberal Democrats bang the drum for grassroots sport and protecting playing fields and outdoor space – but there’s nothing new of note.

With London 2012 looming on the horizon, each party did its best to capitalise on the Games.

The Tories pledged to deliver an Olympic legacy of physical activity with a national Olympic-style school competition, while Labour committed to 3,000 new Olympic-inspired sports clubs and a new culture of volunteerism following the Olympics.

The Games already account for a large part of funding and sponsorship opportunities available, and many other sports or culture bodies struggle to compete with the profile of London 2012. Both the Lib Dems and Tories acknowledged this, and promised to return the National Lottery to its original funding levels for sports, the arts and heritage.

Each party pledged support (note the word ‘support’, not ‘funding’) for other major events in the pipeline – the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014; the 2013 Rugby League and 2015 Rugby Union World Cups and the 2018 Football World Cup bid. That line up will have every prospective sports minister licking their lips.

I should probably touch on the whole fan-ownership issue. Don’t get too excited. The closest we came was Labour’s pledge to ‘develop proposals to enable registered Supporters Trusts to buy stakes in their club’. The Conservatives stayed well clear of the whole issue in their manifesto, so expect the debate around the governance and transparency of football to rumble on for a while yet.

Whoever wins the next election, the sports, arts and culture budgets will face significant cuts. After 2012, the money simply won’t be around to be pumped into sports and major event bids. But the future is bright – participation in sport is going up, Leicester City are nearing the playoffs and by 2015 we might have a rugby team good enough to beat the Irish, which would be nice.

This blog post has been written for Synergy by Nick Carter from Engine public affairs agency and sports politics experts, Mandate.

By Synergy on April 14th, 2010

Tags: Consultancy, DCMS, General election, Sponsorship, Sport

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With the general election looming ever closer, the media is crammed full of stories discussing the wonderful world of politics. Whilst I’d be the first to admit skimming through this section in the paper to get to the sport and celeb pages, an article by Daniel Finkelstein in today’s Times caught my attention.

Finkelstein discusses the concept of the brand, using author Martin Lindstrom’s example of the curved Coca-Cola bottle as one of the most recognisable and best-loved icons, to the point that it can be considered “smashable”. If dropped on the ground, and smashed into a hundred pieces you would still be able to recognise what it is from any one of those pieces.

He goes on to explain that “consumers purchase the product as much for what it says about them, and how it makes them feel, as for what it does. The product is much more than functional; it is part of their identity.”

This idea isn’t new in itself, and I’m sure we can all bring to mind a couple of brands that, for us, fall into this category. However, the twist that took this down a new angle for me was Finkelstein’s application of the concept to the Conservative party. We’re all aware of the photos of David Cameron cycling through London and visiting local schools and we understand that public perception is crucial in the popularity polls, but surely in this case we don’t “purchase” based on how this makes us feel? Isn’t it policies on the NHS, education and taxes that decide who gets out vote?

Think again, according to research by the BBC it appears that we absorb far more about the character and broad messages of our political parties than the individual policies they promote. All the more important then that the parties remain true to their brand positioning as any deviation from this could have a bigger impact on voters than they might realise.

Just goes to demonstrate once again, the power of the brand and it’s personality over our decision making in all areas of life. Thanks @Dannythefink – I’ll definitely be keeping a closer eye on the positioning of our political parties ahead of the election, whilst challenging the norm to see if one or two actual policies creep through.

By Kelly Russell on March 10th, 2010

Tags: BBC, Brand marketing, David Cameron, Default, General election, Politics, Public relations, Television

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