Politicians ought to leave marketing to the marketers

I suppose it’s a backhanded compliment to marketing that its terminology has become part of a wider vocabulary. So all manner of people and organisations, many of whom would not know a market if you served it up on a plate with watercress, airily pontify on, say, branding.

Most famous of the converts is, of course, Tony Blair. Convinced that the rebranding of Labour had won him an election, he imagined he had discovered the philosopher’s stone and, with the unbridled ambition of the neophyte, set about rebranding the entire country. Undaunted by failure, he is now embarked on a form of global rebranding to be achieved by force of arms where necessary.

There seems no end to the gullibility of politicians who fall under the spell of marketing. The latest victim, somewhat surprisingly, is the coldly forensic Michael Howard, who has just made a fool of himself by taking out a two-page ad in The Times to spell out a list of commonplaces masquerading as political philosophy.

The man behind the idea was Maurice Saatchi, which should at last nail the lie that he is an exceptionally astute fellow whose achievements include masterminding Mrs Thatcher’s first election victory. Is there any evidence to suggest that the “Labour Isn’t Working” poster had any significant effect on the voters?

At any rate, let us swing the telescope away from the big political horizon and focus instead on the closer-to-hand jumble of houses, litter, kebab shops and urban mish-mash that is the London Borough of Ealing. Why? Because Ealing, too, thinks it knows a thing or two about marketing. The Times reports that all staff on the council recently attended a workshop on “brand alignment techniques”. The council’s Director for Consumer Engagement and Innovation said it would “make the difference in delivering our customer service excellence.”

I know only two things about Ealing. The first is that it contains within its boundaries the evil Hanger Lane gyratory system, a suburban black hole from which few motorists escape in the same mental condition in which they entered it. The second is a limerick, recalled from adolescence, concerning a young lady from Ealing, who had a most peculiar feeling. I shall spare you the rest of the rhyme, other than to mention that it concerns an alignment of sorts, though not one pertaining to brands.

So what on earth does the borough think it is up to, sending its entire staff – numbering no doubt a legion of outreach counsellors, equality officers, tobacco control managers, inclusion directors, and five-a-day local area co-ordinators – on a brand alignment workshop at the expense of the local taxpayers?

Granted, we have the assurance of the Director for Consumer Engagement and Innovation (beware of anyone who thinks it is a measure of his or her importance that their job title is capitalised) that it will make the difference in delivering customer service excellence (beware, too, people who use adjectival nouns in an attempt to invest platitudes with meaning).

Such an assurance, however, gets us nowhere. What does the Director for Consumer Engagement and Innovation (is he or she going to innovate consumers? Sounds sinister to me) mean by “make the difference”? Is this by any chance an admission that before brand alignment awareness enveloped them in its warm understanding and lifted the scales from their eyes, the worker ants of the London Borough of Ealing were falling down on the job?

We have still to discover what brand alignment awareness is. Thankfully, The Times has an answer: “It is the meshing of internal and external brand perceptions, it empowers an organisation to identify and shape core messages for an external audience. This ensures that the corporate image and identity are synchronised and moving in concert. What is it in practice? Who knows? But branding agencies like to mention it on their training days for public sector organisations.”

The folly of all this is that Ealing is affecting to operate in a market, whereas in truth it does no such thing. In a real functioning market, consumers have choice, which they exercise through their spending. In Ealing, as in all government local and central, choice is restricted to occasional elections, money is abstracted from the consumers’ pockets under threat, and spending is conducted on their behalf, more often than not in the most foolish and wasteful ways imaginable. That is the way we run government and although it almost certainly could be done more efficiently, broadly speaking that is the way it has to operate.

So be it. But let us not pretend that it has anything to do with marketing. If the residents of Ealing do not wish to be either innovated or engaged by a director whose pay comes from their pockets, there is nothing they can do about it other than move to another borough. If the rubbish bins are not emptied, the streets are not cleaned, the crack addicts are not moved on, and the parks are not safe places to go, what comfort is it that the council’s corporate image and identity are moving in concert and synchronised, even, dare I say, to a pleasing Afro-Caribbean beat?

Ealing has a website with a search engine. When I tapped in “brand alignment” I found that “no documents matched that query”. However, “Frequently Asked Questions” produced “How to Find Us”. I don’t think I’ll bother.