Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. There are a thousand case studies waiting to be written on the subject. Whatever your take on it the comms and marketing hasn’t exactly been a roaring success.
by PANEL WRITER Richard Elwell
My god, you can't move for BREXIT can you?
With what feels like 50 million articles written about Article 50, it seems to me that whichever side you sit on, the EU missed a trick by not communicating anywhere near enough with it's target audience of 508 million citizens.
Picture the scene; there you are as a Commissioner, President or Diplomat watching your cherished institution rapidly lose its lustre within a major market (UK plus others) with the only people seemingly interested in what you do being your opposite numbers in Brussels or Strasbourg.
If this had been a commercial business looking at its brand health dials, the alarms would've been going off way before the need for a referendum. Just consider the shortcomings of the EU 'brand' for a minute:
• Lots of disenchanted customers with fuzzy understandings of what the EU actually does - so a BRAND PERCEPTION/RELEVANCE ISSUE.
• Rookie, competitor brands such as UKIP/La Pen, Geert Wilders and friends avidly pumping the hustings and gnawing away at your MARKET SHARE.
• A huge swathe of your subjects thinking that you're a bunch of autocratic rip off merchants - so PRICE POINT / VALUE FOR MONEY issues.
• Distinct lack of ENGAGEMENT AND CONVERSION rates during European elections for MEP's (at last count less than 40%).
Blimey - book some focus groups quick! We need to do something my Euro chums before our continental presence is diminished and our brand damaged immeasurably. What about conversing with our audience and making a case for what we do? What do we stand for beyond politics? What do people want from us to stem the disenchantment?
But no, nothing.
Save for a few more sign posts telling folks that this building or minibus was part funded by a EU grant.
It’s just a shame that no-one bothered to heed the bigger, more prominent warning signs that had been flashing for years.
Richard Elwell is creative partner at One Black Bear
image via Allen Leonard
