Political vibe meets branding: Different feelings parties exude

After an approximate two-week campaign period, it is finally election day in Singapore tomorrow. In the past two weeks, the 11 political parties have been aggressively campaigning in hopes of gaining votes from Singaporeans. In light of the different stances that these political parties have on how to govern our country, branding agency Sedgwick Richardson has created a series of illustration portraying the different feeling the parties give off. The illustrations showed the opening of a door, and incorporated the parties' logos as well as their hashtags for this election campaign.

In a statement to Marketing, Dominic Mason, managing director of Sedgwick Richardson said the theme of the series is the metaphor of "opening the door on tomorrow". According to the agency, the theme came about as all eleven contesting parties have one thing in common – the promise of a brighter tomorrow. The aim of the series is to capture the overall feeling of the General Election 2020 (GE2020), the "spirit of the times". The agency also clarified that it does not have any association with any particular political party.

According to Mason, the agency had taken a similar initiative during the last General Election in 2015, where it profiled the contesting parties through superhero personas. Having found the challenge quite inspiring five years ago, the team decided to repeat the initiative this year.

"Our take on this representation is reflected in the heading of the 11 political party illustrations. For GE2020, it is not just the visual metaphors of the logos that we considered in each of our 11 political party illustrations. It is also the meaning of the names [of each political parties] and the messages in their hashtags," Mason said. He added that as a whole, the symbolism of most of the party logos is direct and easy for people to understand. Some are perhaps more abstract and open to interpretation.

Check the series out here, and see if you can match the illustrations to the political party:

When it comes to drawing a parallel between creating a political logo and a brand logo, Mason said the creation processes are different. In a commercial branding world, logos are typically regarded as only part of a bigger ecosystem, one in which other elements and assets define brand experiences. This is vastly different for political ‘brands’ where identity systems take a back seat and the focus being more on symbols, messaging and brand voice to connect with people of different languages and literacy levels, according to Mason. That being said, Mason also said commercial branding can learn from political party branding in establishing a clear brand purpose, an inspiring statement of a desired new world, and an answer to an existential "why?". 

According to Mason, the key factors when it comes to creating a political logo is simplicity, relevance, differentiation, and consistency. With these traits, it will hopefully bring about longevity for the political brand logo. Mason also said that the purpose and essence of the political logo has to be conveyed in a simple and direct manner. This is why political parties tend to use familiar shapes such as hearts, stars, and sun. "Anything too cryptic will be hard for the general public to relate to," he added.

The GE2020 has been a hot topic for the past two weeks, and brands have been quick to jump in on the conversation. Days after the GE2020 started, Twitter launched a special emoji to amplify and empower the ongoing conversation surrounding it. The emoji is available via multiple hashtags and will run until 17 July. To activate the emoji, users can use these hashtags - #SingaporeElection, #SGElection, #SingaporeVotes, #SGvotes, and #GE2020. Separately, brands were also seen running social ads and making reference to deputy prime minister's nomination speech in which he used the phrase "we have a plan for East Coast". Nando's, Caltex, and Circles.Life were among the local brands who took a quick jab at it. Neighbouring countries joined in the conversation as well, with Malaysia and Thailand tourism bodies taking the opportunity to promote their East Coast travel destinations.

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