Liberal Communicators Network

5 Secrets from a Spin Doctor

Do not miss the secrets of the spin doctor and communications guru Nick Clelland. Listening to one of his talks, even those with experience in communication and marketing begin to doubt their methodological skills. As one of the youngest ever, he became a Member of Parliament in South Africa in 1999 at the age of just 27. Today he is retired from being a politician and works as a political and strategy consultant instead. As such, he compares his role to that of a former criminal who now works as a criminologist. Following his strategy, we present you five valuable communication secrets that can be applied equally well in any case of political campaign, civil society or economy.

Change the understanding of the word: “Brand”

A brand strategy is often perceived as a complex structural concept for which external, expensively paid brand gurus need to be consulted. Nick breaks the word down and sees it simply as who you are and what you are for the world. A brand is neither a concept, a slogan, a logo nor a statement. A brand is the feeling you get when you are exposed to the thing, the person, the party, the entity. Everything and everyone has such a feeling, no matter if country, city, politician, product or institution. Under certain circumstances like the Covid pandemic, even boring institutions like the WHO can trigger extremely strong feelings without knowing their logo or slogan. The feeling that someone triggers when they enter a room is automatically their brand. So for any form of political and social communication, it is important to consider if and how: “Am I able to control what people feel when they come into contact with my institution?”

Choose the feeling you want to radiate and push it to the limit

Once you have decided on a feeling, it is essential to stick to it. No matter what kind of communication you use, it must always serve as a vehicle to communicate your feeling. Just like Nike, which consistently radiates the feeling of winning and excellence, you must hold on to your feeling in everything you do along your mission. Every picture, every statement, every conversation, every time someone even thinks of you, must create that feeling. Even if it seems intuitively almost too monotonous and it begins to tire you, you have to stick to it because only then do people begin to associate you with it.

If it does not fit the feeling, don’t do it

It is important to stay disciplined over time. Especially smaller institutions like NGOs with less strong budgets for advertising tend to use every opportunity they get to implement a random project that brings good coverage. According to Nick, however, this is exactly what should be avoided, no matter how attractive it may seem at the time, because it only dilutes the brand identity. Strict discipline regarding the brand is essential, even if it means that you only gain reach slowly but sustainably.

Driving issues, not topics

Nick explains what sounds complicated at first like this:

The Holy Grail of political communication is to reach the family dinner with your emitted content. However, you don't achieve that by just addressing broad and socially relevant topics and expressing your opinion on them. Rather, you should find a very specific issue for yourself and take a position on it that automatically communicates your opinion on the overall topic. He refers to a specific example from his active time in South African politics. Instead of demanding more security like every other politician of every other party, the demand has emerged to equip every single police officer with bulletproof armor in the future. The demand not only automatically communicated the position on security, but also triggered a highly emotional debate in politics and the society about the protection of law enforcement officers. The key is to stick to this issue. By pushing the issue further and further, you automatically create a name for yourself over time, an association with the issue in society and a reputation for the values involved in the issue. Nick sees finding issues that are suitable for one's own brand as the treasure hunt that all political and social actors should constantly be on, because an issue that fits one's own brand is nothing less than political gold.

Three rules for your issue

Finally, here are the three characteristics that an issue should have in order to be truly suitable and successful in the long term. The first rule is choosing only a fight that generates the feeling from your brand strategy. You need to stay on message. Second, there must be a crisp binary for or against. Yes or no. You choose one side that you can campaign for and that your market believes in. The binary nature of your issue creates conflict. Do not fear to edge on because conflict is your friend. Last, you need an enemy that must want to fight you as much as you want to fight them. Because if someone does not push back there is no conflict. Also, make sure to always take on someone who is bigger and more powerful than you. You pick on the president, on another party or a significant economic or civil entity.

Internalizing these 5 guidance points will make it easier for you to take the impact of your institution's future communication to the next level.

Liberal Communicators Network

As part of the Liberal Communicators Network (LCN), a cooperation project of the European Liberal Forum and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the participants had the opportunity to learn from Nick Clelland on message discipline and brand identity. Nick has trained political and government leaders around the world since 2002 and is an accredited Leadership Coach. He is the author of ‘Spin - the Art of Managing the Media’ (Penguin Randomhouse 2019) and his debut novel is scheduled for publication in 2024.

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