Re-branding The Political System -- and Politicians?

In a recent speech on Branding, Peter Economides, the branding guru, mentioned the need to "re-brand" Greece. During his speech, he also mentioned that there is a crisis in Greece, but the crisis it is not exclusively Greek -- but it is a global crisis.

It got me thinking.

{By the way, it was the first time I heard Economides speak on brands, branding, and re-branding. And re-branding a country, no less!


What if the crisis is because we are tired of the old, greying, brands many of us live in? Our political systems, our politicians, our democracies and pseudo-democracies...

Do we need to re-brand our political system or at least re-brand our political  procedures and processes?
What if people are no longer buying the "political brand" any more: the people and the processes and procedures?

Economides points out that "brand is what people think of you" or, simply put, your reputation. "Branding is the process of managing what people think of you".
Useful, easy to remember and nifty definitions: clear and to the point.


In terms of politicians, the brand erosion is not very surprising. Look at what we had and what we have now. Take Churchill, for example. Whatever you may think of Winston Churchill, no-one can really ignore him.
In other words, Churchill was a strong brand and he delivered. In fact, you can tell many things by just looking :

Churchill, left; Stalin, right; Roosevelt, middle.

Churchill's cigar was his logo. As was his drinking -- part of his branding, perhaps.

Now compare these guys with the mediocre, featherweight politicians of today -- I will not choose any, to each his or her own.

Or, how about bankers?

Compare and contrast, say, Giannini (Bank of America) with anyone current; how inventive is the current one?

Compare and contrast JP Morgan, or Warburg or Rothchild, or J Merrill with what we get today; think of Merrill's ten commandments. That was back in 1949..

Of course, there is one revolutionary concept in recent years: microcredit. prof Muhamad Yunus' Grameen Bank. That was revolutionary. It still is.

But for the rest: nondescript, unremarkable, indifferent -- and except for exceptionally high incomes, that is!

Meant to be a random "institution"

Methinks the brand has lost its luster; to paraphrase our friend Economides, maybe the political system, our fundamental institutions and related personalities, have lost their reputation -- i.e the brand was lost somewhere along the historical way.




So, on a more positive note, is our way out of the global crisis just a matter of reviewing and re-branding our political and financial institutions and their minions? 

Is it just a case of urgent rebranding?

Let's call Economides!