Let’s Talk: Rebranding Politics

BREAKING
NEWS:

The
following draft memo was leaked to us by an anonymous member of Nobody’s Bitch hacktivist group: 

DOUBLETHINK REBRANDING AGENCY

DRAFT MEMO

for internal discussion and comments only

    

TO: all
Doublethink consultants

CC: Newspeak
Media Ltd.

FROM:
Doublethink Rebranding Services

SUBJECT: the
upcoming global networking event

The Preliminary Programme 

for the International
Populist Summit:

‘The Populist Toolkit’

PANEL DISCUSSION:  

THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING
AND PACKAGING YOUR PRODUCT TO SUIT THE NEEDS OF YOUR TARGET MARKET

GUEST SPEAKERS:

Weazel von Toff, the
acclaimed author of Showmanship and
Opportunism:  How to Connect with Your
Target Audience. The Modern Populist’s guide to dressing and talking like the
‘man of the people’

Moptop Simpleton,
motivational speaker and the author of The
Turncoat Manual: I Want to Have My Cake And Eat Yours, Too. The practical
guide to adjusting your vision to the changing mood and situation.

Braggart Pantzonfire, the
Marketing Manager of It’s All About Me
Inc., and the author of Rebranding
‘the Elite’: Rich White Men as Born-Again Victims of Just About Anything and
Anyone. Currently casting his upcoming reality show Who’re We Gonna Piss Off Today?

LECTURE: HOW TO CONTROL MAINSTREAM
MEDIA

More established autocratsdefenders of
democracy have of course made appropriate arrangements to ensure unlimited access
to sympathetic impartial media, either by acquiring the majority holding of a
major broadcasting corporation or by establishing their own media outlets (for
anyone interested, we still have a few tickets left for the seminar hosted by His
Moodiness Emperor Big Ego of One State
on The New Art of War: From Trolls to Little Green Men, scheduled
for next spring)

However, aspiring demagoguesanti-establishment
challengers do not have to settle for being at the mercy of mainstream
media. In this once-in-a-lifetime lecture, Mr Braggart Pantzonfire shares his
award-winning methods for taking charge of his own narrative and controlling
media exposure. The topics include:

• The art of the 140 character temper tantrum: how to
  assume and maintain a victim identity to deflect attention from controversial
  issues and decisions
• The loose cannon method: how to use targeted
  hate-speech to maximise media exposure and elicit a positive consumer response
  within the target market
• The best marketing strategy for maximising the added
  value your elected position can bring to your business interests.

Make sure to sign up early, as this lecture is sure to
be a hit!

WORKSHOP: REBRANDING SYMBOLS
AND LANGUAGE

Mme Marianne Faux-Nouvelle will be discussing her ongoing
work on updating Liberté, égalité, fraternité.
The new version of the product will be better suited to help her core customers
express their freedom more effectively, by allowing them to proudly come out as more equal than their brothers (see the Newspeak Media practical manual, Rebranding Democracy, for
more information on the colour-coded system for classifying various market
segments).

We will also be assessing the consumer response to
some recently rebranded terminology, such as ‘democracy’ (i.e. actively exhibiting and encouraging extremistrefreshingly outspoken views, actions
and language when it suits our agenda the
needs of our target consumer segments) and ‘freedom
of speech’ (which, thanks to the tireless efforts of our staff, now covers
all heartfelt, genuine expressions as long as they are based on purely
subjective, biased emotions without the diluting influence of facts). Note to our unpaid minions highly talented interns: how f*#*ing difficult can it be
to find someone to hack into Wikipedia and replace the outdated terminology?!?

The Emotional Narrative
Helpdesk will be on hand to offer assistance to anyone struggling with
rebranding tired, old terminology or in need of a little boost with their
personal narrative.

DISCLAIMER:

All
characters and events are fictional. The writer cites The Simpsons, South Park,
Scandinavia and The World, George Orwell and Yevgeny Zamyatin as her literary
inspirations and role models for this piece.

The writer
is not in the least worried about hurting the feelings of populist politicians.
Given the type of language populists promote in political discussion, the
writer assumes they should find this piece quite refreshing and delightfully
outspoken. However, the writer acknowledges that some readers may be somewhat
unfamiliar with concepts such as sarcasm and satire, and therefore this piece
may provoke some adverse reactions. In case the reader wants to object to this piece, perhaps saying something in the lines of “That’s so unfair”, the writer has this helpful
piece of advice to offer: “Stop being such a big baby. Grow up and get over it!” More extreme reactions will be dealt with as follows: abusive comments will be
deleted; threats to the writer’s physical safety will be reported to the
appropriate authorities and/or the perpetrator’s wife/girlfriend/significant
other/mother, and the IP address where the threat in question originated from
will be published here and all over the internet.

ABOUT THE
WRITER: 

The writer is a (not very successful) wannabe capitalist, an advocate
and a beneficiary of the equal opportunities afforded by the Scandinavian welfare state and the 4 freedoms of the European Union, and a gorgeous tall
blonde. Because the writer is not a populist, only one of the above statements is a lie.

More posts in this series:  thoughts on ‘snowflakes’ and the post that explains what this series of posts is all about.

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