Let's first find out what is Branding
A base definition of branding is provided by Dr. Margaret Scammell as “in marketing, a brand is the psychological representation of a product or organization: its symbolic rather than tangible use-value”. So in other words, if a product's price and quality are their tangible values, branding is any other intangible values beyond that. Take soft drinks as an example, most of the time their taste and prices are the same, so what makes you get this can of cola rather than that one? It's the brand, deep inside your mind one of them is associated with youth (people with skateboards in their advertisement), awesomeness (Lionel Morsy ... ehm, Messi), being different (Sprite advertisements aired nowadays), being smart, etc.
Morsy is the new CEO of Egypt
All other candidates are running for presidency, but Morsy is here to become Egypt's new CEO and not its president. This is how he is being sold to us, and there are obvious reasons behind that. The Egyptian constitution is yet to be written later on, and guess who is going to write it, the parliament whose majority are from the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood), the same group who Morsy belong to. So till now, no body knows the job description of the upcoming president, hence they need more flexibility to have program that can be achieved either by the president, the parliament, or by them both, depending on the new constitution they will write later on. Another reason for marketing him this way is the fact that he was not their presidential candidate in the beginning. When the Brotherhood decided to enter the presidential race, Khairat El-Shater was their prime candidate, they then announced that Mohamed Morsy will be their secondary option, since there were doubts that El-Shater might not be accepted by the Elections Committee for legal reasons. Since then Morsy is widely known among most of the Egyptians as the Spare Tire, and he is being mocked all the time for being just a secondary option of the Brotherhood, and since he is not their first choice why voters should choose him. Add to this the traditions in the Brotherhood where they all follow the orders of its Supreme Leader, and Morsy shoudn't be an exception here. So the Brotherhood had more reasons to promote him as a CEO not president.
If you pay his campaign's website a visit you will find out the site's domain as well as the banner, all include the prefix Dr. before his name. It's very nice title to have in your C.V. when looking for an looking for a job as a Manager or Executive, but is it really needed when running for presidency? May be.
We write Arabic from right to left, so let's visit the campaign's website once more, what is the first link you encounter there? Morsy's qualifications? Nah. Morsy's latest news? Nah. What then? El-Nahda Project. So now you might wonder, are they promoting a president or a project?
Vote for El-Nahda Project
It's not Morsy who's being promoted here. It's not him whom the Brotherhood are selling to us. In fact, who is running for presidency and who is being promoted here is their Nahda Project. Now it is clear what brand the Brotherhood are promoting. And here comes our real analysis.
El-Nahda can be translated into Renaissance or Rising Up. It's the Brotherhood's vision, how they are going to build Egypt in the next 15 to 20 years (Notice, a president can stay for 4 to 8 years only). Once more, Morsy's slogan has no reference to himself, his slogan if translated into English will read, "Renaissance ...People's will". When Obama chose to focus on promising "Hope" and "Change" he knew that about 70% of the population thinks the country is going in the wrong direction, so those words were part of his brand. Here in Egypt, the sentiment among the people can be summarized in two points, on the one hand they are looking forward for a new regime that is not as corrupted as Mubarak's regime, a one that builds Egypt economically, but on the other hand a lot of people are blaming the revolution for the economical recession the country is experiencing nowadays, the lack of new investments, job openings, as well as lack of security. And I see the word renaissance as a word that is not as radical as revolution (the revolutionaries brand), yet not as Mubarak-related as stability. It's something in between. It promotes change, but a non-radical one. It also plays on that propaganda spread by the official media that Egypt is now at its worst, very low, down on the ground, dead, so it is time to bring it back to life and stand-up on its feet again.
One more thing; the same term, El-Nahda (Ennahda), is also used in Tunisia as the name of the Muslim Brotherhood's sister party there. So, seems that is has its own significance in the Ikhwany jargon as well.
Wheels of Production
Once more, economy is the keyword, people want better economy, and one word that has been used a lot in the past year and half is the Wheel or Gears of Production, it's a metaphor used a lot to refer to the economic state, and how the revolution and the protests have stopped this gear from revolving, hence the bad economy, so voilà, here you have got, not only one gear, but two of them in the logo.
They know their market segment
Like any good marketing campaign, you have to know your audience, the market segment you want to target, and for them, one very important identification for target segment is that they are all Muslims. They stated it clearly in the logo that this renaissance is one with Islamic basis. For sure there are ready interpretations for this, it's Islamic renaissance that will treats all Egyptians regardless of their religion, etc. But mathematically speaking when it comes to a country with more that 80% of its populations and all you need is 50%+1 of the votes to win the elections, who cares? Also let's be frank, even if they try to, non-Muslims will not vote for them. It worth mentioning here that another candidate who is aware of his market segment is Ahmed Shafik, he also knows how to please that segment and care about no one else. He was Mubarak's prime-minister, so doesn't try to hide this, he says bluntly that he respects Mubarak, because he knows that those who respect Mubarak as he does are his main voters. Shafik's example here is better seen in contrast to Amr Moussa, who also was a minister during Mubarak era, yet he tries to please everyone, and he might not succeed in pleasing anyone at the end of the day.
The Campaign's Posters
Like Aboul Fotoh and Shafik they chose stick to certain colours in all their marketing collateral. But unlike those two candidates, the brotherhood's choice of colours has a message to deliver too. Everything is in Red, with text in black and white. The red is eye-catching, but also those are the colours of the Egyptian flag, and if you know how the Muslim Brotherhood are always accused of being funded by gulf countries and that they have their own agenda, and that they are looking forward for a regional pan-Islamic state, so the use of the Egyptian flag is needed here to reflect the patriotic and nationalistic aspects.
As the biggest political group slash party in the country now, they do not lack funds or capacity to have their billboards everywhere in the streets of Egypt. And although, they are consistent in delivering the same message, they might tweak their banners add a phrase here or there to be more appealing to voters in different geographical areas and social classes.
Also in Egypt about 40% cannot read and right, so other than logos, we have symbols for candidates so those who cannot read and write can vote. The party of the Muslim Brotherhood is called Freedom and Justice, so they chose scales as their symbol. Easy to remember and adds more consistency to their campaign.
The typeface used in writing the word Nahda, is a modern tweak of Andalus or Kufi fonts. Both are very old founts, and their names are bounded to historic and geographic locations when the Islamic civilization was in its peaks. I believe it is meant to stress on how they want to build the counties future using heritage of the past.Which is what the word renaissance means, add to this their stress on its Islamic roots.
The TV Advertisements
Candidates for sure make use of TV ads as part of their campaign, each try to appear in those videos and deliver short messages to the audience. But Morsy's ads are different, he is simply not there. Well, as we said earlier, it's not about Morsy it's about the Renaissance project, so they all have cheerful people in greenfield. You've got this video, with kids in greenfields. And kids here a symbol of bright future, renaissance. One of those videos ends with a banner of Morsy, and the other one where he silently appears at the end of the video, he is sitting on a desk, so CEO-esque, right? The fact that Morsy is an executive working on the Brotherhood is also marketed sometimes to people as choosing him will make the president and the parliament work in more harmony, since they will be working on the same agenda and goals.
It worth mentioning here that another candidate, Hamdeen Sabahy, whose slogan is, One of us, so in many photos spread online for him or in his videos he is seen in protests, eating or talking with people in the streets, just ordinary person from the people.
Related Resources
- Branding in Election Campaigns, by Manuel Adolphsen
- Consumer Branding in Politics: A Comparison of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, by Sarah Sonies
- Effective political branding – simple, elegant positioning and consistency, by Sanford Dickert
- Egypt: How do the Presidential Candidates' Posters Compare?
- GVO: Egypt Elections 2011/12
- Presidential Campaigns: Mohamed Morsy, by Mariam Saleh
