Slogans are short on fraternité but long on verbosity

SO what’s your favourite slogan of the presidential campaign?

Is it one about believing in our future while still thinking of our past? Or the one about we have to use our strengths of community inclusion and enterprise to pull together as a country? Or are you more taken by all this stuff about pride and a new republic?

Chances are that you can’t think of any of the slogans, even though some have had extensive outings on lamps posts and in newspapers over the past two weeks.

A quick study (involving closing your eyes, trying to remember a slogan and not being able to) shows the field of presidential candidates have failed the Don Draper test.

The smooth advertising executive from the hit series Mad Men had two basic requirements for the slogan. First, it’s easy to remember and second, it makes people happy.

Long before Barack Obama came up with “yes we can” the ad men of Madison Avenue in the 1960s knew that conjuring up a concise catchphrase was half the battle in selling any product.

Recent research is more sophisticated but the thinking is the same. Two journals — Psychology Today and the American Scientific Mind — have attested to the importance of slogans in political campaigns.

“The research on this is almost unparalleled,” said communication and image consultant Billy Dixon, who has worked with a number of British politicians. “The fact has been known for generations, if you want people to remember something, it has to be surmised in three words.”

Hence, the most famous and successful slogan, “yes we can”. And the original, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”. So how do the presidential slogans here compare?

Labour candidate Michael D Higgins has gone for “The President who will do us proud”.

Independent candidate Mary Davis and Fine Gael’s candidate Gay Mitchell came up with the same slogan on their poster, “Pride at home, respect abroad”, which Davis won ownership of. Mitchell has been left with the slogan: “Understanding our past. Believing in our future.”

According to Dixon, the message here is unclear.

Independent Sean Gallagher has a shorter slogan, “for an independent candidate”, and a longer one, “let’s put our strengths to work: Community, social inclusion, enterprise”. It is “too much of a mouthful”, said Dixon.

He believes people will remember Martin McGuinness’s slogan, whether they like it or not. The Sinn Féin candidate has gone for “Towards a new republic”.

Dixon said it’s the best of a bad lot.