No to AV. That’s what the British public have demanded in last week’s local elections. The dissection into who are the real winners and losers, who have come out on-top and who has their tail firmly between their legs, now begins. Good old politics. The most fiercely masterminded and engineered perception machine imaginable. A machine designed to influence, infect and compound information onto an unsuspecting public. However, occasionally it breaks.
Image, as trite as it really is, to the average person, what they first perceive is the reality of that concept or company, and its product or services to them. That image is how they look at and classify a person, product or company.
Image is not everything, but as the saying goes, you only have one chance to make a first impression. The opposite of this premise is the axiom: ‘resources follow results.’ This concept is what makes the ‘perceived’ premise a trite one. However, the ‘results’ premise is the one that proves to be the most important issue for the long run, but, people like to make quick assessments and to act impulsively, and, you don’t get a shot at the results issue unless your first impression is adequate for a deeper look.
What perceptions then do we have of local government? Do they actually reflect reality? How are these perceptions used or abused? Is local government reliant upon these? How can marketing massage this perception advantageously, if at all?
We all have an opinion directly related to our local council. We will all pass comment at some time this year about the effectiveness of a local council service. Our comments are not always based on our direct experiences but perhaps indirectly through the local press, via a friend or simply past reputation. Past reputation signifies the greatest example of the sheer importance of this 10 letter word – perception.
For example, Sandwell Borough Council actually provides more than 800 services to its constituents. This is typical of a local authority across the UK. In a survey into a random 100 of these services, local people were more than satisfied with greater than 87% of these. In fact, 35% were considered to be very good. The results were unequivocally positive. However we choose to report these statistics, you can only say they were a positive reflection on the council. In contrast and through a separate local survey, (but retaining a similar sample size and cross section of the community) most people had a poor perception of the work the council were doing. The majority indicated that they were unhappy with the services provided and were not happy with the way the local government were actually running them. A very negative perspective indeed. However, when asked to detail the reason for this, constituents highlighted only 2 of the 800 services for which they were consistently unhappy. Repeatedly, they mentioned parking ticket services and waste services.
An overwhelming illustration of how powerful perception is and its effects on the most basic level. Compounded with an excess of bad press, these two issues can effectively ruin a council’s reputation and diminish any hope of expressing the positive work done in the most other areas. The councils overall ‘product’ was viewed in a fashionably negative light because of less than 1% of its ‘sub-product’.
Recently, to combat this, the LGA (Local Government Association) has started the ‘reputation campaign’. Over 250 local authorities have signed up to this initiative. In essence, it hopes to shift perception by projecting to local people, a broader spectrum of the services that are provided by the council. It aims to educate the constituents about more of the services in it’s remit. By campaigning through numerous channels, it hopes to change public perception and initiate positive feeling amongst its constituents.
Effective communication is at the heart of this campaign. Certainly, marketing more of the positives will re-address the balance slightly. However, at what cost are these two little services to the local government? Quite simply – huge. The entire perception and reputation hangs on simple, little services like these. If they are perceived to be poorly run – regardless of 100’s of well run elements, the public will not be happy. When the public are not happy, they will take a stand. Not many constituents will be losing sleep or empathising over a council struggling with negative press and there lays the point precisely. We all have an inbuilt, automatic and inherent reaction to politics. A negative reaction. The unenviable reputation of politics/local government has been self-engineered since creation. A systematic de-evolution. Maybe this perception is so deeply buried that it can never, ever be changed. Do the present council in office actually care? The baton can be passed on in a few years – so it doesn’t really matter, does it? I’ll leave that for you to decide.
Mike Emmett is a Director at Happy Creative, a full service marketing and creative agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
