Hill+Knowlton Strategies

A tweet that stood out for me yesterday on my (too infrequent) trawl of the microblogging site, was one that criticised the defacing of Barclays branded ’Boris Bikes’, but at the same time celebrated the creativity of the vandals because of their efforts to ape the look of the genuine Barclays brand (I’ve included a picture below and apologise in advance for those that may be offended by the language). For me this highlighted nicely the potential pitfalls of overtly branding in an urban environment and of supporting a good cause that aims to ‘belong’ to the community.

The original tweet

Defacing public property is unfortunately not a new thing and also very costly to society, but it is something that when done with the right degree of wit, style or even artistic merit, can engender appreciation among those that witness it, as the tweet that started this post suggests. This is in part I suspect because the community feels the need to indoctrinate any new public schemes and literally mark them in a way that assimilates them with the community.

In some ways I feel Barclays overt branding has to some extent encouraged those would be vandals out there, probably in no small part because of the general antipathy that many people in the UK feel towards banks as a result of the risky behaviours that required government bailouts and the significant difference between average pay and the bonus payments enjoyed by bankers in the Capital. I can’t help but feel that more subtle branding might have been more palatable.

It was a bold move by Barclays to support a public scheme such as this. It is a scheme that I wholeheartedly support as a keen cyclist and a person who believes in publicly/privately funded schemes that encourage more healthy  lifestyles. I do hope that episodes like this do not put Barclays or other potential sponsors of public schemes off.

I have yet to see any response from Barclays or Transport for London (TFL) to this vandalism, but hopefully the offending lettering will just be quietly removed. On the very same day that I saw the tweet I also happened across an article in the Evening Standard in which Barclays and TFL were supporting London Fashion Week with limited edition designer bikes, which I think is a great way to support tourism and the community of London in a fun and quirky way. Here’s hoping this is just the start of a more civilised assimilation of the Barclays Boris Bike.

The Offending Twitpic

Dirty deals to be done – and someone has to be a statesman.

In a campaign in which the only sound prediction was that nothing could be predicted it might seem odd to try to say what the next few days hold.

But assessments about where the parties are and how they might work together are still possible.

Labour is amazed still to be in the game. Going for a fourth term, after the worst recession in 60 years, the expenses crisis and with a deeply unpopular leader they should have been thumped. That they weren’t is a testimony to an on the ground campaign run on a shoe string. And the nation’s questions about David Cameron.

The difficulty for them is how can any deal keep Gordon Brown in power when he has been beaten? Will he fall on his sword for the good of the party and say this is a defeat for him and not for Labour and get rid of the biggest barrier to a coalition for the LibDems? Mmm. Doubt it.

But then what about the Tories? With the electoral circumstances in his favour how can David Cameron not have won? Already there are murmurings of discontent in the Tory party about how he could have failed to comprehensively beat Gordon Brown.

The Tories tend to realpolitik and will do what they have to, to get to power. But then they draw lines in the sand, like over the Euro – and over electoral reform.

It is unlikely that the Tory party would stomach a change to the voting system – and even if he agrees to one, or a referendum on one, it is by no means certain his new Tory MPs would follow David Cameron through the lobbies.

And then there is Nick Clegg. Cleggmania, it appears, didn’t have the staying power of Jedward. His party has done badly but now they hold the balance of power.

What will keep Clegg’s mind fevered? Shoring up Gordon Brown could be electorally toxic. The cuts the Tories would insist on this year would be a key reversal of LibDem policy – and therefore electorally toxic. And to fail to do a deal in the national interest could be equally toxic.

But Nick Clegg has a better chance of electoral reform than any Liberal leader in their modern history. Labour are more likely to deliver it but shoring up Brown could cost Clegg his career.

Each leader has the world to gain – and their career to lose.

How the next few days work out is a labyrinth, enjoyable to speculate about but ultimately no one really knows the ending – other than this likely final reel.

The country will be back at the polls within 12 months. Whatever deal is struck, or not struck, it is unlikely to last.

Clegg surely cannot do a deal with the Conservatives without an agreement on electoral reform, and even if he is willing it is unlikely David Cameron could deliver it.

Yet surely Clegg cannot do a deal with Labour unless Gordon Brown either steps down or – ironically considering what he demanded of Tony Blair – puts a short timetable on his leadership.

If there is a minority Tory government the LibDems could again be in the worst of all worlds – Labour will vote against Tory budget cuts, but would the LibDems join them when stability is seen as being in the national interest?

The parties need to seek something which is stable for at least six months or the bond and currency markets will start dictating to them with all the economic devastation that would cause.

Whatever deal is struck is unlikely to bring anything other than short term stability.

And, even then, for any deal to be struck demands sacrifice from each of the party leaders involved. Considering that Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, says that the party (or parties) that do go into government will have to do things which make them electoral losers for a generation, perhaps the long term winners will be the party that is excluded.

We are in for a weekend of drama. By Tuesday a deal is likely to be struck. But whether under a new electoral system or not, the country is likely to be at the polls again within the next 12 months.

Well, what can we say with any certainty after an extraordinary election night?   

The Conservatives, and to a greater extent the Liberal Democrats, have not done as well as expected.  

Despite the surge in support following the televised leader debates, the Lib Dems have actually lost ground compared to 2005.  

The Conservatives captured some – they did well in Wales –  but not all of the marginal seats they needed, and hence have fallen short of the winning post.  

Labour have done slightly better than expected – their vote held up in well in London and Scotland – which has contributed to the denial of a majority to the Conservatives. 

This is also why we have seen some, but not all of the senior Labour casualties expected. 

As for what happens next, even if the Conservatives won all seats left to declare, they will not have a majority, so we definitely have a hung parliament.  

According to precedent, Gordon Brown remains Prime Minister while he seeks to form a coalition that will give him a majority.

In the last hour though, Brown’s chances of achieving this have received a major blow, with Nick Clegg repeating his view that the party with most votes and seats – the Conservatives – should seek to form a government. And David Cameron will be making a statement at 2.30 on his plans for a broad-based government that will act in the national interest.

Signs of irresistible momentum? Perhaps, but another thing we can say with certainty is that Gordon Brown should never be ruled out…

Make sure to check back here as this unpredictable election race reaches its climax.

The debates are over. Now is the time for decisions to be made. So says the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

His fear though must be that the voters have already decided. Their minds are already made up. And what they seem to have decided whoever it is who will run Britain it won’t be Gordon Brown.

No one believed that the debates would be the forum in which the PM would flourish, but in the last one he had to. Nothing suggests that the public feel he did.

Now the Labour campaign have less than a week to find a way to reach out to the one in four voters who say they have yet to make up their minds. The question is how.

David Cameron hasn’t flourished in the debates as some thought he would, but he has done enough it seems. This has not been a triumphant march to Downing Street for the Conservatives, partly thanks to the surprise effect of Nick Clegg.

But there is just the sense that they are beginning to inch their way to a meaningful gap over their opponents.

Yes the holy grail of a 40 per cent share of the vote seems far away, but leads of two and three per cent are now regularly turning into leads of five and seven points in some polls.

If Labour and the LibDems fade, in an election when the contest seems genuinely three way, the Conservatives could pick up seats more easily than they expected without the scale of swing that was described when it looked like a two horse race.

The last seven days are going to be the hard yards of this campaign as all three main parties try to grind out votes.

For Labour at the moment it looks like a battle for survival – they may be all but guaranteed to be second in the number of seats but to come third in the popular vote would be devastating.

Clegg’s LibDems need to ensure that this election doesn’t turn into a psyche-scarring false dawn. They are likely to fade a little, but are unlikely to get a chance like this again to grasp second place.

And for David Cameron, his own personal survival is at stake. Many within his own party will question how he cannot win an outright majority in these circumstances – and unpopular PM, a party in office for 13 years, the worst recession for 60 years and then the expenses scandal.

If he fails to win a majority we can expect to be back at the polls within 12 months, but there will be many in his party who will feel they might need a new leader for that election if he fails to convince in this one.

The questions in the final week are these. Can the Conservatives do enough for outright victory? Will the Labour vote collapse to make that easier for them? And can Nick Clegg stop his vote softening and regain momentum?

And all of this in an election where the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has said that the party that wins is likely to be out for a generation because of all the unpopular things they will have to do to straighten the nation’s finances.

A good election to lose? No one in the leadership of the three parties will think so. And then there is the question of how badly it is lost.

This election has been the most dramatic and unpredictable for decades. Predictions now are risky.

But unless there is a dramatic shift, it looks like this election might just be the first in a pair.

And how the bond markets react to that will determine the futures of the parties – and the futures of millions of Britons.

Day two in the Big Election House and no one got evicted.

The pressure was on David Cameron who, had he put in a performance as poor as the first debate, would certainly have been on the way out. Instead he pulled out a strong performance which keeps him in touch with Nick Clegg who breezed through again.

And Gordon Brown? He certainly took risks. Admitting his weakness in presentation and asking the public to vote for him even if they don’t like him was brave. He was better, he didn’t win but he kept himself in the game.

Which all sets up the third crucial debate next Thursday.

This is the talent game show meets the mini-series. Three debates on consecutive Thursdays followed up by a 12 hour special the following week when the winner – or winners – or indeed multiple losers – will be revealed.

This will be a test of not just whether the political system will change but also the media landscape. The Tory press are battering Nick Clegg. If the public stick with him their power will have been enormously undermined.

The first debate hugely influenced tactics for the second and what will be fascinating is how the second influences tactics for the crucial third.

Cameron had learned from the Clegg play book, and indeed so had Brown. The key was to make it one candidate against two. A three party race perhaps, but with each party trying to make this election a binary choice.

So it was Cameron’s change against Clegg and Brown on the left. Clegg against the ‘two old parties’. Brown’s experience against the naivety of his two younger opponents.

That seems to be a test which Clegg is still best placed to win.

All the leaders can claim to have had their moments in the debate and that is reflected in the polls. The LibDems and Tories are neck and neck, but Labour are also back in touch and back in the game.

Labour will hope that the economy is where Gordon Brown can triumph in the last debate and come across as stability as people to the part of the campaign when they tend to vote with their wallets not their hearts.

Cameron will hope that his voice of change will be more compelling than Clegg’s.

Both Cameron and Brown have a momentum of sorts after the debate but Clegg showed he had resilience.

But this election still looks like the most astonishing game of political Russian roulette we have seen in modern times. If the Conservatives don’t win they could go into melt down. If we end up with a LibDem/Labour coalition, electoral reform could end the Tories chances of ever forming a majority government.

If Labour come third their survival could be in question.

Can Nick Clegg keep it up and could he win the popular vote and claim to have the biggest mandate to be PM in a hung parliament?

This is arguably the biggest tv cliffhanger since Dallas and the question ‘who shot JR?’

The thing is we are not quite sure who is getting shot yet……

Following the launch of the three parties election manifestoes and in advance of the first televised leader debate on ITV this evening, we’ve taken a brief respite from the offline election campaign to assess how the parties are faring online with our new social media monitor – Heartbeat.  

This is a great little tool produced by Canadian social media analytics provider Sysomos. It allows us to track opinion on the web, including Twitter, blogs, and forums throughout the General Election and assess how the main parties are doing in the social media space throughout the campaign.  

As the graphic below demonstrates, the Conservatives have a far greater presence across all media with 55.9% share of voice. They are somewhat unexpectedly followed by the Liberal Democrats on 27.9%. Labour meanwhile, trail way behind with just 16.2%.    

This could be for a number of reasons. The Conservatives have clearly been a lot more successful in spreading their message and this will have been assisted no end by their significant showing in the blogosphere. But it is also a demonstration, I think, of the appeal of their brand.

Labour conversely have not been as successful online, and where Cameron has attempted to decontaminate the Conservative brand (and we can argue how successful or otherwise he has been in doing so), the Labour brand has in time become increasingly contaminated, culminating in the expenses scandal. In the meantime, the Liberal Democrats have appealed as the ever-so-slightly populist middle man, particularly in the build-up to the general election.

That said, the three manifesto launches led to a spike in mentions, which will have pleased the parties. What is interesting though is the comparative sentiment of these mentions.

According to Heartbeat, positive mentions for the Lib Dems and Labour sit at 21% and 19% respectively, whereas the Conservatives sit a little lower on 16%. Indeed this trend has also been reflected in negative sentiment too. It will be interesting to see whether this will change significantly following the TV debate this evening.

It’s worth pointing out that sentiment analysis does need to be taken with a pinch of salt, although it does provide a reference for how the parties are performing online and with different voter segments. The graphic below demonstrates this and depicts who dominates the social media space more generally i.e., those between the ages of 21 and 50. It also highlights that the Conservatives and Lib Dems are getting more joy from a younger generation of adults online, whilst Labour are getting more of their support from those between 36 and 50.

Heartbeat is therefore not reflective of the electorate as whole and for this reason the polls are worth following closely and will provide a more accurate depiction of what the House of Commons might look like if current voting intentions are replicated on polling day.

Using Hill & Knowlton’s Election Predictor you can see what the House of Commons might look like too, by inputting results of the latest polls to see who might form the next Government, or tweak the polls and opt for your own prediction and see what they mean.

by Edward Jones

Prime Minister’s Questions is usually a parochial affair, scrutinised in detail by the Westminster Village but of little interest beyond; a lot more was at stake today.

The fact that this session was the final one before the general election means heightened media interest, and with evening news soundbites in mind, all three party leaders knew that they had to draw the dividing line between them and the others in the starkest terms.

For the Prime Minister, whether the questions were from Cameron, Clegg or his own backbenchers mattered not – all were a platform to reel off Labour’s achievements and point to the damage that the ‘same old Tories’ would cause to the economy with premature cuts.

Clearly annoyed by Labour’s assertion earlier in the day that business leaders had been ‘deceived’ by the Conservatives over National Insurance cuts, Cameron was equally relentless on the ways he feels that the Government has pulled the wool over people’s eyes.

Cowley Street has clearly decided that the expenses scandal is the issue that resonates most with voters, and the one where the Liberal Democrats can differentiate themselves from their opponents. Responding to Clegg’s dig about who really controls the purse strings of Labour and the Conservatives, Brown made a rare error in what was otherwise a fired-up performance, by focusing on Lord Ashcroft but not expat Lib Dem donor Michael Brown.

In all, this Punch and Judy PMQs was one that would have been pretty much business as usual to a seasoned follower. What really matters of course is how it will be viewed by the casual follower. With the three television debates likely to be far more sterile affairs, this final chance to see a red-blooded debate may well have swayed more than a few floating voters.

Do you remember when you were at school and you would come in on a Monday after a haircut dreading the inevitable pisstaking from your classmates? I’ve been reminded of that this week. Anyone would think I had come into work having sprouted horns (not entirely unreasonable; remind me to tell you the story of when I sold my soul to Satan in exchange for good exam results one day), but no, all it is is that I now have short hair. For those of you who don’t know me, I now look like this:

Me, with a friend, yesterday

Whereas before I looked more like this:

Yahoo Serious. Younger readers will have no idea who this is. FIE ON YOU, YOUNGER READERS.

Anyway, enough of this crap. On with the web-related crap instead.

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