From the EFF's red beret to the IFP's elephant, political party logos strike a chord with voters, writes Shanti Aboobaker
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Johannesburg - Actions speak louder than words – or designs do. Experts say political brands without a lived experience can turn into noise, signifying nothing. As South Africa’s democracy turns 20 next year, the proliferation of smaller new parties could be new options for voters.
While the ANC and the DA largely captured the political space during the 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2011 elections, the launch of AgangSA and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) could be a sign the country is not quite a two-party state.
But with differing ideological bents, how do the visual messages of the four major political parties compare?
Musa Ndlovu, a Mandela Mellon Fellow at Harvard University and a senior lecturer in media studies at UCT, says T-shirts without a lived experience don’t say much on their own.
“Brands work in a context and ought to be associated with what the political party is known for,” he says, adding that brand strategies of political parties tended to work based on associations with the brand.
For example, the EFF was able to successfully form an ideological association based on dissatisfaction with “rich people” and “established bureaucracies such as the tripartite alliance and monopoly capital”.
It has in a short period managed to use “very distinct red” and their beret is recognisable, also evoking association with “revolutionaries” such as Che Guevara and late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. “A beret on its own tends to be associated in South Africa with revolutionary struggles and with leaders from the Left who tend to be working-class,” says Ndlovu.
But he questions whether such associations would necessarily result in a vote for the EFF or even the donning of a red beret. The EFF was also lucky, compared with other fledgling parties, because its leader, expelled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, had an established public image.
While Malema’s time leading the ANC Youth League was controversial and divided public opinion, Ndlovu says it appears most people sympathetic to the EFF had forgotten the opulence associated with him and his “champagne-socialist” friends.
Charles Maggs, a graphics design lecturer, said most recognisable brands were red. “It’s a warm, positive, affirmative and energised colour… (symbolising) resistance, suggesting moving forward. It gives a sense of optimism that something will change.”
He says in the case of the EFF, the red was a recognisable promise to the youth and the working classes of revolution.
Other strong and recognisable red brands include Coca-Cola and even parts of the McDonald’s logo, but branding had to be clear and readable in a blink of an eye during the three seconds of people’s attention you have.
“The language of branding comes down to an essence. It is an emotive rather than an intellectual response. Whether they (EFF) actually know what will be done or not is something else.”
And if nothing came of Malema’s troubles with Sars, the party could enjoy a “Malema dividend”.
“Some people will vote for Julius out of spite for Jacob Zuma and the ANC, as similarly (five years ago) a vote for Zuma was to spite Thabo Mbeki,” adds Ndlovu.
Agang, on the other hand, faced a “major weakness” by virtue of the party’s failure to be associated with anything – or anyone – besides its leader, the relatively political unknown, or unrecognisable, Mamphela Ramphele.
Ramphele was the partner of slain Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko, and she was exiled to Tzaneen, Limpopo, under apartheid.
After 1990, she was active in the academia, business and international corporate sphere and less politically active until the launch of her party this year.
Ndlovu says: “Agang needs to decide what exactly it stands for and what it wants to achieve. Will it be associated with progress, with scientific thought, with struggles – what besides Ramphele? For now its white T-shirts mean nothing.
“It is not clear what it wants and what its objectives and goals are.”
Agang overhauled its launch logo this week, scrapping it completely.
A sign of desperation or evolution?
Maggs is complimentary of the change. “It is a circle which is trustworthy. The colours are ours – they are from the South African flag which suggests belonging – ‘the rainbow nation’. The circle is also a feminine symbol which suggests nurturing and mothering. It is very familiar and not surprising or uncomfortable.
“I would say Agang is trying to represent a space between ideological politics and biopolitics. A space between the ANC and the DA perhaps,” he says.
Biopolitics is a semiotic term describing post-ideological politics.
Maggs says aspects of the DA’s aesthetics, branding and iconography – the design on its posters and logos – are also post-ideological.
Its major associations were attached to claims of representing “good managerial” politics.
In terms of its aesthetic, the DA had gone through major transformations through its various outfits – from the Progressive Federal Party (PFP) in 1960s and 1970s to the Democratic Party (DP) in the 1990s and as the Democratic Alliance in the noughties (2000s). These incarnations meant its logo changed multiple times.
“As the PFP, its colours were red, blue and white and some circular things. As a liberal platform it stood in opposition to the nationalism of the Nats (NP). It was English as opposed to Afrikaner nationalism, and the red and blue could be viewed as part of the English Liberal tradition,” says Maggs.
As the DP, the party used blue and yellow – perhaps suggesting a repositioning of the party’s brand as less English and more South African. The DA has recently appropriated elements from the iconography of the 2008 Obama campaign, for example depicting Mmusi Maimane similarly to the iconic Shepard Fairey posters of Obama. “I don’t think it’s corny, but I think it’s tried imitating Obama... This is more in response to Zille using ‘yes we can’,” says Maggs.
Its core message was “good management, ethical use of resources and safety, with a focus on the middle class” – but these were already things which the ANC promised too.
“So, what can the DA say besides ‘we manage better than the ANC’? During the Cold War we knew the Russians were communists and the Americans were capitalists. But now all parties seem to move to the centre – and there ain’t a lot of space in the centre.”
Ndlovu characterises the DA’s brand as “futuristic” and the use of its “contemporary young leaders” such as Gauteng premier candidate Maimane and its parliamentary leader, Lindiwe Mazibuko, projected the message of a party moving forward.
“The DA’s associations are reconciliation, protecting the constitution, technologically savvy people who are young and forward-looking,” he says, adding it sold itself as “non-corrupt, a very democratic party and using Cape Town as an example of what it’s done and what works”.
He says the party had avoided speaking about its past during the liberation struggle because it was “awkward”, but subsequently changed tack because potential voters worried it would bring back apartheid.
“They then went on a very aggressive campaign and tried to appropriate Mandela, by using the story of (Progressive Party MP) Helen Suzman having had a relationship or visiting Mandela – something they deliberately avoided before,” he says.
“Looking at Maimane last week and the crowd he pulled, it will seem in Joburg that the middle class and upwardly mobile are gatvol with the ANC,” says Ndlovu.
“But I’m not sure if he is as cool as Obama was. For the 20th century individual, cutting and pasting strategies from the (2008) Obama (presidential) campaign may impress some but it could also turn other people off.”
But the party’s Kliptown rally was a “show of power”. “It was the DA brand in your face, holding nothing back.”
But “gimmicks” like those used during the controversial DA campaign for UCT’s last SRC elections – where the party used iPads to help students vote and handed out hot chocolate and candyfloss – had left students feeling “patronised”.
The ANC could, on the other hand, credibly claim association with history, with contemporary realities, as well as popular personalities such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Albert Luthuli, says Ndlovu.
The association of the ANC brand with the government, with the liberation struggle, with upward mobility for certain people in the political economy, would be a bonus which other political party brands could not boast. The party could also claim the spot of the “political brand which stood the test of time”, due to the absence of a mass following for parties like the PAC and Azapo, says Maggs.
“In South African politics there’s only one leftist political party left (from the apartheid-era). The PAC and Azapo no longer command attention,” he says.
The IFP was the only other party which hadn’t changed its name or branding in the past 20 years. “(With) its elephants there is a long visual heritage here. The IFP clearly own the elephant and all that it represents,” says Maggs.
“(But) for outsiders, the ANC is probably losing a bit of its shine due to criticism of the government and the direction it may be going in. But for people who were part of the struggle the party still represents the future, and this is backed up by the large numbers of votes it gets.
“About 60 to 70 percent of people in South Africa still have positive associations with the ANC,” says Maggs.
That said, the ANC’s message was sometimes muddled and contradictory, which theoretically weakened its brand.
The ANC was not necessarily good at balancing issues of non-corruption as well as messages of aspiration, such as bling celebrities like Chomee and DJ Sbu who often attended its rallies.
“I don’t think it’s well orchestrated. The authenticity (of the ANC) is being eroded and I think it will be very hard for it to shrug off the associations of corruption,” concludes Maggs.
Sunday Independent