A word about Brexit

Don’t panic, this isn’t a thousand words on the fineries of re-joining the custom union or soft cheese tariffs. Just a simple lesson from the past in regard to messaging.

Now it may not feel like it, but we’re rapidly approaching ten years since that fateful day when we chose to leave the EU. Now, with that commiseratory or celebratory anniversary in prospect (depending on your POV), many have been reflecting on how and why the decision to leave was made by the folk of Britain.

Heading into the vote, two diametrically opposed campaigns polarised opinion and split the population pretty much 50/50. The campaign to leave adopted the emotionally charged theme ‘Take back control’. Whereas the campaign to remain was more pragmatically framed as…simply…‘Remain’.

On the eve of the vote, each side frantically tried to influence the result right up until the very last minute. Apostles of every hue in politics busily collared bodies in the street, enthusiastically quizzing them as to which box their X would grace.

Among these was Nick Clegg, former Lib’ Dem’ leader and Deputy PM in the 2010 – 2015 coalition government. Clegg had wandered out to his local bus station within his Sheffield Hallam constituency and had spotted a man he knew. Cordially accosting him before he boarded his bus home, Clegg asked the man which way he was going to vote the next day.

‘Sorry Nick…but I’ve just gotta vote leave.’

Clegg was gobsmacked: ‘But why Dave???’ he politely remonstrated.

‘Because, if I’m honest, the bloody last thing I want is for things to remain the same.’

This reply knocked Clegg clean off his feet.
For within his constituent’s answer as to how he was going to vote, lay the very word the whole damn campaign had hinged on – ‘Remain’.

It’s a lesson from history. And a stark lesson to us all who devise messaging as part of our job.
Because just when we think we’ve deftly encapsulated our complex messaging hierarchy neatly via one word and bathed in the subsequent self congratulation, Mr. Fuck Up is already waiting to pounce once it’s in the wild.

We might even consider ourselves super pumped smart arses by managing it all in fewer words.

Messaging is my favourite part of advertising.

Angles, tones, meanings, nuances – whether the messaging is instructive, humorous or just seeks to sow a seed – honestly, it fascinates me. Whatever it is however, it must make people feel something as brilliantly explained here in the excellent The Extraordinary Cost of Dull authored by System 1.

The ultimate failure after all is summarised by the fantastic – ‘Feel nothing, Do nothing’.

‘Take back control’ was a rallying call, a call to arms bristling with emotion.
‘Remain’ was much more restrained and sober. Granted, it may have connotations of ‘stay true to the cause’ ….but where exactly has this cause got me?

If it was a proposition (which it kinda was), then where was the benefit bit or the ‘what are we trying to achieve here’ as in ‘Take back control’?

Nick Clegg has since offered up a few retrospective shouts on what ‘Remain’ perhaps should’ve been as a slogan. Things like ‘Safer together’ or ‘Together we’re stronger’ – so sentiments that least touched on tangible benefits rather than just affirming ‘more of the same’.

Could pondering a few vital words have swayed such a crucial vote?
I guess we’ll never know.

But it may well have prevented a few single four letter word exclamations when the result was read out.

— Rich Elwell, Creative Partner & Co-founder