Does 'Congress of the People' make branding sense?

When selecting a name for your new brand, you should ask yourself a couple of questions.

Is it differentiated? Is it memorable? Is it meaningful? Does it fit your brand image? Does it roll easily off the tongue? If it were to be shortened or altered in some way, such as in the form of an acronym, would it present problems?

1. Is it differentiated? Congress of the People is a bit like Coke vs New Coke vs original formula Coke. Or new Ghostpops vs the original Simba Ghostpops. You’re always a version of something else.

Congress is a popular name for political movements (they ruled India for donkey’s years), and of course we have both the African National Congress and the Pan African Congress. Not much room for yet another Congress then. Though the ANC is probably associated more with the word “African” than it is with the word “Congress”, this is still a word that the new party cannot possibly own in the mind of the voter. And, with the ANC enjoying massive brand equity and market share despite all of its troubles, that’s a major obstacle to brand recognition before you start.

2. Is it memorable? This is closely related to the point above. The use of the word “Congress” is problematic because it may also lead to confusion with the PAC, that shining example of African politics at its most dynamic. One potential advantage is that Congress of the People is not easily shortened to an acronym, a point I will expand on later. This is both a good and a bad thing.

3. Is it meaningful? Yes, it harks back to the Congress of the People in Kliptown in 1955, when the Freedom Charter was adopted. And yes, on one level it makes sense to return to something that is meaningful for some. But how familiar are younger voters with the history of the ANC, and do they care? (What the hell is a congress anyway? It’s a synonym for sexual intercourse, which of course brings to mind the Pieter-Dirk Uys quote involving Vaseline.) The ANC was named back in the days when what was needed was a liberation movement. In the years since they took power, it has become patently clear that liberation movements need to transform into proper political parties in order to govern effectively in a democracy. The choice to stay with the word “congress” rather than something that indicates evolution into a more mature political organisation sends out dispiriting signals. Clearly, we can expect more of the same, which brings me to

4. Does it fit your brand image? Having been in power until very recently, Shilowa and Lekota are hardly in a position to distance themselves from responsibility for our current challenges. If the ANC has moved away from the values enshrined in the Freedom Charter, it did so under the watch of the leaders of this new party, which makes them both cynical and hypocrites. So substantiation of the brand promise is a bit of a problem.

5. Does it roll easily off the tongue? No.

6. If it were to be shortened or altered in some way, such as in the form of an acronym, would it present problems? How many people say Mercedes-Benz when “Merc” suffices? Since the names of political parties are frequently shortened to acronyms, especially once they become well-known, this is an important consideration. No one is going to go around talking about “Congress of the People”; it’s likely that it will be shortened to “Congress”. Which is fine, and even a good thing since it won’t be identified by an acronym, but what if it gets shortened to “CP”? Andries Treurnicht would turn in his grave.

The point about Treurnicht is relevant because if anybody knew about hankering after the past it was him. And that’s what this name signifies. It evokes idealism without offering any evidence that this old lot in new packaging has the ability to deliver against those noble sentiments. Without the benefit of the historical association (and you have to assume that voters care more about the future, and jobs, and the economy, than the past), there’s nothing new, or particularly memorable, about this name. It fails to signal a willingness to embrace the possibilities of the future rather than the moth-eaten cliches of the past. So for anyone who was looking for some kind of semiotic and linguistic evidence of a new era in South African politics, forget it.

It’s just more of the same, rehashed.