Political reporter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Every political campaign needs a good slogan \u2013 a snappy phrase to energise voters and skewer opponents.<\/p>\n Some slogans resonate beyond polling day, capturing a national mood or a moment in time – Barack Obama’s “Yes, We Can”, perhaps, or the Brexit campaign’s “Take Back Control”.<\/p>\n Others are dead on arrival \u2013 clunky, overcomplicated and unmemorable, capturing nothing much beyond the desperation of the committee that devised them.<\/p>\n Now political strategist and pollster Chris Bruni-Lowe claims to have cracked the formula for creating the perfect slogan.<\/p>\n He has analysed 20,000 campaign messages from around the world to come up with eight words that, he says, have been proven to resonate with voters of all political persuasions.<\/p>\n They are: people, better, democracy, new, time, strong, change, together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He is quick to stress, in his new book Eight Words That Changed The World, that they are not a guarantee of electoral success. They will not help if the candidate using them is an uncharismatic dud, with unpopular policies.<\/p>\n And they can not just be combined in a random order \u2013 Strong New Time or People Better Change \u2013 to produce results.<\/p>\n They are, rather, “emotional shortcuts”, or building blocks for slogan-writers that work across cultures and even languages, Bruni-Lowe says.<\/p>\n “Voters instinctively know what ‘people’, ‘better’ or ‘together’ promise without needing a policy paper.<\/p>\n “They are also remarkably elastic: a socialist in South Africa, a conservative in Luxembourg and a populist in Hungary can all bend the same word to their own story.”<\/p>\n The most commonly used word in winning campaigns is “people”, according to Bruni- Lowe’s analysis – he cites Bill Clinton’s 1992 “Putting People First” and “For People, For a Change” as examples of slogans that made a real difference, allowing the presidential candidate to play to his strengths as a “people person” in contrast to his stiff opponent George HW Bush.<\/p>\n But isn’t there a danger that following this formula will result in bland, catch-all slogans?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Some of the most effective ones – such as Boris Johnson’s 2019 general election slogan “Get Brexit Done” – were devised with a single purpose in mind.<\/p>\n (As were some of the worst, such as “Vote for Al Smith and he’ll make your wet dreams come true”. The anti-prohibitionist Smith – who wanted to legalise alcohol sales – failed to win the 1928 US presidency.)<\/p>\n Bruni-Lowe argues that “bespoke” slogans like “Get Brexit Done” are the exceptions that prove his rule.<\/p>\n “Bespoke slogans explode when one unresolved grievance crowds out every other issue and a decisive-looking outsider offers a three-word cure; they’re brilliant for that election, but useless the moment the storm moves on.”<\/p>\n Bruni-Lowe’s own contributions to the genre include “Change Politics For Good”, for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, and “It’s Time”, for Jakov Milatovic’s successful 2023 bid to be president of Montenegro on a campaign to get his country to join the EU.<\/p>\n He devotes a chapter of his book to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), another slogan that does not conform to his rules.<\/p>\n Donald Trump claims to have dreamed it up in 2012, sitting at his desk on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, but “great again” as a political rallying cry dates back more than a century, according to Bruni-Lowe. <\/p>\n In 1950, the Conservative Party unsuccessfully fought a general election on the promise to “Make Britain Great Again”. Ronald Reagan had more success in 1980 when he used the slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again”.<\/p>\n Whether Trump knew any of this when he claimed to have invented the phrase is, in the end, irrelevant, argues Bruni-Lowe – he managed to turn MAGA into brand, and a dividing line that, for better or worse, has reshaped American politics. <\/p>\n He even registering it with US Trademark Office, for a fee of $325, to prevent other politicians using it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the UK, the Brexit campaign’s “Take Back Control” is probably the most memorable slogan of recent years.<\/p>\n It was part of a trend for shorter, snappier slogans – with the three word formula briefly being seen as a key to success.<\/a> <\/p>\n Last year, Labour’s landslide winning general election campaign boiled its message down to a single word – “Change”.<\/p>\n The Conservative slogan – in case you have forgotten it – was “Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future”.<\/p>\n But soon there may not be any slogans at all, in the traditional sense.<\/p>\n Artificial Intelligence is increasingly being used to craft messages tailored to the concerns of individual voters<\/a>, delivered through social media and constantly refined to have the maximum impact.<\/p>\n Bruni-Lowe also highlights a growing interest in neuroscience, and the use of tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow.<\/p>\n This allows researchers to study how people respond neurologically to political stimuli such as campaign ads, speeches and election slogans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Such trends could fundamentally change democratic politics, reshaping elected representatives’ relationship with voters.<\/p>\n They could also rob us of some irritatingly catchy election slogans.<\/p>\n Few fit that bill more than one of the first ever political ads shown on US television, in 1952.<\/p>\n The 60 second spot was aimed at putting a human face on the Republican candidate, the former supreme commander of allied forces in Europe Dwight E Eisenhower, who was widely known by his nickname Ike.<\/p>\n Featuring an insanely infectious jingle by composer Irving Berlin, “I like Ike” was a Disney cartoon aimed at the broadest possible audience<\/a>, <\/p>\n It was so successful his campaign team saw no need to change the formula for his re-election bid, adding just one word, before, presumably, heading off for an early lunch.<\/p>\n “I still like Ike” doesn’t fit Chris Bruni-Lowe’s formula – but it did prove to be another winner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/6af2\/live\/8b4b0c70-5cdb-11f0-9c4e-8937711cc91c.jpg.webp\")
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