Farron floats major rebranding of the Lib Dems

Tim Farron might not be wanting to change the party’s name, but he is talking about a widespread rebranding of the party:

The Liberal Democrats could look at changing their party colour and “liberty bird” logo as part of a review planned by Tim Farron, if he wins the party’s leadership contest.

As Tim told me when talking about the party name non-story, you need to get the product right before the branding.

Branding is, however, part of the overall package. Proper branding, that is, which I add as branding has (ironically) a rather bad brand image itself as it is often seen as being just about a logo, a font and a vacuous mission statement comprised of abstract aspirational words.

A good rebranding would be about capturing and consistently communicating the need to restore the party’s reputation, and as I wrote in Liberal Democrats Newswire #65 that’s not about policy, it’s about valence politics.

As a matter of detail, it would be helpful too to move away from the proliferation of colours, fonts and even variations on the party logo seen in the last few years. But that is the detail that follows from, not the substance of, rebranding.