#renua

Gym Leader Lucinda Gym Leader Location Claremorris Gym Type

Watching the slick staging of the ‘Renua’ launch was fascinating. Did they get it right?

Time will tell but the media certainly were not buying it.  Being fair though, not buying it has much more currency and is much safer territory than applauding, so we can discount some of their incredulity. But now that the hype has died down, I ask myself; what impression am I left with? What does it all add up to? What do they stand for? Really.

I am an idealist to the core; so a large part of me was hoping for… hope. I am still hoping.

Political brands operate to the same principles as any other brand. Yes the stage is different, but the principles are the same: how are you positioned v the competition: what is your core purpose, reason or belief that defines you and how is that core purpose going to deliver an experience that is relevant, through branded offerings - in the case of political parties: through it’s candidates.

At the core, stereotypical level, Renua would seen to be relatively undifferentiated. I want to avoid dragging myself into political commentary here, because it is not my specialty, however their policies confuse me and leave me with no real sense of raison d'être or distinct positioning. To cap it all they would seem to be positioning themselves in the most crowded and undifferentiated place: the centre, or worse still, a less relevant positioning: centre right.

Lucinda Creighton, the party leader explains, “I consider the old political paradigms of left and right to be completely redundant now. As far as I’m concerned, the right-wing model of an overriding free market has completely failed and, equally, I don’t think I need to explain how socialism has failed in the latter part of the last century”.

That is all well and good but it does not excuse a positioning that falls between the stools and fails to define itself.

I cannot but help think that in the rush to stick it to Fine Gael; to get in position for next years elections, they failed to take a step back and develop a strategic core and positioning for the party. They have failed to connect this to associated policies and glue it to credible candidates.

Looking at the branded offerings of Reua, at the top level, the odd couple, politician Lucinda Creighton and media personality Eddie Hobbs. Two marmite personalities if ever there was. The 170 declared candidates, a disparate collection with limited political experience and no cohesion. It is just hard to get a sense of who Renua really is.