What's left: The decline of a brand
Op-ed: Israeli left has been plagued by dire branding issues for years; to regain people's support, it must find a way into nation's hearts.
March 17th 2015. One day before the election. An Israeli living in Tel Aviv drives to work through the major Ayalon highway. She stops at the intersection. On either side of the intersection she sees two posters, looming over and exhorting her like the angel and devil on either side.
“It’s Us or the Left” declares the Likud poster. Netanyahu looks down with a gaze that conveys the gravity of the threat. “The left,” are bad and dangerous. “We” are the answer. On the other side of the street, Livni and Herzog stare down at the driver, in a poster that asserts, “It’s Us or Him.” “He”, Netanyahu, is bad and dangerous. “We” are the answer.
But who are “we”? Herzog? Livni? The Labor party? The left? The signs typify the central problem of the Israeli left. While Netanyahu’s sign defines left as the enemy, the Labor sign shies away, fearful of branding itself as left. Because what is the modern Israeli left?
Even though the election is behind us, the problem of the Israeli left is ever-present. The growing gap between the label "left" and the ideological core of the left demonstrates that the modern-day left has a branding problem that it needs to fix.
Data shows a clear divergence between the label left and the ideology. In recent years, the Peace Index, a monthly poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, asked respondents where they would place themselves in the left-right continuum and what their attitudes are towards peace negotiations with the Palestinians. There is a consistent positive correlation between being strongly in favor of peace negotiations and identifying as left, but the correlation is not as strong as it once was.
Asher Arian’s polling data shows more clearly the change over time. In terms of self-identification, the left fell from 31% in 1962 to 5 % in 1984, while the right grew from 8% in 1962 to 39% in 1984. Even though the labels changed, however, the ideology did not. In 1962, 38% of respondents favored not returning any territories, 52% said a small part, and 6 percent said most or all. In 1984, 41% of respondents said Israel should not return any territories, 44% said a small part, and 14% said most or all.
Arian explains that, “what happened in Israel over the last few decades is a process of political change, not an ideological one… left-right has a greater importance in its labeling function than its ability to instruct regarding ideological questions.” These findings show that the disconnect between the label left and its ideological nucleus started decades ago. Yuli Tamir, a former education minister of the Labor Party made this same point. “All the characteristics that used to be identified with the left are no longer taboo, and yet the left is losing votes.” Indeed there is a visible split between the label left and its ideas.
The change in labeling indicates that the left needs to “rebrand” itself. Branding is defined as the process of creating a unique image for a product in the minds of consumers. Branding aims to establish a differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains consumers. The consumers in this case are the voters and the product is the ideology of the left. The brand in this case, the label left, does not great an accurate image of the product and fails to establish a differentiated presence.
Stav Shaffir, the current Labor MK and former leader of the social protest movement of 2011, said that she thinks it was wise of the movement not to label itself as “left.” She explains that, “left and right in the country are concepts that have lost their value. Totally lost their value. There is no such thing as left and right. In the current reality these definitions are boring.” Shaffir’s words demonstrate the weakness of the label “left” and the need to redefine it.
Ron Chachlili, the documentary filmmaker who made a series about the Israeli left, reinforced this point, saying that “all who have a political life or desire a little admiration must get rid of any suspicion of being left.” In effect, the left has not only lost the connection to what it stands for, but also fails to attract consumers.
Why is this? Ran Cohen, the former head of Meretz, explained that, “what happened was that Israeli left entered a very comfortable seashell for leftists, but the seashell hid from the left its nation. The left without its nation, has no worth. Its purpose is to conquer the hearts of the nation for these goals. This, the left failed to do, including Meretz. Never did Meretz make an substantial and powerful effort to fulfill the left’s purpose, that is to say to conquer with its ideas and ideology the hearts of the nation.”
Ran Cohen’s words underscore the dissonance between the left and its ability to connect to people. An article in “AllBusiness” explains that “a brand is also how the company is perceived by its customers-the associations and inherent value they place on your company.” Meretz MK Ilan Gilon echoed this same sentiment, explaining that he wants to break the left’s “boutique feel.” Gilon and Cohen both stress that the core “branding issue” is that the left appears far removed from people. There is a disconnect between the left and the “hearts of the nation.”
March 18th 2015 . 10:00 pm. The Israeli left once again loses an election. Hopes are crushed. After the mourning period, people begin to ask questions about what went wrong and how to fix it. The analysis presented here underscores the divide between the ideology and the label. Though people might believe in peace, they will no longer label themselves left.
Chachlili ends his four-hour documentary on the left with the conclusion that the left “has nothing new to say and the even the old ideas, have been adopted, at least in theory, by the right.” Moving forward, the left must find new way to convey their ideas and persuade people of their value. The left must find a way into the hearts of the nation.
Maya Kornberg is a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and a graduate student at Columbia University. Her work focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israeli politics and society.
