The crowd can smell when you’re bothered: A lesson for Angus Taylor
In this column, former Pedestrian publisher and General Strategic partner Matt Rowley examines the Australian Liberal Party’s malaise, and suggests that reacting less fearfully to viral moments is part of the solution.
Embrace it: The author's firm created the Menzies AI project, which took out this billboard near Canberra airport
The brands defined by viral moments are rarely defined by the moment itself. They’re defined by their reaction to it.
Qantas didn’t lose its reputation because flights were cancelled — it lost it because customers could see the company’s irritation at being held accountable. Optus didn’t become a byword for corporate failure because of the data breach — it became one because of the defensive, legalistic response that followed. The lesson is the same in both cases: the crowd can smell when you’re bothered. And once they can, they won’t stop.
Political leaders are brands too. And Australian politics right now is a case study in what happens when a brand can’t laugh at itself.
If there’s one finding to take from the ANU’s latest election study, it’s that the Liberal Party has a generational problem. Every previous generation started left and drifted right over time – the reliable political lifecycle. Millenials and Gen Z (unable to afford property without help from mum and dad) are refusing to follow the script, they’re staying stubbornly port-side.
