2020 US elections: Time to make slogans great, again

Considering their power to leave an imprint in the conscious and unconscious, slogans have become more important.

By Akshay Sawai, ET Bureau | Mar 11, 2020, 08.33 AM IST

Like most things Trump, the line 'Make America Great Again' wasn’t entirely his campaign’s.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, ‘Make America Great Again’ was a terrific election slogan. It wasn’t banal. It was brief. It struck a chord with people.

Wait. Turns out, like most things Trump, the line wasn’t entirely his campaign’s. Ronald Reagan had trotted into the White House in 1980 on ‘Let’s Make America Great’.

This is election year in the US, and a good time to talk about slogans. Governments and armies have for centuries employed war cries to stir people up. Shivaji’s forces stormed enemy bastions roaring ‘Har har Mahadeo’. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s poem Vande Mataram achieved anthemic status during India’s freedom struggle.

America’s own fight for independence from Britain gave rise to the chant ‘Liberty or Death’. It came from American leader Patrick Henry’s evocative line, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

In the age of hashtags and social media, and considering their power to leave an imprint in the conscious and unconscious, slogans have become more important. ‘Achche din aane wale hain’ and ‘Abki baar, Modisarkar’, created by Ogilvy & Mather’s Soho Square, helped deliver Narendra Modi the throne. Both were good slogans, especially the first. It told people in simple, non-jargon words that there was something in it for them if they voted Modi. Whether that promise has been kept is a discussion best left to political experts.

A poster is attached to a lamp post as protestors take part in a large scale demonstration against austerity and the Conservative government on September 29, 2019 in Manchester, England.

Conservatives seem to get lucky with slogans. In Britain, in 1978, the Tories’ ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ poster, showing a queue of people at an employment office, was a direct indictment of the incumbent Labour party. It paved the way for Margaret Thatcher’s ascension to 10 Downing Street.

The ad was written by Andrew Rutherford. Martyn Walsh was its art director. The agency was Saatchi and Saatchi, then a relatively new shop in London opened by the Iraq-born brothers Maurice and Charles Saatchi. Like with most young companies — the brothers were in their 20s when they started — the agency prided itself on bold creativity. (A book on it years later was called Chutzpah & Chutzpah).

The Labour party was offended by the frontal attack of ‘Labour Isn’t Working’. It wasn’t the campaigning norm those days. But Labour’s protestations gave the poster even more publicity.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, nee Roberts, with her husband Denis (1915 - 2003) waving to the crowds outside the Tory Headquarters.

There are conflicting accounts about how Thatcher reacted to the line. According to The Guardian, she told the agency’s chairman Tim Bell, “You know perfectly well that you should never have the other side’s name in your own poster.”

However, author Kevin Goldman, in his book on Saatchi & Saatchi’s rise and fall, wrote that Thatcher “loved it”.

In any case, ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ acquired iconic status. In 1999, it was voted the ‘Poster Advertisement Of The Century’ by a prominent business magazine.

We will see what the US elections bring. Till then we can enjoy the slogans past, or their colourful variants, like, ‘Pav ke bina bhaaji bekaar, abki baar Modi sarkar'.

Trump In India: Quotes Vivekanada, Mentions ‘DDLJ’ & ‘Sholay’, Kohli & Tendulkar In Speech; Khaman, Samosa On The Menu At Sabarmati

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American President Donald Trump arrived in India, on Monday, for his maiden visit to the country, along with First Lady Melania Trump, daughter Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The Trumps kicked off the first leg of their trip with a visit to the Sabarmati Ashram and the ‘Namastey Trump’ event, organised at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Addressing a cheering crowd at the stadium with a capacity of 1.10 lakh, Trump gave a shout out to Bollywood films with a special mention of Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘DDLJ’ and Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra’s ‘Sholay’.

Talking about Bollywood, he said, “This is the country that produces nearly 2,000 movies from the hub of genius and creativity known as Bollywood”.

Adding, “All over the planet people take great joy in watching Bollywood films, bhangra, and classic films like DDLJ and Sholay.”

He also spoke about India’s other love, cricket, naming Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli in his speech.

Here’s a look at what all America’s First Family has been upto ever since they set foot on Indian soil.