Re-launch or re-hash?

You’d have thought that political spinners would learn?

Gordon Brown did them almost quarterly, Ed Miliband has done a fair few, the Big Society has tried at least six. Billed as re-launches, but in effect just re-hashes of the same content.

And today we see the coalition proudly jumping on the re-launch bandwagon.

That’s not to say that brands, organisations and individuals don’t need to achieve the objectives encompassed by a ‘re-launch’. It’s just that you should achieve these objectives through hard work and delivering successful tactics which get your new message out.

As seasoned public sector PR Lorna Gozzard said in a couple of tweets on the subject:

Something undignified about a govt doing a ‘relaunch’ + ‘fightback’ mid-term. Just focus on doing your job well, then you won’t need to.

Couldn’t agree more. Stop talking and start doing. Ed Miliband is a case in point; once he stopped trying to re-launch, started to focus on his job and set up more opportunities where he was more comfortable, he started doing better in communications terms.

While a re-launch may seem a panacea to a politicians woes, unless it’s accompanied by a genuine change in approach, content and more substantial, sustained, activity, it will only ever be a re-hash.

Picture from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/number10gov