How effective are party slogans in electoral campaigns?

Every political campaign needs a good slogan; a snappy phrase to energise voters and skewer opponents. Some slogans resonate beyond polling day, capturing a national mood or a moment in time. 

The term slogan as used in politics is derived from the Scottish terms slaughghairm or slogorne, which mean battle cry or war cry. The term slogan was first used in English in 1589. 

Party slogans are highly effective communication tools in electoral campaigns, acting as memorable, concise summaries of a party’s vision, ideology, and key priorities. They shape voter perception, build emotional connections, and often prove easier for voters to recall than specific policy details. Effective slogans can win elections by rallying supporters and simplifying complex political messages into impactful phrases. 

Take Labour’s last election-winning slogan, for example: Int Malta: Il-Ħolma Tiegħek. Il-Proġett Tagħna (You are Malta: Your Dream. Our Project). Whatever political strategist was behind that slogan can legitimately claim to have cracked the formula for creating the perfect slogan. 

Others are dead on arrival, clunky, overcomplicated and unmemorable, capturing nothing much beyond the desperation of the committee that devised them. Momentum’s slogan of Bidla ta’ Vera (Real Change), as an example, failed to make an impact, as the abundant majority of the electorate clearly voted for continuity, being wary of a sudden, uncharted change from what it has become accustomed to for more than a decade. 

The PN’s last electoral slogan was probably such an example: Nifs Ġdid. Dan hu l-mument tiegħek (Fresh Start. This is your time). From day one, it clearly was not capable of resonating with voters of all political persuasions. It was never going to be a guarantee of electoral success. Such a slogan could never help if the party using it portrayed an artificial sense of unity and vision, with generic, incomprehensible policies that were not enough to win over floating and undecided voters. 

What happened during the last electoral campaign is practically what has happened ever since Labour first won with an astounding majority back in 2013. 

At the time, the Labour Party, with Joseph Muscat at the helm, rolled out in a rather pompous fashion its slogan: Malta Tagħna Lkoll (A Malta that Belongs to All of Us). It’s a historical, undeniable fact today that it was a slogan that succeeded in projecting a new identity in its quest to lure undecided and first-time voters. 

The PN’s electoral slogan for that election tried to match Labour’s in its ingenuity and effectiveness but failed miserably. Futur fis-sod – Xogħol, Saħħa, Edukazzjoni (A Strong Future – Work, Health, Education), accompanied by a flower with several hues, including red and white, the colours of the Maltese flag, at its base, turned out to be a failing, bland catch-all slogan. 

More so, as during that same electoral campaign, the PN made the wrong, self-defeating move of attacking Labour’s strategy by qualifying it with a secondary slogan of Labour Won’t Work. The idea was to reduce voters’ evaluation of the targeted Labour movement but ended up having a backlash effect on the PN. 

Fast forward to the 2017 general election, and Labour came up with another striking and ultra-effective slogan of L-Aqwa Żmien (The Best of Times) while the PN’s counter-slogan, Jien Nagħżel Malta (I Choose Malta), once more failed to resonate with the electorate. It had a corporate feel and definitely did not appeal, as evidenced by the landslide victory garnered by Labour. 

Ironically, for the 2022 general election, Labour’s slogan apparently took the cue from the PN’s slogan for the preceding election, as it included the word Malta in it: Malta Flimkien (Malta Together), whereas the PN’s slogan read: Miegħek għal Malta (With Your for Malta). 

While slogans in themselves are not enough for securing electoral victories, they tend to be emotional shortcuts or building blocks that have the potential to work across cultures and social classes. 

Voters instinctively know what miegħek, flimkien, l-aqwa żmien or futur fis-sod promise without needing a policy paper. They are also remarkably elastic: a socialist party, a conservative party and a populist party can all bend the same words to their own story. 

Malta tagħna lkoll is probably the most memorable slogan of recent years. It was part of a trend for shorter, snappier slogans, with the three-word formula briefly being seen as a key to success, designed to trigger cognitive-emotional responses like enthusiasm and hope. 

Voters are more likely to remember a catchy slogan than a politician’s name, often associating the slogan with the party’s overall image. This will allow voters to make an informed judgement on whom to support. In this sense, political campaign slogans have remained critical to voter awareness and education. Political campaigns have grown into contests in which selecting a party demands the deployment of very inventive and creative communication and political marketing methods. Slogans have evolved into an essential weapon for politicians seeking power to persuade the public to support them. 

But soon there may not be any slogans at all, in the traditional sense. 

Come the next general election, artificial intelligence will probably be used by our mainstream parties to craft messages tailored to the concerns of individual voters, delivered through social media and constantly refined to have the maximum impact. 

We can’t exclude neuroscience, either, or the use of tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, thus showing how people respond neurologically to political stimuli such as campaign ads, speeches and election slogans. 

Such trends could fundamentally change democratic politics, reshaping competing parties’ relationship with voters. 

They could also rob us of some irritatingly catchy election slogans!