The Liberal Party has trashed its brand position

In marketing terms, the Liberal Party has lost its way.

Marketing a political party is really no different to marketing any product. Peter van Onselen references the Democrats, Greens and One Nation (“Reactionary Liberals deflect their party from its origins”, 9/3). Only one has maintained its relevance — One Nation. The Democrats died when its original positioning to keep the bastards honest was abandoned; the Greens are suffering a similar fate trying to be all things to all people; only One Nation appears true to itself.

The Liberals brand positioning has been trashed. The last leader to understand it was John Howard who clearly knew the importance of keeping the traditional Liberal satisfied while appealing to people who aspire to a better life. While the Nationals brand positioning remains strong, history shows that strong leadership is a critical success factor.

Like the Liberals, Labor is torn between satisfying its traditional trade union base and the soft inner-urban intellectual. Steering that course is probably an easier task than that of the Liberals because the worker’s party brand positioning is not offensive to the intellectual so long as the unions are kept under control.

Political parties must understand to whom they are addressing their message. It’s critical that positioning of their brand is relevant to that audience, is clear and is embraced by the traditional party voter and those in the centre who you need to attract.

Ian Murray, Cremorne Point, NSW

Party lines blurred

Ross Dillon nailed it (Letters, 9/3). The Liberal Party must fight the good fight leading up to the election but have a strategy in place in the event of a massacre. That should include the expulsion of an increasingly shrill Malcolm Turnbull and his acolytes, who are really Liberals in name only, and revert to the conservative base that has always been the real strength of the party. Such action would extend an invitation to disaffected Liberal voters to return to the fold while simultaneously providing the electorate at large with a real choice between differing political ideologies.

Failure to take this decisive and necessary action will perpetuate the blurred lines between both main parties. Many people think an examination of the existing political divide is like comparing hospital food with airline food.

Nick Mazzarol, Fernvale, Qld

Image of subjugation

Like Deborah Morrison (Letters, 9/3), I viewed the photograph of women freed from Islamic State (“Afterlife of the caliphate”, 7/3), not only with dismay, but with a great sadness. The clustering of those black-clad, faceless women huddled together, spoke louder than any text.

We may be struggling with gender concepts in the West, but this is of nothing compared with what is portrayed in that photograph. It stands as an allegory against the subjugation of women and is as powerful as that of the child fleeing in the Vietnam War.

Noelle Oke, Albury, NSW

Privileged children

It is disappointing and saddening that activists are exploiting and manipulating children to further their aims at stopping the Adani coal mine. It is reported that up to 200 million Indians are without stable and reliable energy for even basic things such as cooking. Many die from respiratory problems because they have to cook with wood or animal dung.

Australian children will go home to their comfortable airconditioned homes and cooked meals thinking what a good job they have done under the guise of climate change, but at the same time depriving their counterparts in India, some 8000km away, of anywhere near the same quality of life, condemning them to years of primitive conditions. I despair at the lack of ethics and the selfishness of these so-called “progressives”.

John Cook, Mullalo, WA