At times during his party conference speech on Saturday, Christian Lindner looked as if he was about to take off. This was not due to the content or how engaging his talk was, but rather to the graphic staging of the event. Behind him, a gray eagle chick was emblazoned on the magenta-colored video screen – a cross between the heraldic animal from the plenary hall of the Bundestag in the Reichstag building, which was disrespectfully called the “fat hen” because of its size, and a figure that could have been running around in one of the early Pixar animated films. In the television images and agency photos, the Liberal leader seemed to have wings growing out of his shoulders.
The bird with the orange beak and black beady eyes was even more the subject of discussion among the delegates than the key motion on the economic turnaround or the state of the traffic light coalition. “Cute” was the friendliest rating, but the FDP doesn’t actually want to come across as cute. Who came up with that was a frequently heard question that was also directed at the Liberal leadership. Or what the party wanted to express with it, especially since the slogan didn’t really catch fire.
Growth becomes “growth”
“Growth made in Germany” was the motto of the Liberal meeting this time, the “m” in growth wobbled on the video wall and then turned into an “n”. It then said “doing growth”, which was probably supposed to remind you of “what to do”. “Doing nothing is absolutely impossible,” Lindner said in his speech.
Not everyone thought the pun was really successful; someone joked about “oilcloth”. But the Free Democrats were even less able to make friends with the juvenile gray griffin that nested in the middle of the slogan after the alternating letter.
The eagle and the claim were thought up by the Heimat agency, which has been designing the visual appearance of the Free Democrats and their election campaigns for nine years. And some in the Free Democrats are wondering whether it still works as brilliantly as it did a few years ago. The screaming color magenta and the unusual slogans helped pave the way back to the Bundestag for the Liberals in 2017.
Now some delegates think the eagle is the silliest thing since Guido Westerwelle had the number 18 written in yellow on the sole of his shoe and went on television with it. “Is it still growing?” said a leading FDP man. “Or will he take off once we have decided on the main motion?”
Others downloaded the animals onto their cell phones and had fun working on them with artificial intelligence. In any case, the childish scheme of the template does not seem to have made anyone particularly lenient in these attempts at redesign. At least the campaign is being talked about, says a liberal whose area of responsibility also includes communications. With the economic turnaround, which was the main focus of the party conference, it was possible to get back into the conversation.