This paper assembles a diverse set of case studies to address an unresolved puzzle: why do self-proclaimed liberals have such a hard time marketing themselves and their values? To this end, we consider three historical case studies: Catalan separatists in the 1930s, Turkish diplomats under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and early Western European organisations in the 1950s. We establish a series of criteria, showing that, on the one hand, they pursued diverse political agendas, and, on the other, they all strove to project a liberal image of themselves. This paper thus aims to shed new light on the liberal script and its contestations. What do we learn from liberal image management campaigns in the past? We establish a set of criteria and argue that liberal states often fail to market themselves efficiently for reasons that are less related to campaign intentions and more to legitimacy, temporality, and the role of audiences.