Generalizing the layered messaging model
In my introductory post on layered messaging, I laid out two basic templates for enterprise IT messaging. But consider, if you would, the following
General layered marketing template
- Tangible benefits
- Credible causal connection
- Measurable characteristics
- Credible causal connection
- Fundamental nature
Clearly, the second of my the two enterprise IT layered messaging templates I proposed,
Enterprise IT product (sustainable-lead messaging stack)
- Tangible benefits
- Technical connection
- Features and metrics
- Technical connection
- Fundamental product architecture
is just a special case of that more general model.
Another special case seems to work well for the other market I tend to write about in this blog, namely US politics. Namely, the template
Political candidates
- Tangible benefits
- Credible effect
- Promised actions in office
- Logical and/or emotional connection
- Biography, character, and values
seems to cover a lot of today’s campaign marketing.
For example, by applying this model to some of this year’s presidential candidates, we could get
John McCain (general election)
- Safe country, economic growth, lower taxes, less corruption, return to good ol’ American values
- Conservative political theories say you’ll get the desired outcomes
- Hawkish policies, low taxes, corruption-fighting, conservative judges
- He’s done it all his life, it’s what he’s all about
- Country-loving pugnacious Republican war hero
Barack Obama (general election)
- Peace, fewer enemies around the world, better times for the poor and middle class, sane public policies, social freedoms, progress on global warming, general change
- Liberal/moderate political theories say you’ll get the desired outcomes
- Dovish policies, leadership-through-inspiration, logic-based policies, liberal judges
- He’s done it all his life, it’s what he’s all about
- People-serving high-IQ Democrat from an outsider background who’s a brilliant orator
Ron Paul
- More money in your pocketbook, more personal freedom, less war
- Libertarian policies would surely deliver what they promise. And libertarian theories say the side effects wouldn’t be nearly as bad as conventional thinking claims.
- Radical reductions in spending, taxes, international involvement, and miscellaneous impingements on freedom.
- He sure sounds sincere. Besides, he’s not really going to get elected anyway, so only his ideas matter, not his actual competence.
- Congressman and doctor who talks a pure libertarian line.
Hillary Clinton (late in her campaign)
- Better times for the poor and middle class, sane & non-naive public policies at home and abroad, gender equality
- Clintonian policy-wonkiness in the 1990s gave us our best times in half a century
- Moderate but firm foreign policy, health-care reform, other smart public policies, liberal judges
- She’s done it all her life, it’s what she’s all about
- Long-time liberal/populist/moderate, policy wonk, health-care specialist, woman, fairly experienced
All of these templates seem to be well-accepted by a large group of supporters. “Large” is of course a somewhat relative term, with Ron Paul’s story ringing true with a lot fewer people than Obama’s, McCain’s, or Clinton. But then, not as many people believe in Paul’s libertarian dogma as accept general US right-wing, left-wing, or centrist political approaches. By way of contrast, it’s hard to come up with a layered messaging stack for Rudy Giuliani that would impress many voters; “Subject-Verb-9/11” was never fleshed out in a detailed way that very many people bought. And the same goes for presidential candidate Joe Biden’s “I’m a working-class guy like you, except that I’m smart about foreign policy.”
Much of what has happened in the campaign could be explained starting from templates like these. Not all, of course. For example, field organization – and particularly Obama’s huge advantage in same in most states, and Clinton’s advantage in a few – goes a long way toward explaining the Democratic primary outcome. But on the whole, I think it’s not too inaccurate to say that candidates tend to do well to the extent voters and influencers buy into all the layers of their messaging pitch, but not so well to the extent one or more layers are seen as being seriously lacking.
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