Patterns of outrage
This post is part of a series focused on political persuasion. Others in the series are linked from an introductory overview.
Present-day politics are commonly governed by negative emotions, such as fear, anger and disgust. So says conventional wisdom, and I agree. Analyzing these surging emotions is difficult, but here’s a framework that I think could help:
A huge fraction of significant modern politics boils down to outrage at patterns of events.
1. My best argument for focusing specifically on outrage is this — political issues sort roughly into three buckets: Read more
| Categories: Hillary Clinton, Marketing theory, Political marketing | 1 Comment |
How Hillary Clinton can still differentiate herself from Barack Obama on foreign policy
Obviously, these are difficult times for the Clinton campaign, and Barack Obama is the most likely Democratic nominee for president. His messaging strategy, so far successful, has in essence been:
- Pitch “change” as a top-level message.
- Claim that being a pro-change outsider is more conducive to getting things done than being an experienced insider.
- Adopt similar policy positions to his rivals, so as to reduce the chance for differentiation there.
- Show that he’s not “too much” of an outsider, by collecting insiders’ endorsements.
- Claim that primary electoral success demonstrates both that he’s likely to have general election success in the fall and also that he’s likely to lead effectively once elected.
So Clinton desperately needs to differentiate herself from Obama, beneficially, more than she already has. But how? Read more
| Categories: Campaign 2008, Companies, products, and candidates, Hillary Clinton, Political marketing | 1 Comment |
Updating my marketing prescriptions for the Clinton campaign
The competitive landscape in the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign has changed significantly since Tuesday morning. What does this do to the marketing strategy I suggested for Hillary Clinton a mere 24 hours ago? Let’s see. Read more
| Categories: Campaign 2008, Hillary Clinton, Political marketing | 2 Comments |
How Hillary Clinton regained authenticity
A huge fraction of what I do as a marketing consultant is advise on how to be credible. In consumer marketing – including politics – analysis often focuses on the closely related factor of authenticity instead. Hillary Clinton’s stunning New Hampshire win is in large part being attributed to a sudden recapture of authenticity.
I agree with that top-level analysis. Specifically, I think there were four main factors driving the sudden change in Clinton’s image. Read more
| Categories: Campaign 2008, Hillary Clinton, Political marketing | Leave a Comment |
An interesting but flawed process critique of the Clinton campaign
Over on DailyKos, webranding gives an interesting reason for Hillary Clinton’s marketing problems: He says bad decisions were inevitable because Mark Penn is both head pollster and head strategist — i.e., both the message crafter and the message tester. That is, webranding argues it was foreordained that polls would validate the strategy Mark Penn already decided on.
Implicit in this critique is the idea that one should test messages via polling. Now, up to a point I agree that’s a great idea. But political campaigns aren’t just about pitching to people’s preconceptions — they’re also about changing people’s minds. Read more
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The classic marketing mistake Hillary Clinton now needs to avoid
I’m writing this Tuesday morning. It is widely expected that Hillary Clinton will get shellacked in the New Hampshire primary, and her campaign is searching for a strategy with which to rebound.
The temptation will be to make a classic marketing error: Excessive focus. And if they fall into that trap, they will lose.
If Hillary Clinton is to win the Democratic nomination, her campaign now has to simultaneously follow all (or at least most) of the following strategies:
- Pitch her experience, positively (and in more detail than they have been).
- Attack Barack Obama’s lack of experience.
- Pitch her “change-through-accomplishment” story, even though that will accomplish little more than stemming defections from her existing base of supporters.
- Open a new conceptual front, by stressing Clinton’s role as a womens’ rights icon.
- Continue to advance on the likability front (she’s a wonderful, moving speaker, when she lets herself be).
- Unleash Bill Clinton on the campaign trail, with the dual assignment of highlighting policy differences with the opposition and – even more important – giving examples of specific Hillary Clinton accomplishments behind closed doors.
| Categories: "Change", Campaign 2008, Companies, products, and candidates, Hillary Clinton, Political marketing | 3 Comments |
Hillary Clinton is ideally positioned to run on women’s rights in 2008. (And not just because she’s female.)
In a previous post, I argued that Hillary Clinton’s primary opportunity for differentiation –- specifically, versus her two main rivals, who are also smart, liberal lawyer-senators — lies in being female and Bill Clinton’s wife. I further suggested that she’s extremely well-qualified to be an icon of 2008 women’s rights, which could let her pursue this strategy to great advantage. Here’s what I meant.
Read more
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How Hillary Clinton could be more effectively marketed
The essence of strategic marketing and positioning is:
- Explain what’s unique about your product.
- Explain why people should care.
Let’s apply that framework to Hillary Clinton.
The three leading candidates for the Democratic nomination are all smart, fairly liberal lawyers, each with 3-7 years of experience serving in the US Senate. Not a lot of difference there. Clearly, then, the most unique aspects to Hillary Clinton as a candidate are:
- She’s female.
- She’s Bill Clinton’s wife.
How could those traits be marketed to best advantage? Read more
| Categories: Campaign 2008, Companies, products, and candidates, Hillary Clinton, Political marketing | 1 Comment |
Marketing change in the Democratic primaries, Part 4 – is it a wise strategy?
As I’ve discussed in three prior posts, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign truly revolves around a message of “change.” This has obviously been a successful strategy for him. So does that mean his rivals are right to try to blur his message or steal his thunder?
I think so, for each of John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, albeit for different reasons. Read more
| Categories: "Change", Barack Obama, Campaign 2008, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Political marketing | 1 Comment |
Marketing change in the Democratic Primaries, Part 3 – implicit messaging
When discussing strategic messaging, it is often useful to draw a distinction between explicit messaging (essentially, what’s said outright, in words) and implicit messaging (everything else). I outlined the explicit change messages of Senators Clinton, Obama, and Edwards in a previous post. Now I’d like to highlight some of their (presumably conscious) implicit messaging that supports – or contradicts – their explicit claims.
Again, Obama leads the way. He at least creates the appearance of using a variety of modern internet technologies to communicate with his supporters, and ties this into a pledge to use technology to make government more transparent and responsive to its citizens. The photo section of BarackObama.com focuses on showing him with a broad range of “ordinary” people. Read more
| Categories: "Change", Barack Obama, Campaign 2008, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Political marketing | 2 Comments |