Obama’s polls/results gap may show the opposite of what people think it does
Barack Obama did much worse in the New Hampshire primary than polls suggested he would. As the night unfolded, analysts started relating this to similar events in other races featuring black candidates, such as Tom Bradley’s and Doug Wilder’s campaigns for the governorships of California and Virginia respectively. Evidently, Americans are more eager to be perceived as voting for an African-American than they are to actually vote for one.
If that interpretation is correct, and I think it is, there are two major ways of explaining the phenomenon.
- Hidden racism – people are ashamed to admit to being racists, but in the secrecy of the voting booth let their true feelings show.
- The virtue of supporting a minority – people are eager to be perceived as pro-diversity. But in the secrecy of the voting booth they pick the candidate they really want, with race being set aside.
Theory #1 is the conventional wisdom, but a key piece of evidence supports Theory #2 instead. Read more
| Categories: Barack Obama, Campaign 2008, 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
| Categories: Campaign 2008, Hillary Clinton, Political marketing | Leave a Comment |
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 |
John Edwards’ marketing problem
As I noted in a prior post, John Edwards’s main message now is “I offer change, just like Barack Obama.” This elicits an obvious response, namely “Great, buddy. So why should we select you when Obama is also available?”
This was an easier question to answer when “everybody knew” that Obama was too young and unqualified to be taken wholly seriously. But those days are behind us. Besides, having twice the Senatorial experience of your opponent isn’t all that impressive when you have six years and he has three. Certainly Edwards will get some support because he has a Southern accent, isn’t known to ever have snorted cocaine, and – dare I say it – is white. But those factors don’t seem to be enough for Edwards to prevail.
So what can Edwards do, other than wait around and hope to get lucky from an Obama gaffe? Read more
| Categories: "Change", Campaign 2008, Political marketing | Leave a Comment |
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 |
Marketing change in the Democratic Primaries, Part 2 – competing definitions
Barack Obama is running almost purely as the candidate of change, and has been for his whole political career. Accordingly, he has the most complex, multi-faceted, and well-developed change message of any major candidate in either party, even ahead of libertarian/survivalist Republican Ron Paul.
When I visited BarackObama.com on Sunday, the first three slogans I saw were
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“Change we can believe in” (his overall campaign tagline)
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“New Hampshire – Our time for change has come”
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“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
And it continues from there. Obama has been active in various return-the-government-to-the-people kinds of issues – campaign finance reform, a search engine of government information (which he presented on the debate as a big deal), and so on. His “Let’s be united, not divided” message is couched in terms of change. His recent book title “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” is full of words with connotations of change. He calls himself a “progressive.” He even compares himself to Martin Luther King. And his campaign hardly shies away from the suggestion that Obama’s very skin color would, if he were elected, represent dramatic change.
John Edwards’ message is similar, but at its core he’s pushing a narrower, classically populist concept of “change.” Read more
| Categories: "Change", Barack Obama, Campaign 2008, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Political marketing | 1 Comment |
Marketing change in the Democratic Primaries, Part 1 — different approaches
At Saturday’s New Hampshire debate among four Democratic contenders – Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Barack Obama, and John Edwards – the central theme was change. All the Democratic candidates agreed on four basic concepts:
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Change from the Bush Administration is paramount.
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Change has something to do with helping the poor, the working class, and children.
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Change in Iraq policy – specifically, bringing US troops home from Iraq – is mandatory.
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Change in health care insurance is important.
No surprises so far – the first three are obvious Democratic positions, and the fourth has been a major Democratic theme since early in the Bill Clinton Administration.
But the debate also highlighted considerable disagreement and competition to further define what “change” entails. Read more
| Categories: "Change", Barack Obama, Campaign 2008, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Political marketing | 1 Comment |