Its always fascinating to observe political campaign "messaging" strategies, as they're really nothing more than marketing/advertising campaigns on steroids.
They're a composite of what the most aggressive brand marketing campaigns encompass, leveraging every type of guerilla marketing application, every type of media outlet,and are wrapped with every type of PR and awareness tactic under the sun.
The common wisdom of brand marketing and positioning is that a truly successful marketing campaign is supposed to stick to a consistent theme of messages and clear value propositions throughout the course of the campaign: that's what we call Brand Integrity 101. If you switch messages, you confuse consumers--and consumers don't like to be confused.
One would think this would be the most obvious tactic when it comes to a political campaign. However, much to our chagrin--and especially during times of great crisis and uncertainty, the rules of engagement for those selling a political product are completely contradictory to those espoused by accomplished brand marketing experts.
Yes...many of those reading this will say "Duh-tell me something we don't know.."
But for those that depend on Harvard MBA's or other 'case study' experts, the case in point that should be a What Not To Do when promoting a product is the marketing campaign behind attempts to sell the John McCain and Sarah Palin product.
1. Negative Advertising. Pounding a competing product is actually not a bad tactic at the appropriate time--as long as the pounding is credible. And, Bill Clinton said that politics is a contact sport; implying that the rules change after each play.
That said, numerous federal agencies that govern product marketing have very clear rules prohibiting fraudulent and/or deceptive advertising. False claims about competing products are considered libelous, and those messages found to be fraudulent can result in criminal prosecution.
Most recent accusations made by McCain & Co.'s advertising team--including direct statements made by his anointed running mate with regard to Senator Obama's purported 'terrorist' links are not only completely unsubstantiated, but if those statements were regulated by a federal or state agency, they would easily be considered deceptive, if not fraudulent.
..Obviously, political campaign statements aren't regulated by any government agency (way too complicated), but any reasonably well-trained marketing student would clearly know that when a manufacurer is found to be delivering a false claim, the consumer backlash to negative advertising can sink a brand in a matter of days. The result? The product collects dust on the shelf-then its sent back to the manufacturer, who disposes of it in a junk pile-or ships it to an overseas country at a discounted price.
Changing the packaging. If one package type or size doesn't sell, manufacturers try to adjust quickly and re-package, but they typically use the same ingredients.
In this case, the republican presidential campaign is not only re-packaging on an hourly basis, they keep changing the ingredients, which is destroying an already aging Grand Old Party brand that once prided itself on a relatively unchanging set of ingredients. Yes, these are historic times, and we're facing challenges that are unprecedented, and 'change' is the recipe that we need, but changing ingredients based on every tick in stock futures is merely causing consumer confidence in the underlying product to disintegrate faster than the value of our retirement investments.
Crisp, clear, concise and CONSISTENT messages are the basic elements to promoting any product, a tactic that even Mr. McCain's wife will acknowledge, as Budweiser succeeded in that strategy for three generations.
And if consumers are finding they no longer like the taste, manufacturers spend lots of time and thought on researching what will work-they don't roll out a new product change every 3 hours. Even in the most volatile of times.
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