Axelrod & Co. Understood Time Shifting and Consumer Control
Posted by Pete Snyder on 11.05.08
Pete Snyder
There is no doubt that this year presented the toughest political climate for Republicans since Watergate; indeed, this campaign has been an uphill fight for John McCain or any GOP nominee. That said, Barack Obama, David Axelrod and their team deserve a huge amount of respect and credit for running a nearly flawless campaign.
They didn't fight today's war with yesterday's weapons and, most importantly, their campaign was based on a superior strategy. For the purposes of this column, let's forget about the issues, let's forget about the climate and let's ignore message for a moment. The simple fact is that Obama and his campaign chiefs understood two of the most significant (but little talked about) changes of this campaign cycle:
The election timetable fundamentally shifted from being just about Election Day or even the last 72 hours (as was the rule of thumb for decades) to being decided as early as six weeks in advance.
Due to the seismic changes in how voters get and process information that we marketers have seen for quite some time the voter, just like the consumer, is now in control and thus would be open to making his or her voting decisions earlier than ever.
Combined, these two critical assumptions turned D.C. conventional wisdom on its head and helped provide Obama with a major strategic advantage over McCain. Here's how:
Starting with Obama's huge upset in Iowa, the ensuing Hillary-Obama 50-state death match altered the rules of the game. Historically, a handful of early primary and caucus states would decide this thing in about 45 days (usually less than 1% of all voters in the country) and most Americans wouldn't feel compelled to engage until the fall. Instead, the clash of the Democrat titans drove millions of Americans to the polls because -- for the first time in a primary -- their vote actually could make a difference.
The Obama camp recognized that something very different was going on here. It threw out many of the old political adages and assumptions, including the granddaddy of them all, Americans don't tune into elections until after Labor Day. Obama's campaign geared its online and off-line engagement and advertising to build on this unprecedented early interest and mobilized it into an effective ground game to get out their vote.
While McCain came back from the dead after his campaign nearly went bankrupt and all of the pundits wrote him off, his path to the nomination was actually easier and wrapped up nearly three months before Obama crossed the magic delegate threshold. McCain rested, reshuffled his campaign staff, worked on replenishing his coffers and set his sights on the convention and the traditional post-Labor Day blitz.
Obama acted quite differently. Having opted-out of his promise to abide by campaign finance laws (which proved to be one of his shrewdest and smartest moves), he went for broke. His campaign started pouring millions of dollars into opening scores of campaign offices in all 50 states, many in areas that Democrats hadn't contested in decades. In the traditionally GOP-favoring Colorado, Obama set up 59 campaign offices to McCain's 13.
Why did he take this expensive gamble? Because of the internet and rise of social media, this was the first time where it actually made sense to run a 50-state campaign. In the past, each party would focus its efforts in getting out the vote in its respective solid "D" or solid "R" states and pour hundred of millions of dollars fighting it out over a handful of "battleground states."
This time around, everyone counted. And given the power of social media, everyone who has the interest has the ability to influence and mobilize networks of friends. A blue dot in a sea of red could now make a real impact, both vote-wise and dollar-wise, to a presidential campaign. Obama got this and McCain really didn't.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pete Snyder is the founder and CEO of New Media Strategies. He also is a former GOP pollster and media consultant. Full-disclosure: He voted for McCain.
In an equally risky, yet ultimately effective move, Obama's campaign took to the airwaves during the summer months. Over the summer alone, Obama and the DNC outspent McCain and the GOP by nearly 10 to 1 in Virginia, a reliably red state in presidential elections since voting for Lyndon Johnson in '64. This strategy paid off by shaping early opinions (and thus, polls) about Obama, driving dollars and volunteers into his campaign and forcing McCain to spend precious resources in a state he expected to have in the GOP column.
More importantly, Obama realized that the defined "time" of the election timetable fundamentally changed. For decades, campaign models were built upon the premise that you raised all of your dollars and put all of your infrastructure -- including TV advertising and direct mail -- toward a call to action, driving turnout for 12 hours or so on Nov. 4. In 2000, Karl Rove swore that Republicans would never lose the ground game again after the Bush team took a lead into Election Day and were blindsided by the huge surge in voter turnout for Al Gore. Rove changed the election timetable from 12 hours to the last 72 hours, thus creating the effective and much heralded (or reviled, depending on where you sit) "72 hours program" that has dominated the efforts of both parties for the past three campaign cycles.
As we marketers understand, much has changed over the past six years in how consumers, let alone voters, gather and process information and then make decisions. Voters have more access to information and more touch-points and influencers in their lives than ever before. Oftentimes, this causes consumers and voters to make decisions on brands they like, products they want to buy or candidates they want to support much earlier than they did in years and decades past. The engagement and interest in Campaign 2008 never really subsided; it continued to grow. As a former pollster, across the board I saw the "undecideds" shrink much earlier than in past cycles. Voters were making up their minds earlier than in the past.
Virginia allowed early voting six weeks in advance. By the time Election Day actually rolled around, nearly 35% to 40% of the entire electorate of America had already voted. Because both consumers and voters are now in control, in many places there is no longer an Election Day. It's been replaced by "election month." Obama geared his campaign strategy around these two massive shifts and reaped the rewards. The coup de grace: When the global economic collapse hit over five weeks ago it stopped the clock for the media, making it virtually impossible for a competing story to garner any major attention, thus freezing McCain in time.
This is not to say that Obama and all of his advisers are geniuses and McCain and all of his campaign chieftains are incompetent. That is hardly the case. At times, McCain used brilliant tactics and knocked Obama off balance late in the summer and through the GOP convention. In a strategic sense, however, the McCain camp was out-thought and out-gunned. The campaign had no overarching narrative and was built on an outdated model. Indeed, it was much smaller than the man it attempted to represent.
The much-heralded 72-hour campaign is dead. Election Day is no longer. Voters, like consumers, are now in control.
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Alison Coffey
Personally, I don't agree w/ all of it but worth a read for our purposes:
What Marketers Can Learn From Obama's Campaign
Change -- and Positioning -- You Can Believe in
By Al Ries
Published: November 05, 2008
Nov. 4, 2008, will go down in history as the biggest day ever in the history of marketing.
Take a relatively unknown man. Younger than all of his opponents. Black. With a bad-sounding name. Consider his first opponent: the best-known woman in America, connected to one of the most successful politicians in history. Then consider his second opponent: a well-known war hero with a long, distinguished record as a U.S. senator.
Obama owns the 'change' idea in voters' minds.
Photo Credit: AP
It didn't matter. Barack Obama had a better marketing strategy than either of them. "Change."
Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was the master of the "big lie." According to Goebbels, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
The opposite of that strategy is the "big truth." If you tell the truth often enough and keep repeating it, the truth gets bigger and bigger, creating an aura of legitimacy and authenticity.
Clinton's 'solutions' fizzle
What word did Hillary Clinton own? First she tried "experience." When she saw the progress Mr. Obama was making, she shifted to "Countdown to change." Then when the critics pointed out her me-too approach, she shifted to "Solutions for America."
What word is associated with Ms. Clinton today? I don't know, do you?
Then there's John McCain. An Oct. 26 cover story in The New York Times Magazine was titled "The Making (and Remaking and Remaking) of the Candidate." The visual listed some of the labels the candidate was associated with: "Conservative. Maverick. Hero. Straight talker. Commander. Bipartisan conciliator. Experienced leader. Patriot." Subhead: "When a Campaign Can't Settle on a Central Narrative, Does It Imperil Its Protagonist?"
Actually, Mr. McCain did settle on a slogan, "Country first," but it was way too late in the campaign and it was a slogan that had little relevance to the average voter.
Tactically, both Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain focused their messages on "I can do change better than my opponent can do change."
"Better" never works in marketing. The only thing that works in marketing is "different." When you're different, you can pre-empt the concept in consumers' minds so your competitors can never take it away from you.
The ultimate slogan
Look at what "driving" has done for BMW. Are there vehicles that are more fun to drive than BMWs? Probably, but it doesn't matter. BMW has pre-empted the "driving" position in the mind.
The sad fact is that there are only a few dozen brands that own a word in the mind and most of them don't even use their words as slogans. Mercedes-Benz owns "prestige," but doesn't use the word as a slogan. Toyota owns "reliability," but doesn't use the word as a slogan. Coca-Cola owns "the real thing," but doesn't use the words as a slogan. Pepsi-Cola owns "Pepsi generation," but doesn't use the words as a slogan.
As a matter of fact, most brands follow the Pepsi pattern. Every time they get a new CMO or a new advertising agency, they change the slogan. Since 1975, BMW has used one slogan: "The ultimate driving machine." Since 1975, Pepsi-Cola has used these advertising slogans:
1975: "For those who think young."
1978: "Have a Pepsi day."
1980: "Catch that Pepsi spirit."
1982: "Pepsi's got your taste for life."
1983: "Pepsi now."
1984: "The choice of a new generation."
1989: "A generation ahead."
1990: "Pepsi: The choice of a new generation."
1992: "Gotta have it."
1993: "Be young. Have fun. Drink Pepsi."
1995: "Nothing else is a Pepsi."
2002: "Generation next."
2003: "Think young. Drink young."
2004: "It's the cola."
Thirty-three years ago when the "Ultimate driving machine" campaign started, BMW was the 11th-largest-selling European imported vehicle in the U.S. market. Today it's No. 1.
Thirty-three years ago, Pepsi-Cola was the No. 2-selling cola in the U.S. market. Today, many advertising slogans later, it's still No. 2.
The average Pepsi-Cola advertising slogan lasts just two years and two months. The average chief marketing officer lasts just two years and two months. The average corporate advertising campaign in BusinessWeek lasts just two years and six months.
The Obama campaign has a lot to teach the advertising community.
1. Simplicity. About 70% of the population thinks the country is going in the wrong direction, hence Obama's focus on the word "change." Why didn't talented politicians like Ms. Clinton and John Edwards consider using this concept?
Based on my experience, in the boardrooms of corporate America "change" is an idea that is too simple to sell. Corporate executives are looking for advertising concepts that are "clever." For all the money being spent, corporate executives want something they couldn't have thought of themselves. Hopefully, something exceedingly clever.
Here is a sampling of slogans from a recent issue of BusinessWeek:
Chicago Graduate School of Business: "Triumph in your moment of truth."
Darden School of Business: "High touch. High tone. High energy."
Salesforce.com: "Your future is looking up."
Zurich: "Because change happenz."
CDW: "The right technology. Right away."
Hitachi: "Inspire the next."
NEC: "Empowered by innovation."
Deutsche Bank: "A passion to perform."
SKF: "The power of knowledge engineering."
Some of these slogans might be clever, some might be inspiring and some might be descriptive of the company's product line, but none will ever drive the company's business in the way that "change" drove the Obama campaign. They're not simple enough.
2. Consistency. What's wrong with 90% of all advertising? Companies try to "communicate" when they should be trying to "position."
Mr. Obama's objective was not to communicate the fact that he was an agent of change. In today's environment, every politician running for the country's highest office was presenting him or herself as an agent of change. What Mr. Obama actually did was to repeat the "change" message over and over again, so that potential voters identified Mr. Obama with the concept. In other words, he owns the "change" idea in voters' minds.
In today's overcommunicated society, it takes endless repetition to achieve this effect. For a typical consumer brand, that might mean years and years of advertising and hundreds of millions of dollars.
Most companies don't have the money, don't have the patience and don't have the vision to achieve what Mr. Obama did. They jerk from one message to another, hoping for a magic bullet that will energize their brands. That doesn't work today. That is especially ineffective for a politician because it creates an aura of vacillation and indecisiveness, fatal qualities for someone looking to move up the political ladder.
The only thing that works today is the BMW approach. Consistency, consistency, consistency -- over decades, if not longer.
But not with a dull slogan. Hitachi has been "inspiring the next" for as long as I can remember, but with little success.
Effective slogans needs to be simple and grounded in reality. What next has Hitachi ever inspired? Red ink, maybe. In the past 10 years, Hitachi has had sales of $786.9 billion and managed to lose $5.1 billion. When you put your corporate name on everything, as Hitachi does, it's difficult to make money because it's difficult to make the brand stand for anything.
3. Relevance. "If you're losing the battle, shift the battlefield" is an old military axiom that applies equally as well to marketing. By his relentless focus on change, Mr. Obama shifted the political battlefield. He forced his opponents to devote much of their campaign time discussing changes they proposed for the country. And how their changes would differ from the changes that he proposed.
All the talk about "change" distracted both Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain from talking about their strengths: their track records, their experience and their relationships with world leaders.
As you probably know, Mr. Obama was selected as Advertising Age's Marketer of the Year by the executives attending the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference in Orlando last month. But one wonders if these CMOs are getting the message.
As one marketing executive said: "I look at it as something that we can all learn from as marketers. To see what he's done, to be able to create a social network and do it in a way where it's created the tools to let people get engaged very easily. It's very easy for people to participate."
Whatever happened to "change"?
~ ~ ~
In addition to his monthly AdAge.com column, Al and his daughter and partner Laura Ries host a weekly video report at www.RiesReport.com.
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