Corporations Want Obama's Winning Formula
businessweek.com
businessweek.com
Bonus Step 2: make everything you promise non-binding, so you never really have to follow through with anything your marketing said in order to make the sale.
For example, what business gets free press 24-7 for months?
But lets apply the social media marketing analogy to Pepsi.
Does Pepsi have an active social media audience that is feverishly reading their tweets and is very open to promoting them to their friends the same way Obama does?
I doubt it.
I pulled some more quotes from the article:
> “Politics is a direct-response business,” Goff says. “People do things if you ask them to do it, and for the most part don’t do it if you don’t ask.”
And then talking about using their facebook page over direct phone calls:
> "5 million voters were contacted this way (via Facebook)"
How many people are going to openly receive direct-marketing messages from a corporation like Pepsi about their products via Facebook?
TLDR: The tools sound the same but political marketing is VERY different than business marketing. The type of audience you are reaching and their engagement is everything.
A political campaign is able to build a very personal connection, and not just with the candidate. There was a mention in another article that fundraising emails 'signed' by campaign manager Jim Messina did very well. People built that connection with another person, an individual.
Some companies might be able to pull that off. If Elon Musk had a consumer company that needed that kind of marketing he'd be able to do it. Jobs could have, and in a way he did. It would be very difficult for Pepsi to pull it off. Not impossible, I can imagine it being done, but it's very unlikely.
I wonder if at some point in the future there's demand for a C level exec with populist charisma in the megacorps. Maybe.
Interesting point. It's true corporations tend to hire celebs strictly from promotional pieces. But it's easy to see past the phoniness of the message because you know they were hired to say it.
But if that person was an executive who worked directly in the business it would definitely add credibility.
Well, there was this company called Apple ...
Simply put, he cannot be criticized without risk of those who do so being branded bigots or racist and that inhibits many from who can be unbiased but critical from speaking out because fear is a great was to stop people before they move.
Yes he had good people working his campaign, but they didn't really have that hard of a job cut out for them. This guy is part cult in his appeal and had a small portion of the vote automatically locked in. He didn't have to win over as many voters as the other guy, and again the GOP ran their Kerry / Gore / Dole / Mondale. Politicians who are easily defined by others because they cannot define themselves face an uphill battle.
Oh, come on man. Romney couldn't even define himself for more than a few months at a time, if that. That was part of the problem. He had been on both sides of some of the key "litmus test" issues. Rightly or wrongly, the current narrative likes it when politicians don't change their minds about hot-button issues (like medical care, abortion, etc.)
I really don't agree with your "cult appeal" statement either. The people I know who support Obama are smart and well-informed, and made a conscious decision that he was and is the best choice for the country. You may not agree, but please don't fall into the trap of dismissing his appeal to many people.
If you can't speak without making people feel uncomfortable or appealing to certain dogwhistles ( http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwate... ), that isn't Obama's fault.
"He has never faced a truly critical press."
His centrist policies haven't, certainly. His liberal policies have been attacked and rolled back consistently to match the media narratives.
Simple, it wasn't and isn't. It's very pro-big business.
As with the Republicans, you privatize profits, socialize losses. Nobody shakes that system up, they just say that "the other guy" is to blame.
There may be PR, but the media is making a KILLING off these campaigns.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/...
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1. They measured every single thing.
2. They used A/B testing.
3. They used behavioral targeting to increase engagement.
4. They streamlined the checkout process.
5. Their marketing was nontraditional.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3002973/5-ways-obama-campaign-was...
If you are trying to get elected at the national level and you are A/B tesing, isn't wavering exactly what you are doing? Isn't it it essentially well-targeted and opportunistic populism? Isn't this very, very bad?
(this comment isnt aimed at pella, more aimed at the idea of politicians a/b testing)
No, A/B testing doesn't mean flip flopping on the message. You'd want to test various campaigns delivering the same message different ways to see which one converts better. Maybe one set of words gets more donations while another gets more volunteers while another barely gets anything.
We need to <%= state.color == 'red' ? "bomb" : "negotiate with" %> Iran.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/08/falling-into-the-pi...
Winning, to me at least, implies that you have done something and that the result of your actions placed you above your competition. These guys didn't compete at anything aside from who could generate the most bad publicity for the "opponent."
That just doesn't strike me as the kind of action deserving of words like "success" or "winner."
He's just so ... human. I don't know whose fault that is, but it's a winning touch imho.
for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates
The format for each debate was: one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, then the other candidate spoke for 90 minutes, and then the first candidate was allowed a 30-minute "rejoinder." The candidates alternated speaking first. As the incumbent, Douglas spoke first in four of the debates.
Those were 3 hour debates. Now all a politician has to do is look good holding a football.
(this is basically paraphrasing Neil Postman's work from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death)
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Busi...
Sure, because Obama won we declare him the most charismatic candidate. Had he lost, people would say the oposite, declaring him 'professorial' 'aloof' or 'elitist' (all criticisms directed at Obama at times in the media) and point out his lackluster performance in the first debate as evidence of a lack of charisma.
Perception of charisma is also heavily influenced by our personal biases. I'm sure that we perceive candidates we like as being more charismatic. I bet a majority of Democrats would say Obama is charismatic and a majority of Republican would disagree.
Bush and Clinton were charismatic in ways that both sides of the aisle could easily acknowledge. Charisma is a pre-req to being president, and is not conveyed on victory.
If Gore would have won in 2000, that would have been very interesting, since he really wasn't at the level of Bush on likability, he would have been the least charismatic president since...Johnson, Nixon, or the way Carter actually turned out.
Bush Sr. is the weakest point of the theory. He's pretty flat however you look at him. But Dukakis wasn't exactly Marlon Brando or anything. I don't think the theory could have won either way with those two.
Words tossed around when he started his campaign were "efette", "wimp", and "unmanly". Obvious slurs, but he had a lot of public perception to get over.
People in the media have been saying that regardless of his performance.
At least Obama feels like he could hold his own in a conversation.
Was he a good president? No, he was absolutely horrible. Probably one of the worst presidents in a long time. I think in part because he was so "folksy". He couldn't seem to relate to any of the professional, high class subordinates and world leaders that constantly surrounded him.
But one-on-one, in a non-serious discussion, I think he would be fun to talk to. Intellectually stimulating, no, but fun, yes. He doesn't give off the intellectual vibe that Obama does. But he does seem to enjoy having a good time.
Sad as it may sound, the quality of our politicians is so low that seeming human would be an upgrade for many of them.