If you wanna learn something about marketing, look no farther than national politics. People don’t really elect politicians. The elect their perception of who the politician is, what they perceive he or she stands for, and how well the image they project resonates with the perceptions the public has of them. So, when you think about it, what you’re really doing is listening to the stories the candidates tell. You vote for the story you like better – or more specifically, not just the story, but how good a job the storytellers do in selling the story.

In politics, the story – the narrative is everything. The candidates want to control their own story. At one time, the media was both a conduit for enabling the candidate to get their story to the public, and a watchdog that monitored the candidates story for veracity. Today, the media has largely put both those roles in the background, and taken on the dischordant roll of kingmaker.

Let’s look at that premise against the background of the ’08 election. Early on, most of the ‘mainstream’ media showed a preference for Barack Obama. While most of the public thought the nomination was Hillary’s to lose, the media was in the tank for Obama early on. The media fell in love with Obama’s story, and judged it superior to Hillary’s. They positioned themselves as the distribution agents for Obama, Inc., and looked at the other candidates’ stories as competition for Obama’s.

On the Republican side, the largely liberal media always favored McCain – the closest thing the GOP had in the race to a liberal. In the early primaries, McCain was all but finished, yet the media’s trumpeting him as the only Republican with foreign policy bona fides (in the aftermath of the Benazir Bhutto assasination), McCain’s candidacy rose from the grave. With the other Republicans running lackluster campaigns (my fave, Fred Thompson), pinning hopes to a winner-take-all strategy (Rudy Giuliani), telling a story that didn’t quite match his persona (Mitt Romney), or trying to be the fringe candidate “little engine that could” (Huckabee, Paul) McCain simply outlasted his competiton – with the media’s help.

Now we come to the ‘finals’ – where we distill the stories down to their essential parts. Obama’s mantra is “change.” McCain’s is “maverick reformer.” The media still likes Obama’s story better. The public? Maybe…maybe not. If the public liked Obama’s story as much as the media, he’d be up by 40. As it stands today, he’s neck and neck with McCain.

In every story, there are strengths and weaknesses. Obama’s big weakness is a lack of foreign policy knowledge. (I’d say ‘experience,’ but he really has none – I don’t call voting “present” 130 times as experience.) McCain’s weakenesses are his lack of significant domestic policy knowldege, and his age. Both picked VPs that would shore up their own weaknesses.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Biden was a ‘safe’ pick. He probably has more experience in foreign policy than any other Democrat. (That’s not saying much. In foreign policy, the Dems tend to emulate the French, who’s idea of a foreign policy is ‘we surrender.’)

McCain’s pick of Palin was a masterstroke. Her story is compelling. She is a proven reformer, a maverick willing to take on not just the Dems, but her own party. She is authentic, and brings a lot to the ticket – energy policy experience, executive experience, she’s a great speaker, and may appeal to the disaffected and disenfranchised women who once supported Hillary.

Problem is, the media HATES to be surprised, and they are genuinely panicked as to what to do about Palin. Her story is so compelling, so interesting, they have no way to stop it. And stop it they must, for she is the Anti-Obama – a walking, talking poster child for how someone with traditional American Values can tell a story more compelling than their guy.

In the two months remaining, it will be interesting to see how the narratives change. The media is largely in lock-step with Obama, more cheerleaders than reporters. However, they are doing their best to take McCain’s and Palin’s narratives and change the facts to suit their own purposes. To the extent they fail or succeed, so will go the election, because it’s not the man – or woman – it’s the story they tell, and how much you believe them.

So what does this have to do with your marketing? Most marketers don’t face the competition found in political contests – after all, most products are not a “winner take all” situation. But because of the requirements of campaigns – in both time and the finality of the results – political marketing sets the bar high for marketing. Watch the campaigns between now and November. See how they respond (especially in the age of Instant Messaging) to challenges. Watch and learn – then try and apply the lessons learned to your own marketing efforts.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 9:22 pm and is filed under advertising, marketing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.