Pause with me for a nanosecond while we consider this latest bit of lunacy.

First Obama becomes Marketer-in-Chief for Chrysler, cutting their advertising budget in half. Today, he set nationwide fuel economy standards for cars and trucks sold in the USA.

If Obamanomics dictates that it’s in the country’s best interest to get the Federal Government out of the car business, they’ve got a funny way of going about it. The absolute last thing the auto industry needs right now is the government telling them to improve fuel standards. Nice idea, higher mileage cars. Bad idea to put the government in charge, and worse idea to do it right now.

Not much more to say about this – for now, other than to wonder just what else the ObamaNation has planned for us.

They sure are good at campaigning, though. Pity the election is over.

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Obama Halves Chrysler’s Planned Marketing Budget

Task Force Agrees Automaker Needs Advertising — Just Not $134 Million Worth

By Jean Halliday

Published: May 11, 2009

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — Chrysler wanted to spend $134 million in advertising over the nine weeks it’s expected to be in bankruptcy — the U.S. Treasury’s auto-industry task force gave it half that.

So if GM, which is wrestling with the possibility of a Chapter 11 filing itself, is wondering how much influence the task force will have over marketing, the answer is: plenty. However, transcripts from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York, where the Chrysler case is being heard, proved for the first time that the task force at least understands that advertising is a necessary expense — even if it doesn’t think Chrysler needs $134 million for nine weeks of car ads. (continued after link)

————————————————-

So it’s come to this. Anything worth managing is worth MICROmanaging – at least in the ObamaNation. Now I may not be Presidential timber, but I am a marketing guy – and a thinker. I’m not defending Chrysler (Lord knows), but there’s only one group that I can think of that could run Chrysler further into the ground than they already are – and that would be the U.S. Government.

Here’s the problem. If you cut advertising you lose mindshare. It’s as simple as that. This is NOT the time for Chrysler to cut advertising in half. If anything, it’s time to double down on their media buy. (Of course, it would help if they got some ads that were appealing rather than appaling.) If this doesn’t make you think we’re carreeening down a path to create the U.S. version of Yugo, you’re not paying attention.

Speaking of the Chrysler ads, if I were them, I’d take a page from the playbook of Lee Iacocca, when he faced the scandal of Chrysler running back odometers head-on. My recommendation for a new ad would star Bob Nardelli, the lame-duck CEO, and it would go something like this:

Hello…I’m Bob Nardelli, CEO of the Chrysler Corporation. As you’ve heard, Chrysler faces some real challenges as we reorganize, merge, and recreate our company so we can be competitive in the future. What you may not have heard is that Chrysler has some great cars, trucks and SUVs now – and we have more on the boards for the future.

Don’t get me wrong…we realize that we’ve made some mistakes. And we are committed to fixing every one of them. But we have some outstanding vehicles that we’d like you to consider when you’re ready to buy your next vehicle.

Take our Jeep division – did you know that the award-winning Jeep Wrangler and Wrangler Unlimited have both been judged “best in class” by countless auto experts, magazines, and pundits? How about the Dodge RAM trucks? We launched a redesigned RAM for the 09 model year, and it’s been met with acolades around the nation. Or the Chrysler minivans – the original and still the market leader.

We’re committed to turning our company around. And with your help, we’ll restore the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands to where they belong – at the pinnacle of the U.S. automobile industry. I invite you to stop by one of our showrooms today, and see for yourself the great vehicles we have to offer.

Now obviously, one ad’s not gonna win the hearts and minds of the public. But a little frank honesty would go a long way towards convincing the public that Chrysler management actually has a clue, and a chance of rebuilding. Unfortunately, the ObamaNation seems to think they can micromanage Chrysler better than Chrysler, and they are Hell-bent on a penny-wise/pound-foolish stratagem that will virtually insure that Chrysler is destined not for rebuilding, but for the trash heap of history.

]]> http://blog.grokmedia.com/2009/05/13/the-marketer-in-chief/feed/ 0 http://blog.grokmedia.com/2009/05/10/i-can-save-the-government-350000-in-30-minutes-flat/ http://blog.grokmedia.com/2009/05/10/i-can-save-the-government-350000-in-30-minutes-flat/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 05:08:54 +0000 admin http://blog.grokmedia.com/?p=454

Believe it or not, this is not a joke…I’m not kidding. It’s not hype. And it’s not make-believe. Now when you’re talking about Trillion-dollar budgets and bailouts, I realize that 1/3 of a million dollars is probably chicken feed, inside the Beltway at least. But to paraphrase Senator Everitt Dirksen (R-IL), a third of a million here, and a third of a million there, and pretty soon, you’re talking about real money. So how can I save the U.S. Taxpayers some major coin? Simple.

You see, when the ObamaNation wanted to generate some of their own stock photography, they looked in the archives, and realized nothing they had on hand would do. I mean, a shot of Air Force One over Mount Rushmore is soooooo last millennium. They wanted to update the stock photo folder with something as new and fresh as Obama himself. And what could be more fresh and exciting, you might ask, than buzzing the NYC skyline? Road Trip!

But there’s a problem. 747s are not, by their nature, the kind of plane you just joyride up to the Big Apple for a photo-op. Especially with all those United States of America and Presidential seal graphics splashed all over the thing. Even if the one you’re flying is a stunt double. Nope. These things take planning, coordination, and about $357,000, to pay for AF One, two Air Force fighter jet escorts, and their assorted crews. Now I’m no aeronautical genius – but I am a thinker – and I think I might be able to save Obama not only some coin, but some future headaches, as well as the inevitable class-action lawsuit from all those traumatized New Yorkers.

Here’s how it works.

First, you need a couple of stock photos, one of your landscape of choice, and one of Air Force One. My total Google images search time was under 10 minutes. You’ll also need a copy of Adobe Photoshop, and a laptop or desktop computer that can run the software. Sure, I already own a laptop and a copy of Photoshop, but this is civil service work we’re talking about here. Why should I scrimp when everybody else working for the government is getting rich? Since I’m in the market for a new laptop, I’m budgeting for one in the project. (Hey – if Obama can afford to jet off to Chicago for a vacation a month into his term, I’m sure he’ll twig to my need for a new computer.) My weapon of choice is a new, 17″ MacBook Pro, with a 24″ Mac Cinema Display. Since I already own Photoshop on the PC, I’m going easy on the ObamaNation, by only charging them for a crossgrade from the PC version of CS3 to the Mac version of CS4. With a couple of other things to throw into the mix (a copy of Apple Logic would be nice) I’m gonna run the total up to $6,500. The stock photos ought to run around $20 each, but let’s be generous and budget another $100. That takes us to $6,600. I’m going to charge $400 for my time. That it’s only going to take me 30 minutes to do the actual photo editing is immaterial…I need to turn a profit on the job, don’t I? So the net savings will be $350,000. Not too shabby…I get a new Mac and pocket $400, and Team Obama gets some photo-realistic stock photography – and nobody need be the wiser.

Don’t believe me? Let me prove it to you.

Load the Air Force One shot into Photoshop. Use your choice of wands, lassos, and masking tools to create a mask that allows us to grab the airplane without any of the background image.

Here’s the mask I created. If I’d had access to a WACOM tablet tonight, I could have done it faster. As it was, this took me about 20 minutes.

Not too shabby, huh. Now we’ll load the other image (the one with the NYC scene), and drag the masked plane layer onto the NYC scene file.

And finally, we can adjust the size and position of the airplane against the background.

The image on the left (above) cost the U.S. taxpayers $357,000. I’ll give the ObamaNation the one on the right for the low, low price of $6,600. Hey – I’ll even be a sport…I’d throw in another half-dozen backgrounds for no additional dollars. (I get to keep the Mac and the CS4 upgrade, though, so I’m still coming out smelling like a rose.) I can put Air Force One any where you like – Chicago, LA, Paris, Beirut – if you can find a stock photo of a city skyline, I can deliver. Plus, my method keeps the panic off the streets and in the stock markets where it belongs.

I think I’m offering Team Obama an unbeatable deal – save money, keep bad publicity to a minimum, and even act a little more green – the MacBook Pro is supposedly the greenest laptop made. Even if it isn’t, I’m still saving thousands of gallons of jet fuel, no matter what. I realize that this runs contrary to Obamanomics (tax & spend…then tax some more), but hey, they need to throw a bone to the great unwashed every now and then, and by their standards, $350,000 is a picked-over bone.

And if there’s $350,000 to be saved here, imagine the other ways we could put computers to work to save the taxpayers money! We could save on overseas travel – just take a photo of some rich guy in a burnoose, Photoshop in Obama, and voilà! – an international incident is averted.

So if you’re working for the ObamaNation, and you’re looking for a way to score some killer pics of Air Force One, but realize that suggesting another flyover is career suicide, gimme a call. I’ll be happy to help. As a patriotic, tax-paying American, it’s the least I can do, to try and soak us all for less than the ObamaNation does.

Another guy who "got it."

There’s something happening here. You can feel it in the air. You can see it on people’s faces, hear it in their voices. Change. And I don’t mean the kind of B.S. “Change” that we saw on Obama’s campaign posters. I mean the kind of change that changes the course of a nation. And the tipping point is this afternoon.

I’m a conservative. A proud conservative. And I believe this country is, frankly, going to Hell in a hand-basket. Sadly, this started long before Obama took office. While I believe that George Bush the Younger is a principled, Godly man, too many things that happened on his watch ran contrary to my conservative principles. That was bad. This is worse: since Obama took office, the country is on a toboggan ride, downhill towards Socialism. Spending like drunken sailors (no offense to our Navy, guys – it’s just an expression), Congress seems content to fiddle while the U.S.A. burns. No program is stupid enough, wacky enough, or costly enough to deny it funding, while even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warns that most of the “stimulus” they’ve passed will not only fail to stimulate the economy, but will in fact prolong the recession. Obama has acknowledged as such, even back as far as the campaign days. When asked about his plan to tax capital gains even when it’s been proven, time and time again, that this will have a detrimental effect on the economy, he replied, “But it’s the right thing to do.”

The right thing to do. Interesting turn of phrase.

Obama and his ilk are more in love with ideology than they are with solutions that will actually fix our economy. They are willing to allow us to suffer, in order to put their social(ist) agenda into play. And they feel as though they can’t be touched.

Frankly, I will freely admit I was wrong about Obama and the Dems on two counts: 1) I thought Obama would be too busy with the economy to tackle the rest of his Socialist agenda, and 2) I believed we’d have plenty of time between now and the mid-term Congressional elections to have conservatives retake Congress and thwart the programs that took us too far to the left. Wrong, and wrong. The Big O is wasting no time, sprinting us to Socialism in record time. And I’ve had enough.

But what to do? I’m an American. I believe in the Rule of Law. No armed insurrection for me. I am a law-abiding citizen. I’ve tried letter-writing, blogging, even calling my elected representatives. All to no avail. I’m frustrated. And I’m not alone. I know a bunch of those in the middle that voted for Obama that are chanting, “Hey! This is not the kind of “Change” you promised us!”

Now we can all stand around whining, or we can do something about this. But what?

Glenn Beck is mad as Hell, and is not gonna take it any more. While there are others (Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, et all) who are angry about us rushing headlong into socialism, Beck is the only guy I’ve seen willing to DO something about it. For those of you still unaware of the force of nature that is Glenn Beck, he’s a conservative radio talk show host (9 to 11AM mornings, 940AM in Amarillo…check local listings) and Fox News wunderkind (4 to 5PM M-F, CDT). He talks from the heart, espousing the conservative point of view. He’s fed up with both the D’s and the R’s – demanding that politicians do what’s right for the country, and stop spending our money on stupid stuff. He’s tired of earmarks, pork, bridges to nowhere, embezzlers, tax cheaters, and two-faced liars who want us to fund their pet projects. And I am too.

Today at 4PM Central time, Glenn Beck is broadcasting a special hour of television, where he promises to discuss what we can do, as private citizens, to take back control of our government from those that believe that We the People work for them, instead of them working for us. I don’t know what he has in mind, but I’m hoping that the sheer numbers of people that turn out for the viewing parties across the country will make the politicians in Washington D.C. stand up and take notice. I’m hoping this makes them afraid – very afraid – and brings them to the realization that “business as usual” is no longer an acceptable course of action. I’m hoping that it dawns on them that we surround them – and we are NOT going to put up with this crap any more.

If you love your country and are dissatisfied with what’s going on today, please watch the Glenn Beck program today. Even better, please watch it with others. It’s one thing to watch it. It’s quite another to watch it with like-minded citizens. Only a show of unity and numbers will get the attention of the politicians in D.C. and wake them up to the idea that they’ve gone too far for too long.

The “official” watch party in Amarillo is at the Dugout, on the SE corner of Olsen and Hobbs. Doors open at 3 PM. The show runs from 4PM to 5. I’ll be there, along with my daughter. Hopefully, my wife will be able to get off work and come out, too. If you’re in the area, please come. If you’re outside of Amarillo, please visit http://glennbeck.meetup.com/ and find a meeting place near you. Go. Your country needs you. It’s time to tell our politicians that we’re mad as Hell, and we’re not gonna take it any more.

Any way you slice it, it ain’t pretty.

So how does this happen? I blame a combination of opportunity, misplaced trust, a lack of negotiations in good faith, and the ever-popular “human nature.”

Take, for example, the TARP bailout. The cause? The illogic and over-extension of the financial markets had finally caught up with them. It seems that when you game the system (like the Dems did, to create a system where people that couldn’t afford to buy a home suddenly could, and those that could afford a modest home, suddenly could purchase more home than they could afford), the eventual result is those financially insolvent chickens eventually come home to roost. The effect? Our Congressional leadership railroaded a bailout bill through the House and Senate with no real oversight, and no real restrictions on what could be done with the money. While I believe the first plan (buy up all the bad debt for homes, sell the loans to lenders, use the money to cover the spread) was flawed, the fact that they abandoned that (in record time, I might add) and used the money to assume government control of the banking system, is a nightmare for any free-market capitalist.

The Bush and Obama administrations did a number on us all, by ramrodding the bill through Congress. But the effect of the mendacity and the bait and switch may have longer and more disastrous effects, both in th long and short terms. You see, Obama will have a grace period. But I doubt it will last as long as he expects – or hopes. And when positive results are not forthcoming, the people will be very unhappy. The media has sold the country on Obama’s “Change” mantra, and the idea that he can fix what’s wrong. Unfortunately for all of us, I seriously doubt he can. It’s a Herculean task, and history tells us that you simply can’t spend your way out of a recession/depression. Everything Obama has planned will attempt to do just that. His staff marketing team will do their best to sell us all on the infallibility of his plan. That’s to be expected. But when the plan doesn’t bear fruit, I expect we’ll see a bunch of dissatisfied voters waking up to the idea that they’ve been sold a bill of goods – not once, but twice.

Bait and Switch is no way to run a country. Misrepresent your plans, change directions in mid-execution, or simply lie…call it what you will, but the bottom line will always be a bunch of customers – or in this case citizens – that will be calling for the heads of those in charge. It’s true in marketing. It’s true in finance. And it’s especially true in government, because it his everybody in the wallet – and that’s a volatile target.

If Ronald Reagan was the “Great Communicator” (and he was), I feel certain that Obama will go down in history as the “Great Persuader,” for it looks as if he will be the first President (and his, the first administration) to use marketing as a weapon, to get what they want.

If this doesn’t scare the Hell out of you, it should.

As a marketer, I realize the awesome power of persuasion, and the responsibility we have as marketers to do the right things for the right reasons. In retail marketing, the market itself has a tendency to correct any excesses. Go overboard with product claims, and you’ll see the public vote with their wallets — and you’ll be out of a job. Get caught lying, and your product will be shuffled off to the marketing equivalent of Siberia. But in political marketing, it’s pretty much an “all spin, all the time” kind of pursuit. I mean, what’s the difference in a “lie” and a “campaign promise?” Lies aren’t forgotten. Campaign promises are. So what happens if Obama and his posse continue to treat this as one big campaign? I’m afraid we’re in big trouble. I figured that, once Obama is sworn in, he’d have to produce actual results, as opposed to more smoke and mirrors. If they keep marketing to us, that may not be the case.

It will be interesting to see just how long this keeps up — and for how long it continues to work. But I’m afraid that, no matter how long it does, marketing will never be the same…and even worse, marketing will take the fall, when people realize that much of what they’ve been told is no more substantial than the smoke and mirrors of a Presidential campaign.

What did J&J do right? First, they didn’t go into stonewalling mode. They aggressively dealt with the problem, taking not just the high road, but doing everything possible to insure the safety of the public at their own, considerable expense. To begin with, they pulled all the product from the shelves. Their share of the painkiller market dropped from 35% to 8%. In time, they relaunched the brand, with triple-safety seals to prevent product tampering, and mounted an aggressive P.R. and marketing campaign. The result? They bounced back within a year, to become the dominant brand in analgesics. Oddly, they never caught the poisoner. More oddly, it did no long-term damage to J&J or to the Tylenol brand. 

You could argue that a Governor or President is primarily a crisis manager, at least in this day and age. Of course, when you bring crises upon yourself, you’re either supremely confident – or supremely stupid.

We know that Blagojevich is the latter. We can hope that Obama is the former, and is smart enough to have steered clear of G-Rod’s folly over selling O’s former Senate seat. 

What we should all be interested in, as marketers or as those that use marketing, is how Obama will respond to this crisis. So far, he seems to be taking the J&J model to heart. He’s aggressively attacking the problem. He’s not ducking and covering. And he’s promised openness – a critical factor, because sunshine is the ultimate antidote to corruption. 

I don’t know where this will lead. I’m no fan of Obama and I did not vote for him. But he’s going to be my President, so I hope that he and his staff are innocent of anything that will drag the country down into yet another scandal. Obama tends to surround himself with some talented people. I hope they are up to the task of the most demanding type of crisis managment. And I pray for the citzens of Illinois, that they can get rid of G-Rod, his cronies, and anybody else guilty of corruption, so they can erase their rep as one of the most corrupt states in the Union.

There were some interesting insights that we can gleen from the election, however, as marketers.

Marketing is some powerful stuff. Obama’s guys ran a really tight, well-disciplined campaign. His message seldom wavered – “CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN” – he kept it simple, hammering home his point in virtually everything he did. There were things that the McCain camp did that knocked Obama off-point from time to time (specifically Sarah Palin’s nomination and the Joe the Plumber dust-up) but every time, Obama was able to come back and get his campaign focused on his message. That’s huge. His constant leitmotif of CHANGE was, I think, instrumental in his success. 

Marketing also shows us that the more compelling, resonant, simple story beats a less-focused, tired one that is not well-articulated (ie: the John McCain “Maverick” mantra). We can also see that most people (especially those in the center) find it easier to vote FOR someone than AGAINST someone. The centerpiece of McCain’s message was “I’ll fight against what the other guys want to do, to do what’s right.” That essentially put McCain at odds with everybody. That also kept him talking about fighting rather than what he specifically wanted to do. Obama, by contrast, talked about where he wanted to go (vaguely) rather than spending all his time talking about how he would fight the status quo. 

Marketing, no matter how compelling the story, is an expensive proposition. Obama raised almost twice as much money as McCain – and spent it. No matter how good your story is, unless you can repeat it ad nauseum over the air, nobody will buy it. Obama proved that public financing for Presidential campaigns is a joke. And he used the medium better than any candidate did in recent memory. 

Marketing is much easier when you have the media on your side. Save for FoxNews, Obama had virtually every other major media outlet fawning all over him for the last two years. Ironically, McCain went from “the Only Republican The Left Respects and Likes” to “McBush the Third” in record time, making his job all the more difficult. The combination of Obama’s simpler, more compelling story and the media’s willingness to cut him all the slack he could get made it impossible for someone like McCain (who lacked a winning story to tell) to beat him. 

Marketing also tells us that your story has to resonate – no false notes allowed. Frankly, Obama’s inexperience and lack of a record helped – rather than hurt him. It left those on the right flailing. If it hadn’t been for Obama’s tendency to hang out with people of VERY questionable character (Wright, Ayers, Rezko, et all), McCain wouldn’t have had anything of substance to hit on. In contrast, Obama did a masterful job tarring McCain with the “Bush” brush. 

Lastly, think back to 2004. The Democrats were all but marginalized. The GOP had it all – control of the Presidency, both houses of Congress, the good will of the people. Fast forward four short years, and the GOP is in a blue funk, and the Democrats are once again ascendant. Why? Because the GOP forgot their story. The GOP was supposed to stand for smaller government, lower taxes, balanced budgets, and honesty and openess in government. They lost their way. And when you no longer resemble your brand image, the people remember the story – and find you to be liars for not living up to it. If the Republicans want to take power again in the future, they’d best rethink their mistakes and come up with a way to tell a unique, resonant story – and then stick to it.

So there. In many ways, marketing was the key to Obama’s election – and McCain’s defeat. I think that says volumes about the power of marketing, and serves as a cautionary tale for all of us in the marketing biz. We should treat the powers that we wield with respect, for playing with marketing is a lot like playing with fire – without a healthy respect for that power, somebody’s gonna get burned.

Who knew these guys had a sense of humor?

Looking at this from a marketing perspective, this evening was a fascinating look at how one or two events or public appearances can radically remake perceptions of a brand – in this case two candidates. 

Of the two of them, McCain seemed to get the bigger yuks, and looked like an experienced roaster, while Obama looked a little more like what he is – a freshman senator, unused to the rigors of the rubber chicken circuit. However, they both got in some good lines, and neither of them hurt themselves or their campaigns. 

I don’t know if it’s that expectations for McCain were low (and therefore all he had to do was get a couple of laughs to aquit himself) or if he’s genuinely got a gift for it. Hard to tell that night, as both candidates obviously hired some crack joke writers and speechwriters to put their act together. 

McCain’s stuff was more topical, more on-target, more acerbic, and frankly, delivered better. Obama’s timing seemed a little off, and he seemed a little uncomfortable up there, even though the crowd was filled with New York Democrats, largely friendly to him. 

McCain skewered Obama, Biden, Hillary, Bill, MSNBC, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, the mainstream media, and himself. His routine was masterful – he even setup Obama at the end, poking fun at the expectations for his speech. 

With that setup, Obama didn’t have a prayer, unless he could be Abbott, Costello, George Carlin, and Bob Hope rolled into one. 

He swung for the outfield, but at best got a single. 

I was genuinely surprised, as I figured that Obama would clean McCain’s clock. It was really the other way around. Still, I could rationalize this by giving McCain’s writers a lot of credit. 

Then McCain went on Letterman and stood up to Dave, giving every bit as good as he got. In that format, he had to rely on wit and spontaneity. He did. And he did well. 

So how can we apply these lessons to marketing? Well, first of all, this is a sterling example of how a single event (or in McCain’s case, two events) can cause people to rethink what they “know” about a brand. It’s also a reminder that every event or interaction with the public is an opportunity for the public to reinforce – or rethink their perceptions. 

Have a brand problem? Take heart – one well-timed event can swing perceptions in your favor. But you need a forum that will play to your strengths, and help you sway perceptions. 

It remains to be seen if these events will change any votes. Frankly, nobody will ever know if the charity roast, the “Joe the Plumber” flap, or the debates have swung enough votes to change the outcome of the race. But if you’re in marketing, every event should be an opportunity that your brand can use to gain an advantage.

Early on, McCain latched onto the “Maverick” brand as his own. He doggedly trotted out his willingness to go against his own party, and be his own man. This consistency helped, but it was never the home run he was hoping for. Lately, he’s gone with “Country First” – a not-so-subtle jab at Barack “Citizen of the World” Obama.

The latest change is from the Obama camp. They were pretty consistent in the era that was BP (Before Palin). Once Hurricane Sarah hit the national stage, The Obama-ites hit the panic button, big time. For months, they’d used “Change You can Believe In” as a cudgel against Her Inevitableness, Hillary Clinton. And it worked – as Hillary thrashed about from theme to theme – “Experience!” “Change!” “Experience!,” “Change!” – nothing resonated, and as a result, nothing worked. Obama became the Agent of CHANGE. Problem was, while La Hillary’s “experience” message didn’t work, it wasn’t because of HIS inexperience, but HERS. She touted her White House experience as First Lady as somehow grooming her for the Presidency, and people didn’t buy it. Obama did – and does – have one huge chink in his armor, that being his own lack of experience – and substance. Even with a couple of legislative years under his belt in Illinois and two years in D.C., he’s essentially accomplished nothing more than have two ghost-written books published under his name. He’s voted “present” (in other words, unable to make a decision) a shocking 44% of the time. Obama never met an issue (other than the war) on which he’s afraid to express his indecision.

Enter Sarah Palin.

Before Palin vaulted onto the scene, McCain was not exactly setting the world on fire. He was the “least objectionable choice” or the “lesser of two evils” for most conservatives. He was the closest thing to voting “None of the Above.” And, surprise, suprise, with Obama lacking in credibility, The Anointed One’s been unable to seal the deal with the American Public. The polls revealed an election closer than anyone would have predicted – or imagined. Then in one masterstroke, McCain reframed the election from “Obama: For or Against” to “Obama versus McCain.”

After a week of Presidential Candidate Obama attacking Veep Candidate Palin, he’s changed his tune – and his theme. Out goes “Change You Can Believe In.” In comes “Change You Need.”

Sounds a bit desperate, on the order of “Hey, American Public! Yeah, over here! Remember us? The ‘Change’ guys? Pay no attention to that Palin woman…she’s just a flash in the pan. What you really want is CHANGE. What? McCain says he’s for change…and actually has a track record backing that up? Palin too? Wait…that’s the wrong KIND of change! McCain/Palin is bad change. Ours is good change. That’s it! ‘Obama…the Change You NEED.’ Brilliant!”

Palin has injected something into this race that had been lacking on the GOP side – excitement manifesting itself as real enthusiasm for the ticket. Recent polls suggest that not only is McCain maintaining his convention bounce, but the swing toward the GOP is starting to affect the down-ticket races. A leading indicator of her “game-changer” status is the burgeoning number of sites selling Palin merchandise. (I should know, I’ve been commissioned to create as much Palin merch as I can think up.) And I’m not alone. The ‘net has a case of Palinmaina, and it looks as if SHE is the cure for Obamania that McCain alone never was. So what’s an empty suit like Obama to do?

When a candidate suddenly changes his slogan like that, you can bet it is not because he’s tired of the old one. No, this is indicative of a Bold Move, designed to shake things up, and maybe give him back the momentum he’s lost. Unfortunately for Obama, I don’t think it’s gonna work. Eventually, you have to start talking about what your definition of “change” really is. Smoke and mirrors (or fireworks and Styrofoam columns) only get you so far. Because of Obama’s refusal to debate McCain in a town hall format, we’ll only get three debates this time around – two with Obama/McCain, and one between Palin and Biden. That may work well for Obama to maintain his refusal to be nailed down to specifics, but if substance is as important as style (hint: it is), Barack better hope McCain falls flat on debate night, and Palin does the same.

So what does this mean for your marketing? Slogans are like horses – find a winner, and ride it as long as you can. Change mounts when the old horse won’t get you to the finish line ahead of the competition. But be aware that if you change mounts too often, you lose momentum – as well as the audience that’s betting on you. So pick a winner and stay with it. That’s my slogan du jour, and I’m stickin’ to it.