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Positioning A President’s Brand, Round II: The State of the Union

(NOTE: This is the second post in a series on the role of marketing and brands in this year’s Presidential election. For Part I, see Positioning A President: A Marketing Case Study.)

Recap: Holland-Mark’s branding approach is based on the observation that people have a tendency to boil things down to One Simple Thing™ (“OST” for short.) We do this not only for brands (Volvo = Safety,) but for movies (Rocky = Inspired,) musical artists (Elvis = Rock & Roll,) and even political candidates. If you buy that theory (and let’s face it, you really should,) it’s important to remember there’s an upper limit on the complexity and nuance of any brand positioning strategy. Put simply… If you don’t choose an OST for the market, the market chooses an OST for you.

In this corner, Fairness

Barack Obama worked hard to own Change in an election where that was what people wanted, and as a result became the 44th President of the United States. As the incumbent this time around, he needs a new OST, and in last week’s State of the Union address we got a preview of where he’s headed in the re-positioning of Brand Obama.

President Obama painted himself as the optimistic populist last Tuesday night, but since those are both words only East Coast Intellectuals use, I’m going to go with Fairness. Where things have gone wrong, the President implied or flat-out stated that unfairness was to blame. Hapless consumers sold mortgages they couldn’t afford? Unfair. China keeping out US goods and services? Unfair. Billionaires with lower tax rates than their secretaries? Unfair, unfair, unfair.

Unfair is nice because nobody has to be the bad guy. Fairness is also a deeply held American value, and a concept just one heartbeat away from what the Obama camp expects to hear trumpeted from the other side: Competition. And on top of that, solving Unfair is pretty straightforward. Somebody powerful just needs to make things Fair, and that’s in many ways how Obama sees the role of the President.

Fairness is also a positive value, and the President was careful to strike a tone of optimism and confidence in touting his administration’s successes in stopping the economic death-spiral he inherited, the surging US auto industry, a breadcrumb trail of dead terrorists, and the ongoing inevitability of American exceptionalism.

And in this corner, Wrong Track

I was stricken immediately by the contrasting negativism of the GOP response, as offered by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. Where Obama’s wordcloud featured “right,” and “work,” and “new”; Daniel’s showcased ”wrong,” and “government,” and “must.” Such is the nature of the opposition, I guess, and there’s a pretty strong case to be made that America is in dire straights right now.

It’s also unclear whether the eventual GOP nominee will adopt the party’s OST, and depending on how things go in Florida today it might be a while before we even know which team will be choosing that OST.

History shows that in a struggle between an optimist and pessimist in an American election, though, the optimist usually wins. My bet is that the Republican nominee will be smart enough to know this, and that the obsessive Obama-bashing and doomsaying that’s characterized the primary will give way to a more positive message in the general election. This is especially true if the Spring and Summer bring a continuing thaw in consumer confidence, unemployment, and the economy as a whole.

But what will that message be? And will Obama need to pivot from Fairness in light of that challenge?

Stay tuned, sports fans. Stay tuned.

Positioning A President: A Marketing Case Study

Holland-Mark’s branding approach is based on the observation that people have a tendency to boil things down to One Simple Thing™. We all do it, it’s part of our genetic code and an important adaptation to a modern world overrun by complexity. We do this not only for brands (Volvo = Safety, BMW = Performance, Zappos = Service,) but for Movies (Rocky = Inspired, Notebook = Chick Flick, Platoon = Intense Downer,) Musical Artists (Elvis = Rock & Roll, Sinatra = Swinging Crooner, Katy Perry = Catchy Tune / Body of A Comic Book Villain,) and just about everything else.

We even do it for political candidates. If you’d asked people immediately after the last Presidential election why they voted for Barack Obama, few would have cited specific attributes, anecdotes, or policies. Most people would have said one word: “Change.” Change was what people wanted after 8 years of George W. Bush, with the economy in shambles, our civil liberties in peril, and our reputation in tatters around the world. You can of course argue with that characterization, but you can’t argue that Change is the single idea the Obama campaign spent every nickel and minute on from the time he announced to the time he won. It was who he was by that November – an almost perfect vessel for the Change “One Simple Thing” (“OST” for short) – and as a result he ran away with the election against a man with objectively superior qualifications, who’d lacked focus and communications discipline from the word go.

Now we find ourselves 4 years later, and as a sitting President, Change is off the table for Barack & Co. So where will they go, re-positioning brand Obama for a weary, divided, and universally troubled electorate? How will the opposition respond? What will each side choose as their OST, or – in the case of candidates who lack the insight and discipline to choose – what OST will we the people assign to them?

This will be the first in a series of posts trying to answer these questions, and perhaps more importantly, to use this archetypal and epic battle to explore the power of positioning, the role of emotion, and the power of brands in the way YOUR customers “vote” for you, or somebody else.

Round I: The Early Republican Primaries

Let’s start with the drop-outs:

• Michelle Bachman shot for Conservative, but ended up Crazy thanks to that Newsweek cover shot. Buh-bye. 
• Rick Perry’s OST? I’d say Texas. The Texas Economic Miracle, Texas social policy, Texas accent, Texas lack of squeamishness over killin’ bad guys win they jus’ need killin.’ This was dumb on a few levels, not the least of which was Ol’ Dubya himself. More than that, the rest of the country is a little dubious on Texas, so soon after Rick’s media close-up… adios, amigo. 
• Jon Huntsman’s failure was never getting to an OST, never focusing his message enough to break through the noise. As a result he left himself open to the OSTs his rivals painted on him, the most sticky and deadly of which was, sadly for Jon, Moderate. And how’d that turn out? Zai zian, Jon.

This last dynamic is common in a political fight, and we’ll see it repeated over and over in the race this year. The game is not only to paint the right OST on yourself, but to paint a deadly OST on your opponent. More on this in later posts.

Winnowing of the above got us to the current field, which I’d handicap as follows:

• Ron Paul. Tricky, but I’d say he’s shooting for True, and ending up in the neighborhood of Purist. True doesn’t stick because most people don’t understand what he’s talking about. But you know he believes it, that he always has, and that he’s in no mood for compromise. Ron believes, whether he’s right or not. Hence Purist, which I don’t think is going to serve him well. We’ll see. 
• Rick Santorum - Conservative. Period. We’ll see how that goes down in the GOP, but it’s a guaranteed loser in the general election. You heard it here. 
• Mitt Romney’s OST is the easiest of the bunch, and it’s CEO. Mitt’s kind of come to terms with it, and is trying to leverage it as a credential for getting us out of the mess we’re in. Trouble is, most Americans don’t like CEOs. And most Republicans, it seems, don’t like Mitt. 
• Newt Gingrich is another easy one: Fight. Newt is just spoiling for a fight, always. And you know… so are a lot of Republicans these days. It’s the only explanation for the Newt phenomenon, which the mainstream media seems still trying to unpack.

Getting the flow here? Am I right? And either way… What’s your take?

Stay tuned for next week’s installment: Round II: The State of the Union

Getting Naked With Clients

Knew that headline would pull.

It’s a metaphor advanced in a new book by the prolific and insightful Patrick Lencioni, about how to build a culture of client service excellence by helping people shed their fears, baggage, and ego in any business for which dealing with clients is a driver of success.

The book, which takes the form of an accessible if sometimes contrived first-person story, focuses on the fears that effect all of us in client service-oriented business:

1. Fear of losing the business, which often causes us to avoid doing the difficult things that engender greater loyalty and trust with the people we’re trying to serve; 
2. Fear of being embarrassed, which keeps us from sharing original ideas and being truthful about ourselves; and 
3. Fear of feeling inferior, which is about preserving our sense of importance and social standing relative to a client, and which interferes with the ability of a firm to truly put it’s clients interests first. 

The book goes on to describe a set of cultural values and attitudes that organizations effective in overcoming these fears seem to adhere to:

• Always consult instead of sell. 
• Give away the business. 
• Tell the kind truth. 
• Enter the danger. 
• Ask dumb questions. 
• Make dumb suggestions. 
• Celebrate your mistakes. 
• Take a bullet for the client. 
• Make everything about the client. 
• Honor the client’s work. 
• Do the dirty work. 
• Admit your weaknesses and limitations.

Seems like motherhood and apple pie stuff, I know, but Lencioni does a good job translating each of these ideas into real world examples, things we’ve all done from time to time that interfere with our ability to be truly excellent service providers. Among my faves was a story about a client meeting where a senior executive steps on a subordinate in a way that makes the whole room uncomfortable. Lencioni’s main character watches in horror as someone on the new team he’s inherited after an acquisition stops the meeting to ask:

“I’m sorry, but I think it’s time we dealt with something, because I don’t think we’re going to make this strategy work if we don’t.”

The room was quiet, although I’m pretty sure they had no idea what Amy was about to do.

“Mikey, I’m sure you mean well,” She paused long enough for the room to reach a completely new level of silence, and for Mikey to raise her eyebrows. “But when you approach every issue with such…,” she searched for the right word, “…negativity, it’s a real buzz kill for the team.”

After the initial turbulence support for the consultant grows, [slow clap], you get the picture.

I found the book practical and easy, and am now in the process of buying a copy for the whole client services team at Holland-Mark. You can get it on Amazon, through this affiliate link.

How Skiing Has Changed

Visited Okemo Mountain resort this weekend, for a few days of skiing with the little kids and my brother-in-law’s family. Overall a great time, but it struck me how much the skiing experience has changed since last I went… You know… Back in the 20th century.

Top 10 Ways Skiing Changed in 12 Years

10. Cotton is dead. Seriously. I was LITERALLY the only person on the mountain in jeans and a sweatshirt, damp and cold, looking like a Reagan era Masshole. Never again.
9. Helmets. Everyone, young and old. Amazing change.
8. Ski length. Those 210s I worked my way up to back in the day? Junk. And not just because nobody skis on anything that long anymore, but…
7. Ski shape. Parabolic. Who knew. Way easier to turn, move, ski in general. Great technology.
6. Kid tolerance. I can’t say if it’s just this mountain, but it sure seems like - as with every other corner of society - the world has become much more kid-centric, much more parent oriented. Kid lessons, kid meals, kid drinks, kid music, arcades… All of which is really about extracting more money from Mom & Dad.
5. Food. Sushi, Italian, whatever. Again, I know this is a nice mountain, but I skied nice mountains back in the day too, and I ate hot dogs and pizza when I did. How quaint.
4. Cell signals. Everywhere. Even on AT&T.
3. Wi-fi. All over the place. Shocking.
2. Man-made snow. All of it, and everywhere. Don’t remember that, except on the odd trail on the bigger mountains.
1. Me. Finally… I’m not the man I was. My first day really took it’s toll, and today was more about stretching out and recovering. And God bless whomever created Advil.

Bottom line: Technology changes everything. The world around us really does keep on changing, it’s just that we don’t notice it as acutely in the things we do every day.