Seen in Contagious Magazine
John King, Director of Brand Innovation at Fallon Minneapolis,
wonders how the primaries would be playing out if the candidates had
spent less on ads and more on action.
The failures of the advertising industry are never more apparent than during an election year. Turn on the television or radio, or click on the Web, and you will see tons of money being spent. But you won’t see many ideas. Budgets continue to be spent delivering messages in the form of ads instead of building ideas in the world. It’s interesting that, in a year in which we have the possibility of the first female or (as looks increasingly likely) African-American president, in a year in which “hope” and “change” are the new vocabulary, that communication models have remained so status quo.
Sure YouTube and Saturday Night Live have added some spice along the way, but remember that the only role the campaign plays in virals like the Will.i.am music video for Obama is to not get in the way. Supporters are creating these interesting elements while campaign budgets continue to be dumped into traditional advertising channels.
The possibility of public financing for the general election on the horizon makes me wonder what would happen if a candidate broke the mold. How would the game change if a candidate took the approximately $85 Million of public financing and, rather than spend it to advertise that he or she were “presidential,” invested it to bring forward ideas as if he or she were already the president?
I know, I know. There is a science to all of this. Political experts are paid expert salaries to build formulas. Ratings, delegates, and super-delegates have been carefully accounted for, and every move is a calculated one. But I’m here to argue that it’s a science based onold truths. Consumers, media, and the world have changed, and the candidate who embraces this new world will have disproportionate returns. By following these three steps, he or she might just be able to turn that $85 million into victory.
Step 1: Focus on action instead of ads.
I watched CNN’s coverage of Super Tuesday. It was an evening filled with complex storylines, intricate competitive situations, and drama. Super Tuesday was made even more dramatic as a series of tornados hit Tennessee and neighboring states, killing over fifty and wounding hundreds. I watched in amazement that night as every candidate managed to pivot their speech to deliver a sentence on the tornados while still getting across their main points. I suppose it was the twister thing that left my head spinning. It seemed so insincere for these candidates—with all their influence, budget, and passion not to mention land armies at their disposal—to reduce a natural disaster to a shout-out in a stump speech.
How different Super Tuesday would have looked if the candidates had spent their budget (or some of it) as they would if they were already president. What would have happened if the Obama, Clinton, or McCain camp had sent a fleet of volunteers in unmarked vans to Tennessee straightaway the regular Wednesday after Super Tuesday to assist in the disaster? Or, if that’s too opportunistic (and shame on us if it is), imagine rather than a candidate running ads to reinforce that they’re pro education, funding a promotional program that delivered new computers to schools that needed them. While this approach may not reach as many people, it works a lot better for those it does reach—influencers.
It’s a model that served skateboard brand Vans well. Vans maintained street cred by using marketing dollars to finance skate parks and to film documentaries about the sport. It would be a revolutionary approach for a political candidate to look at communications budgets through the same lens of brand behavior. Certainly advertising would have a role, but you’d be starting with ideas. The real strength of an idea-led approach is that this type of modern brand behavior, with its mix of action and advertising, talks the talk and walks the walk. The communications would truly accomplish something regardless of the outcome of the election. It doesn’t all get thrown in the bin, clicked, or vaporized when the rectangle ends on the flowchart. It’s still there when you’re gone. People, the country, the world are better off that you were there, better off that your idea was there…
Stay tuned for the second half of this article in next week’s Contagious newsletter.
