Marketing Lessons from Barack Obama and John McCain

Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, Uncategorized

While we congratulate Barack Obama for his historic landslide victory, let’s remember that we marketers can take many lessons from this campaign. A few examples:

A transformative, emotion-based, positive campaign will trump a narrow,negative, issues-based campaign. Obama inspired hope, and gave millions of people a voice and interest in presidential politics that they hadn’t had before. The last two party nominees to try this were also successful: John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan (remember “It’s morning in America”?)

Take away your opponent’s advantages by neutralizing the rhetoric. McCain’s campaign claimed to put “country first”–but Obama was the one who walked the talk. His speeches were you-focused, his message was of unity and solidarity.

Stay on message. Obama was so good at this that even when he shifted the message (for example, embracing offshore drilling after opposing it), he wasn’t called on the flip-flop. Of course, this may be because McCain flip-flopped on all sorts of issues, and was pretty vulnerable.

Don’t apologize for your beliefs. Three out of the four most recent prior Democratic nominees–Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry–all crawled on their bellies with messages that basically said, “umm, I’m not really a liberal, I didn’t mean it, I’m soooo sorry!” And all three lost because doing that took the wind right out of their sails. Bill Clinton, who is not a liberal, didn’t play that game. Not surprisingly, he won. Obama never apologized, ignored the L-word, and didn’t even flinch when in the closing days, McCain revved it up and actually called him a socialist (traditionally, the kiss of death in US politics).

When you attack, don’t sling mud at your opponent’s character, but at the specific actions or positions: “You…sung a song about bombing Iran.” “That endorsement didn’t come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it.”

Stay clean, tell the truth, and don’t do the things you attack your opponent for. After 21 months of intense scrutiny, neither Hillary Clinton nor John McCain could find much negativity of substance. The man apparently has no scandals. He’s in a strong relationship with his wonderful family, hasn’t been caught with his fingers in the till or with his pants down, and hasn’t shaken anyone down for money or votes. So the attcks were based on ridiculous stuff that didn’t stick:

  • He’s an elitist (and McCain, the son of an admiral who owns numerous houses and thinks $5 million income is middle class, isn’t?)
  • He goes (or went) to the wrong church (and we just won’t talk about the right-wing extremist demagogues like John Hagee that McCain was so cozy with
  • He’s a Muslim (and even if it were true, what’s so horrible about that?)
  • He’s not really a US citizen
  • He “pals around with terrorists”
  • He’s a socialist

    • All these vicious lies came back to bite McCain, and to draw huge turnout among Obama’s base.

    The one accusation that stuck was about his lack of experience. Hillary’s “3 a.m.” ad was extremely effective, and swung Ohio and Texas into her camp. But McCain absolutely threw that argument away when he selected the even-less-experienced, ethically challenged, and totally clueless Sarah Palin.

    Perhaps the most important lesson of all: When you really want something, work your butt off for it, be the kind of ieader that inspires others to help, and take nothing for granted. Obama’s on-the-ground organiation has been awesome since the get-go, and that was a decisive factor.

    Finally, when the universe hands you a blessing, accept it. The economic meltdown was perfectly timed to provide enormous advantage to Obama, and he was wiling and able to run with it.

    In fairness to McCain, I think a lot of the errors in judgment he showed were the result of his handlers. They apparently let him write his own concession speech, and this gracious, conciliatory, and beautiful message was not only his best speech of the campaign, it may have been the best of his career.

    Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail
    About

    A lifelong activist, profitability and marketing specialist Shel Horowitz’s mission is to fix crises like hunger, poverty, racism, war, and catastrophic climate change—by showing the business world how fixing them can make a profit. An author, international speaker, and TEDx Talker, his award-winning 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, lays out a blueprint for creating and MARKETING those profitable change-making products and services. He is happy to help you craft your messaging and develop profit strategies. Learn more (and download excerpts from the book) at http://goingbeyondsustainability.com