palin as republican VP - brilliant marketing move or biggest blunder

are we confused? yes we are.

we are looking at this as a purely marketing move, in fact within the realm of strategic marketing – palin as the republican vp partner of mccain in the presidential election.

are we confused? yes, we are. oh, i said that already.

palin as republican vp is either a brilliant marketing move or a big marketing blunder.

it's brilliant as for now, all the good things that were with the obama campaign - obama being an african american, hillary as a strong contender, and all the goodies that went with that, specially the one on hillary and the great convention that just ended have just evaporated and moved over to the republicans.

this choice for now has stolen the thunder away from the democrats. "stunning" is a word often used to describe the choice of palin. i agree wholeheartedly.

that leads us to downside. she is an unknown, at least for now but we will get to know her very well in short order. and that is where the other part comes in -- it can turn into the biggest marketing blunder made in political history.

while we do not know palin much, we do know hillary very well. hillary, the other woman candidate is very much a known candidate, almost the opposite of palin. while we may not know palin yet, it's almost a sure thing that hillary would have a longer list of accomplishments and credentials.

it's possible mccain just took in the weakest leak in his campaign.

while we do not know yet if palin as vp choice is a marketing blunder, we did know before and we are much more certain now that obama not choosing hillary as vp is a marketing strategic blunder. pailin in the mix reinforces and makes obama's non-choice of hillary as a much bigger and more obvious mistake. (read posts in WAWAM! on biden as a good choice but choosing hillary a brilliant move : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/08/obamas-vp-choice-biden-is-great-but.html).

as of this moment - the US presidential election is in a flux. much more interesting days ahead. take your seats!

democratic convention - quick points for brand differentiation

• bill clinton was the best of the whole lot. he had power, he made sense, he had charisma and was the clearest and sharpest in delivering the differences between the two, Brand Obama and Brand McCain. he delivered a long list of quotable quotes. his whole speech was crisp and highly engaging from the first word to the last.


• what's with al gore? there was no drama in the way he delivered his piece. did he forget to go to the bathroom before he spoke and was in a hurry to get it done and over with? he had a lot of substance but the delivery killed the points.


• hillary is the up and coming. she can be forceful and interesting. her prospects for the next bid for the presidency are pretty good.


• joe biden underdelivered. or was that a case of over-hyping before he spoke?


• obama covered a lot of ground, the full breathe of what he was supposed to. but i missed the high soaring rhetoric. i thought it was not necessary for him to lose what he has been very effective with in the past.

over and above the performances of the main speakers, history was made today - the first african-american is running for the presidency of the USA. that alone puts the democrats in the win column.

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Barack Obama hits McCain, sets tone for campaign with historic speech ---- read it here -->

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/08/28/2008-08-28_barack_obama_hits_mccain_sets_tone_for_c.html

the democrat's denver rage party - the challenge of delivering messages on a multi-level stage

what is happening in denver for the democrats is much like a rage party - people from different persuasions, mostly dressed alike but faces with different stripes and inside looking for different things and everyone hoping that after an all nighter, everyone will come out of the door happy and everyone had a night of wild fun to remember.


or, is it?


political speeches and political party events are both very different and the same to that of marketing events for brands and a brand manager's speech in a product launch.


it is the same in the sense that both need to deliver one theme and one message. you want the troops to rally to a specific point. that point is usually where you want everyone in the room to be standing at exactly before take off outside the convention hall or the hotel ballroom to start battle the competition.


it is different in that in a political speech and a political event you not only worry about the people inside the convention room (that's similar to product launches), but you have to worry about what competition can do to you as soon as that tv camera beams its broadcast on tv.


in political speeches and events, it is a must to always operate in multiple levels in everything. messages need to be looked into always from the perspective of many more levels beyond the convention floor.


whatever you say and in this case even what you do not say in the convention will be devoured by the republicans and their strategists and will definitely do something with what they get. that is a range of multiple options - hurl them back at you as an attack or expose a weakness, cause loss of confidence among your supporters or retool their own message in their own convention which will happen in a few week's time.


and that is just the republican side. there is a bigger beast, a more ferocious one out there called the media and analysts. their job is to look at the details, deconstruct and reconstruct what is said and not said to expose both the real message and the one you missed.


it might look easy on the surface - deliver messages that (a) differentiate yourself from competition, (b) define your own solutions well, (c) inspire the faithful, (d) take the high ground, (e) and move the faithful to action.


and all of that need to reverberate and take other forms that will prevent competition from finding something to use against you or the media and analysts finding a weakness that they can highlight. it is always wise to be aware of the two things at the same time -- the good and the bad.


the convention started on a reality check - it is a divided democratic party. and that in many ways define the task obama has in his hands. his acceptance speech need to be a blockbuster, 10 times more inspiring than the speech he delivered when people noticed him. everything should fall into place and get everyone on the ready to go after obama's acceptance speech. too much at stake here that it's a necessity that it lights the whole convention and the nation but not burn down the house.










an interesting article:
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Three Democratic Clans Mix Uneasily

By PATRICK HEALY



DENVER — Neither family wanted it this way, neither the Kennedys nor the Clintons. But the opening of the Democratic convention on Monday brought a stark contrast: a bittersweet public celebration of the life of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is suffering from brain cancer, and an embittered private drama about the terms on which the Clintons would yield the party to Senator Barack Obama.Mr. Kennedy, who endorsed Mr. Obama in January, had hoped to lead a hearty, full-throated night of anointing the next generation. Instead, the tribute to him took on the weight of a farewell to the last of the storied Kennedy brothers, with an intensity that rivaled the excitement around Michelle Obama’s speech about the Democrats’ next standard-bearer, her husband.

As one political dynasty was celebrating its legacy and ceding the political stage on Monday night, the other dominant family of the Democratic Party was struggling to protect its legacy and accept its own exit from the spotlight. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton had once hoped this convention would be theirs, an exultation of past and future Clinton White Houses. Instead, they were coming face to face with shrunken, supporting roles.




article parsed, read in full here : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/politics/26assess.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

obama's vp choice - biden is great but clinton would have been brilliant!

biden as the vice president for obama is great, it's a perfect compliment to barack. biden is THE guy for foreign policy to obama's seeming weakness in it. he can also be the ferocious attack dog that people like listen to, a great compliment and yes a needed arsenal to obama's charm and over-all goody-goody charisma.

it's a great choice, specially in this time that we live in where teamwork and volume of work that needs to be done sometimes bring down even the best of us.

it's a well-studied choice, but it is not inspiring. and that is its greatest weakness. to me, that is a great disappointment for a candidate like obama whose strength and winability seem to be largely based on inspiration.

obama from the very start kept surprising us. he was not even in any spotlight just a few years ago, until that speech that he made. then he was the reluctant president wanna be. then became the pied piper of young and newbie voters during the primaries. then that charm and charisma. all of those and each point punctuated with inspiration.

biden is a great choice, but its a ho-hum choice.

hillary clinton as vp would have been just a stroke of political genius and yes, since WAWAM! is a blog about marketing and advertising, it would have been a stroke of no less than marketing genius!

going in, clinton already has great political capital. she did give obama a scare in the primaries. the democratic primary race was both historic and electrifying not only because of obama but also because of clinton. obama as candidate for president and clinton as vp would have had the same impact and effect to the general voting population as it had with the democratic party.

clinton already has the built in advantage of being a political icon who almost made it. with her, obama starts his presidential run on a level of strength and advantage. that gives the democrats an unbeatable tandem.

obama choosing clinton would have had an immediate unifying effect on the democratic party and it's supporters. with clinton out of the loop, unity is now clearly an issue instead, one that needs to be addressed.

an obama-clinton ticket is the dream team of US politics. it will siphon in hordes of new voters, women, minorities and ensure working class america stays democratic.

choosing clinton would have clearly defined obama as a true statesman and a brilliant strategist that can easily be used to catapult them to victory and more importantly re-position mccain as a has been and would clearly cement him as old, stodgy and without imagination.

for someone who electrified the country and specially the democrats as inspiring, its a surprise his choice of vp wasn't at all inspiring.

clinton's tv ads

when you look at hillary clinton's ads, you can't help but admire it's simplicity and single minded approach to delivering ONE message and in a most powerful way. it's a no fuzz commercial but each one, specially the 3am tv spot, hits home.

the idea of a phone ringing at 3am, specifically a parent needing to call someone at 3am, together with the shots of children fast sleep is a very powerful and suscint combination. there is no mistaking what the ad is telling you. every parent can relate to that situation and the urgency that the person answering your call at that hour better be competent and someone who can help you.

the 3am spot is prime example of how a powerful consumer insight can drive an ad to excellence. i've always thought great consumer insights make it very easy and simple for the creatives to write a brilliant ad. one message, delivered powerfully. now, that's advertising.

Ad wars: Obama buys more, Clinton sets tempo

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When it comes to campaign commercials, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are going where no candidate has gone before.

"Obama and Clinton have spent a combined $110 million on TV ads to this point; we've had a race that's literally gone on since last summer for ad spending," said Evan Tracey of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, CNN's consultants on campaign commercials.

"We're beyond what has been record spending in previous presidential nomination campaigns. John Kerry spent close to $20 million to get the nomination four years ago. Barack Obama's already approaching $70 million."

Obama outspent Clinton on ad buys in Pennsylvania by slightly more than 2-to-1, and Tracey says Obama is outspending his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination by about the same ratio in Indiana and North Carolina, which hold primaries May 6.

But is Obama getting bang for the buck?

Clinton "has been able to dictate the tempo in the last few contests, be that Texas, Ohio and then Pennsylvania," Tracey said. "What she has to continue to do is dictate the tempo of this race with her TV ads. She doesn't have as much money ... but if she's allowed to dictate the tempo, she can make up for that lack of spending."

An example of that is Clinton's "3 a.m." commercial, which asked, "It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"



The commercial touted what the Clinton campaign calls its candidate's experience advantage over her rival.

"Clinton used the 3 a.m. ad very effectively to put the Obama campaign back on their heels. She did it again in Pennsylvania," Tracey said.

Another commercial summoned a phrase associated with a former Democratic president: "Harry Truman said it best: If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Who do you think has what it takes? I'm Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message."



The ad again touts Clinton's experience and questions Obama's strength and resolve, without mentioning him by name.

The ads have forced Obama to respond.

His campaign quickly put out its own "3 a.m." ad criticizing Clinton's vote on the Iraq war and also went with a commercial in Pennsylvania with this counterattack: "Newspapers call Hillary Clinton's negative attacks the old politics."

"What she's been able to do with some of these ads that attack Sen. Obama is basically make him into a political candidate," Tracey said. "That's the problem Obama's trying to avoid. Obama right now, he's got to decide: Does he take the fight to Clinton? In other words, does he strike first?"

Obama fundraising machine has built an advantage in money to buy ads, but Clinton's win in Pennsylvania could help close the gap.


http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/27/ad.buys/#cnnSTCText