No Such Thing As Bad Publicity
Despite what you may think about bad publicity it is publicity none the less. I can’t say that I totally agree that all publicity is good; there can be huge ramifications when something hits the press that is bad for your personal image or brand image. No question. That said, some bad publicity can be good because of the old saying: “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
Apparently the Republican Party of my state did not get that memo and missed that entire chapter on brand management. Over the past week or two I have received no less than 8 mailings from them – not all of which were unique – and McCain was mentioned once. Meanwhile all these mailings had told me how Obama is bad because of such and such and “Obama is not who you think he is” and other similar irrelevant remarks.
There was not a single thing that told me McCain’s position on anything. There were more pictures of Obama – in dark colors and whatnot – then of McCain by about 4 to 1 in Obama’s favor AND I could not read an entire sentence without at least seeing Obama’s name at least once. Who are these people campaigning for anyway? At least criticize something that matters instead of some relationship that he may have had or political back scratching that has gone on. Guess what? I don’t care and from the questions that people were submitting to the debates – and general reading on the internet – nobody else does either.
Meanwhile, in typical smooth Obama fashion, I got mailings that I could not even tell who they were from on the outside. It was literally a guide one how to vote. It told me facts about voting and exactly what I would need to vote and what forms of ID were permissible so make sure I could vote. The entire outside of the mailing even had my local polling station location printed on the mailing! The only thing that even told me that it was from Obama is the clever “O” symbol that the campaign uses and a picture of him on the inside. I can see people keeping that just because it has great information no matter who they are voting for.
Now ask yourself this: which is more powerful for a brand, something that people will read and throw away – even people who support your brand – or something that people are going to keep around no matter if they like your brand or not? You’d be crazy not to shoot for that latter. Apparently we now know the mental state of the people running my state’s campaign for McCain.
Know that I do not really favor one candidate over another – and suggest you find the party that is right for you even if it isn’t one of the major ones – but that as far as branding and marketing goes it seems like some of McCain’s supporters missed the boat.
Just like in my previous post I will close with this thought:
Best of luck to all candidates for President and make sure you vote.
This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.
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