Back when there was the blog battle going on, Peppercom Co-Founder Ed Moed penned a piece on his blog back for PR professionals to come come together on occasion and write about common topics. His first post can be found here; Sam Ford from Peperdigital offers his thoughts here. The general topic is the impact of brand on politics, and the ramifications for communicators.
In thinking about this same topic, I’m struck at the dangers of constructing a fragile brand in general, and the significant impact in politics. A few examples:
In the 2004 general election, the democrats decided their best bet was to brand John Kerry – a decorated war veteran – in just that way. Heck, why not? A decorated veteran, branded most strongly as a decorated veteran. Pretty much the entire convention was dedicated to hammering this point home, complete with “ready to serve” as the call to action. The focus was so hard on that one point that they inadvertently created a fragile brand; and the Swift Boat attacks – true or not – were able to shatter that brand.
In 2008, we saw the near instantaneous creation of a political brand I’ve ever seen, with the emergence of Sarah Palin onto the national scene. Nearly overnight, she was made synonymous with small town, common sense America. She came out of the gates so strong, instantly identifiable w/ this core branding. But in the same way that Kerry’s brand was fragile, so was hers, which was why the widely reported news about the $150,000 worth of clothes was so devastating to her brand.
You’ll note that in neither case was the criticism that shattered these political brands especially fair, nor essentially correct. But it served the purpose of breaking the brand. We’ve seen similar events in the non-political space, Volvo had is safety brand skewered by made up commercials, for example. But remember – as communicators we think about building brands and depositioning competitors. So our jobs are both to:
1. Think about building brands that are multi-layer. A brand that stands for one thing only is inherently brittle. message discipline is key, but single focus discipline is short term helpful, long term damaging and:
2. Know the weaknesses of the brand as well as the strengths. I was astounded the McCain campaign didn’t come out harder to place context or correct the stories about the clothes, because it was clear from day 1 that this hit at the core of a new (and thus inherently brittle) brand.
Build brands/protect brands…what we do.