Governor Sarah Palin and McCain's Marketing Blunder

Like most Americans, I know very little about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's qualifications to hold office. Until I saw her speak at the Republican National Convention, I really had little or no direct basis on which to form an opinion about her. But for the past week or so, I've been inundated with coverage about her--much of it intensely negative.

It seems clear Gov. Palin was chosen to appeal to the conservative Christian base of the Republican party with her firm pro-life stance and family values. This block of voters has never loved McCain, and Gov. Palin's selection could go a long way to getting them to come out to the polls. And Palin seemed to competently fill the traditional role of a VP candidate at the convention--she stirred emotions, attacked the opposition, raised the crowd to their feet.

So, what is the problem? It's the McCain campaign's marketing of her.

Political campaigns are essentially gigantic integrated marketing programs. They are all about positioning, staying on message, and effective communications. In the past week, we have seen a major marketing blunder.

I am certain the McCain campaign had a long list of reasons why they chose Gov. Palin--how could they not? Their first mistake was not sharing that information. In today's political arena, 24/7 nonstop live news coverage is the norm. With this nearly insurmountable need for fresh content, the news organizations are dying for things to talk about. If you give them useful and credible content, they will use it. They'll use it every thirty minutes. They will assemble panels of experts to parse it. They will deliver your message for hours on end.

What happens if you do not provide the news organizations with the content they desperately need? They fill the void. I was glued to the TV news for many hours following the announcement of Gov. Palin's selection. Faced with a candidate about whom they knew nothing, and had been told very little, they filled the void with whatever they could find. Within moments, the campaign had completely lost control of her positioning. She was now the unqualified candidate with no political experience. It was not long before we got into irrelevant details about her personal life. More proactive positioning from the campaign could have mitigated this significantly.

This failure led to the McCain campaign's second mistake: By allowing others to define her, they failed to ensure that Gov. Palin's positioning was compatible with the rest of the campaign's key messaging. When the news organizations chose to position her as inexperienced, this effectively stomped on what had been the McCain campaign's most effective message against Senator Obama. Replaying video of Senator McCain saying that his top criteria for a VP was someone who was ready to step into the top slot on day one, the news organizations pointed to an apparent hypocrisy and undermined the campaign's ability to continue to use their most effective tool.

The motto 'Be Prepared' applies as much in marketing as anywhere else. In 2004, the Republican's Bush campaign operatives were unflagging in their preparation. Talking Points and spokespeople were available within moments of any news event. Their messaging was relentlessly consistent. They were a marketing machine. What happened here? The campaign's third mistake in the marketing of Gov. Palin was in not preparing for the obvious questions. If you have not seen the clip of McCain campaign aide Tucker Bounds getting eviscerated by CNN's Campbell Brown, take a look at how painful an experience it can be to be an unprepared spokesperson. He falls back on his media training, trying to bridge and pivot questions to answers he wants to give, but it just doesn't work. Ms. Brown asks obvious questions, but Mr. Bounds seems stumped.

I still have no idea whether Gov. Palin would make a good VP or not. But I suspect that millions of Americans have already formulated an opinion of her based on the news coverage they have seen. It seems clear to me that the McCain campaign failed miserably to leverage this news event to their favor--a blunder that could have greater impact than most VP picks.

Comments

[melissa]

Great post, Drew. I completely agree with you. This will someday be a case study in how not to handle a campaign. Plus the cheesy, 1980s style production value of the RNC didn't help.

[Desiree]

Sounds like the McCain/Palin lead financial committee advisor agrees with this position -- if neither are capable of running a company like HP, the concept of an integrated marketing plan is probably lost on them! After yesterday, not only is it clear they need and better marketing plan, at a minimum, their team could use some talking points and a FAQ that includes rude Qs ;->

[Alan]

Well, since this seems to be some sort of Claris reuinion, I didn't want to be left out!

I do think this is a great post, Drew. I also think that the Republicans would do much better to try to convince us that they are the best people for the job, versus some gimicky trick to lure American women. I listen daily from the Fox news crew who continue to do nothing to promote their candidates, only willing to promote hate and fear for the other side. As they told us in sales 101-don't knock the competition, sell the virtues of your product and how if best solves the customer's problems. Not sure of any of your political leanings, honestly (wasn't it a much more innocent time for us? Or were we just drunk all of the time?) but I think Obama all of the time-a. And I live in friggin Georgia where I am very much in the minority.

Great to see all of you online...god knows I miss you.

Alan