Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars the campaigns are spending marketing their respective candidates, neither have an overall position that they are communicating for their man.
It’s a shocking omission.
More shocking is the fact that the promotion of the two campaigns sounds like marketing of the Bobbsey Twins. The stance on various issues is different of course, but the overall positioning – represented by tag lines or positioning slogans – is an exercise in TweedlDum and TweedleDee PR.
The slogan of the Obama campaign, which is now the basis of his bus tour, is “Betting on America.” There’s no positioning image to go along with this, just the slogan, which, according to Breibart, is a rip off of a Clinton slogan.
But hey.
And Mitt? The tag line of the Romney campaign is “Believe in America.” Huh? Betting on America … Believe in America. Come on, guys. How about just a little differentiation?
They spend millions on surveys. The “Button” that is pushed ad nauseam on the campaign trail is Jobs. That’s all either of them talk about. And it probably is the top answer to the question, “What is the most important issue facing the country today?”
Yet, neither campaign has a properly positioned itself with Jobs. Yes, they talk about them, but words come and go. Where’s the positioning image? Or, in the words of Laura Ries’ new book, the Visual Hammer? Where’s a prominent silhouette of a hard hat over the slogan Believe in America? Such an image from the Romney campaign would communicate volumes.
The positioning for the Obama campaign in 2008 was easy. They grabbed the right word and drove it into the mind - Change. This word represented an “against” position. Bush, and the Iraq War were extremely unpopular and “Change” was change from Bush and his policies. It went down like a buttered oyster.
There was a positioning opportunity for McCain in that campaign. As the Jeremiah Wright controversy exploded across the media, McCain could have positioned Obama with Wright and his raging anti-Americanism. McCain let it go. And he lost the race.
Would McCain have won the Presidency if his campaign had challenged Obama’s assertion that he had attended that church for 20 years and never heard a word of the racist rantings? I don’t know, but the outcome of the race would have been undeniably different. Positioning works.
Opponents of John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid who had served on swift boats during the Vietnam War had no such qualms. Hammering the media with evidence of John Kerry’s misrepresentations of his service during the Vietnam War and that of other veterans, Kerry was positioned as a something of a coward and a liar and “Swiftboated” right out of the race.
Positioning is where you place your product or service or…candidate in the mind of your public. It’s dominant. It monitors the overall communications strategy.
The Obama campaign hasn’t positioned the President. They can’t use “Change” this time. And Betting on America is only for his bus tour. With big fan fare a few weeks ago, they rolled out a new word that was to position the campaign – Forward.
Eh…. Really?
That should read, "Come on, Obama. How about a little differentiation?" Romney has had his tagline emblazoned on all his primary political signs for over a year if not more. Obama is now on number four or five with this latest one put forward in just the last two weeks or so. I didn't even bother to read anymore after that.
I am in the camp that says BS on this idea that Romney needs to shoot off some fireworks right now. One commenter mentioned Clinton and Dole and how Clinton had it wrapped up by the convention. Compare the economic numbers between then and now and it is apples and oranges.
And since when has Charlie Cook been a consistent successful political odds maker? Only when Dems are clearly in the position to win.
Obama is burning through cash, thrashing around, making all kinds of Romney-is-rich-and-has-money-in-offshore-banks-and-pioneered-outsourcing statements. Romney is willing to take a few hits while folks are not focusing and the polls stay relatively even. Romeny's getting soundbites that aren't just a year or two or three old but four months before the election.
As to John Kerry: I will never forget the interview with Tim Russert when Kerry was asked about his congressional testimony and his wild anti-troop stereotyping statements. In what was surely off-script, Kerry first joked about how his hair style had changed before half-hardheartedly claiming that he may have exaggerated due to passion or what not.
Anyone that saw that probably now thinks of a more recent similar example by Obama when he first went before reporters - and the waiting nation - after the horrific massacre at Fort Hood and proceeded to thank officials for a "great conference" and gave a couple shout outs, brimming with a grin, before furrowing his brow and talking about the massacre and "not to jump to conclusions."