Bruce Benidt
Jon Austin
tcarideo
Ellen Mrja
Mike KeliherIn many situations, what is good for an organization’s short-term revenue and operations is bad for the organization’s long-term brand. In such cases, the finance and operations side of the organization duke it out with the brand side of the organization, and the chief executive is left with a tough call.
Senator Barack Obama made just such a call last week when deciding whether to abide by federal campaign spending limits, and thereby forgo an enormous grassroots fundraising advantage he has built over Senator John McCain.
For Obama, opting out of campaign spending limits has tremendous brand downsides – severe erosion of Obama’s reformer and truth-teller brand attributes. This is especially a big deal for a relatively new brand in the marketplace. At the same time, opting out has enormous operations upsides – unprecidented amounts of money for staff, ads, voter registration, and and voter turnout.
Obama opted for bucks over brand, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, the hits have indeed arrived.
I’m on the “protect the brand” side of this issue. Prized brands are astronomically valuable. For instance, the value of the Coke brand is estimated at about $55 billion. Obama has built a brand unlike any Presidential contender in recent memory. I believe the Barack brand at its height was the political equivalent of a Coke or Apple brand.
A brand as valuable as that is worth protecting at almost any cost. I’m happy for all the campaign staffers who now have the keys to the campaign candy store. But the brand costs of this decision exceed the operational benefits.
- Loveland
Filed under: Communications, Marketing, Politics | Tagged: Barack Obama, campaign finance reform, Coke, John McCain, public financing
Agreed, Loveland.
And think of the potential Barack™ brand-boosting, presidential, principled goodness he might have captured, had he instead said something like this:
Don’t know how many millions of dollars that might have equated to, but some.
Tempest in a teapot.
No matter how hard the other side tries to make more of this than it is – a smart decision – they won’t be able to sustain the public’s interest…there has never been, will never be, a survey of the electorate in this country that puts campaign reform in the list of most important issues facing the country. Not in the top 5, not in the top 10. Probably not in the top 20.
Obama gave up $84 million and took on a June mini-controversy so that he could take in $200-$250 million between now and November. That’s a choice worth making.
- Austin
I suspect you’re right, Austin. In and of itself, it’s a choice worth making.
Within the context of the whole, though, we’ll see. You’re probably still right.
But to win, the anti-Obama camp needs to establish the “Typical Politician in Change-Agent Clothing” pattern. The Clintons started that effort during the primaries when they got him to go negative, and Obama’s own-goal here will make the Republicans’ persuasion task easier.
Obama has his base, no matter what and no matter how much he spends. But while campaign reform might not capture voters’ fancies, a series of “Say it ain’t so, Barack” disillusionments might make independent support wobble more than ads can offset.
Agree that campaign finance isn’t a voting issue. But honesty and hypocrisy are.
Think of it this way: I suspect cherry tree preservation wasn’t a voting issue in the George Washington era, but the honesty story about the cherry tree was a powerful part of the GW brand.
And Obama’s credibility further erodes as he distances himself from Muslims. He’s stiffed Keith Ellison, my US rep, and stayed away from events at mosques while doing churches and synagogues. Ellison said he’ll never forget the words of the Obama aide who came to his office and said no thanks to Keith speaking for Barack in Iowa — they said they have a “tightly wrapped message.” Ellison was rightly appalled.
Yes, Obama has been scurrilously attacked by the right as being a Muslim (and Hillary Clinton showed just what slimy stuff she’s made of when she said, when asked about Obama’s religion, that he isn’t a Muslim “as far as I know”). So he’s facing a scare campaign by people counting on Americans’ prejudice to harm Obama. But Obama shouldn’t hide from this prejudice.
The consultants are circling, and landing, and starting to call the shots. “Oooh, be cautious, we can’t give ammunition to the right. Imagine the photo of Obama coming out of a mosque.”
I love you guys, Joe, Jon and Gary, but part of the problem is thinking of Obama as a brand. He’s not a fucking brand, at least I hope he’s not. Brands have brand managers, little MBA types who stir up baseless excitement about products.
Obama, I hope, is a complex human being who is different from the standard finger-in-the-wind pol (I know, Joe, you’d say that’s his brand). He should dump the brand managers, dump the cautious status-quo advisers who are trying to protect him. Fuck it, just let him go out there and be himself. I suspect he’s saying to his closest friends that he feels like standing up for and with his Muslim supporters, taking on the prejudice head-on, saying let’s not be scared of this religious faith and tradition that guides millions of good people. But that would make his advisers poop their pants. And that’s why his advisers should be put on a bus to go work for some malleable invertebrate hack.
It’s not about Obama’s brand. It’s about his soul. His spine. His instincts. That’s what’s gotten him this far. If he starts now acting like a brand, he’ll just be a sad disappointment.
Brand — yech. That’s the same kind of thinking that calls a city a “market.” I don’t live in a market, I live in a city. And I won’t vote for a box of soap flakes — I’ll vote for a live human being who follows his instinct and his principles.
I used the term brand to draw a parallel to similar money v. reputation decisions made in the broader world, but I’m neither married nor divorced to that particular term.
Yes, no mama’s son is a can of corn, so Barack Obama is different than Green Giant. No argument there. Obama the person is a soul, but the reality is that there are dozens of ways that one soul can be presented to the public.
I say those presentation decisions are akin to brand decisions. But again, if you prefer a less corporate word to describe something associated with a person you admire, that’s cool with me. But I think the money v. reputation tradeoff discussed in the post is the same.
Obama should embrace Muslims and allow himself to be photographed at Mosques.
Terrific conversation–but has the senator violated his principles or merely reacted pragmatically to the reality of the situation–a flexibility of response that may be admirable in a chief exec.? Personally, with 100’s of millions of dollars in the game, kind of difficult to think of the campaign managers as anything but running a business, a monstous, intensely sophisticated business of brand building, marketing, selling. Remember Robert Redford in “The Candidate”? The win became the thing. Will be fun to watch. Enjoying your observations.
I’m only going to say a few things since “f-bombs” are already flying out of this discussion.
We all know the golden rule of power: He who has the gold, makes the rules. Well, the same goes for Obama and his campaign.
Yes, Obama said he was going to change politics and now everyone is pissed because he is changing positions about public financing. The only problem with changing the game is that you can’t drastically change the system while campaigning.
I’m pretty young, but I’ve seen it time and again where a candidate has to compromise himself or herself to get election. This is nothing new because candidates who have tried to change the game while campaigning have fallen flat. It’s the nature of the beast.
For Obama, this isn’t a question of whether he changes politics while running. The true question lies in whether he will change the system like he said he will if he gets into office.
P.S. While I am not really happy Obama’s campaign excluded Muslims from a TV camera seat during a speech, I am reminded of a scene from the movie “Bobby” where RFK’s campaign chief of staff denies an interview to a reporter from Czechoslovakia because of the country’s relation to the Soviet Union of the time (I am going from the movie because my birth wasn’t even a forethought at the time).
Obama already has to fight rumors of being a terrorist and muslim and probably a Dr. Kevorkian practicer soon (I am making that one up). His campaign knows that a lot of the independent vote rides on his image. Since 9/11, most connections to Islam are still seen negatively by the vast majority of Americans. I hate to say it, but I’m pretty sure it still is.
So, sadly, you can’t blame the campaign because the practice has been done by some of the greats too.
O.K. So I lied about the few words thing.
But you can blame the campaign if the campaign is based on change and instead falls into the same old ways — with four full months to go, still.
Anyone who believes Barack Obama is a Muslim is not the kind of on-the-fence voter who might swayed by a sudden lack of Islamic imagery. Slamming these doors shut at every turn strikes me as very much the “same old ways.”
[...] Barack: Bucks over Brand [...]
[...] Posts Tinklenberg for CongressIt’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like VindictivenessBarack: Bucks over BrandWhat’s Your Six-Word Life Story?Al Smith Saves the Presidential RaceFirst Cut at the General [...]