Democrats: Assert Your Brand!

Carrying on from this past week's show with Geoff Nunberg, an older but relevant piece on branding from the liberals' own Thom Hartmann:

We're still letting cons define our brand for us,: and they're still doing it aggressively. In the month of February, 2005, timed to coincide with the Academy Awards, a con group has rented prominent billboards in Hollywood that will show a smiling picture of George W. Bush with the slogan: "Thank you, Hollywood!". In a row under the prominent and smiling Bush are less flattering photos of Michael Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Afleck, and other outspoken liberals.

There are no Democratic billboards showing the biggest supporters of the Republican Party - corporate fat-cats like Ken Lay, with private jets and limousines, living in baronial mansions.

In classic marketing theory, there are two foundational concepts. Features ("what is it?") without benefits ("why should I care?") lack relevance. And, benefits without features lack credibility.

Once these are mastered, you "chunk up" (to use NLP terminology) to branding: "Features and benefits without identification ("Who am I when I use this product?") lack "stickiness" or persistence.

Progressives and Democrats are still working on features - the details of programs.

Most progressives know all the features they're interested in: Universal single payer health care, a viable social safety net, prison and sentencing reform, a livable wage, support for unions and the repeal of Taft-Hartley and its heirs, voting (and voting machine) reforms, revoking corporate personhood and getting corporate money out of politics, moral leadership in the world, and working for a reduction of crime and poverty at home and towards stable, lasting worldwide peace (to name a few).

But there's no "benefit statement" in lists like these. Sure, some people think they're obvious, but the cons know - as does any good marketer - that you have to lead with the benefit, and only then do you follow with the features. Sell "lower taxes" to everybody before rolling out tax cuts for the wealthy. Sell "personal accounts" for Social Security before rolling out benefit cuts for future generations. Sell "protect your children" before rolling out homophobia and theocracy.

--snip--

Progressives and Democrats: Assert Your Brand! "The brand - the identity - of progressive ideals doesn't need to be reinvented. It's been with us since the founding of this nation. It long predates the Republican's Faustian deal with the Robber Barons and war profiteers. And when the Democratic Party has been strongest, it's been because Democrats have asserted a clear brand that stood in opposition to Republicans and their fat-cat owners. We are the - truly - We the People.

If the Democratic Party is to survive, it must embrace the progressive concepts that led to its founding in the late 1700s. It must tell average Americans what's in it for them, and once again give Americans a 'brand' with which they can identify. It must stop playing defense, letting the Republicans define the agenda of public debate, and instead reinvigorate traditional progressive rhetoric, legislation, and identity.

Democrats must reassert their brand, and establish their identity. To do this, the Party must say, loudly: 'We're for the average working stiff in America, and we'll prove it by bringing jobs back from overseas by pulling out of the WTO and NAFTA, supporting organized labor, strengthening the social safety net, and keeping government from being a honey pot for either churches or corporations.' And then they must come up with a simple name for it, like Newt's 'Contract' or Roosevelt's 'New Deal' or LBJ's 'Great Society' to provide voters with a hook for identification.

They must further back this up by working with Greens and progressives for Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), the end of Republican-affiliated corporations programming our voting machines, and advocate social, economic, and environmental reforms - and bringing them into the Party."