COMMENTARY: Marketing’s Political Importance

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Marketing and branding are major factors in American society.

Never has that been more evident than in the just-concluded political campaign - although campaigning never really concludes, and that’s one of the lessons to be remembered from what we have seen over the past months.

The broad outcome of the 2010 elections is a tribute to the power of marketing and branding and a reminder that those who don’t give adequate attention to those factors will pay a political price.

This is not a suggestion that marketing and branding trump performance and positions in all cases. And there is no denying the depth and breadth of the real problems facing the nation.

Indeed, it is the daunting scope of those problems that make progress so difficult.

Sometimes marketing and campaigning involves rewriting history, and we have certainly seen examples of that in this campaign, when the massive budget deficits accumulated during the Bush administration, despite inheriting big surpluses, and the outrageous and unbudgeted costs of the war in Iraq are all but forgotten.

The political reality is, however, that in the public mind those in charge at the moment bear responsibility for making things better.

And unless people are convinced that those in charge are making major progress in dealing with problems - particularly when they have promised change - they will be held accountable. Even though the Obama administration had some notable achievements, it did a miserable job of marketingand of communicating a clear message to the public.

It is fair to point out that Congressional Republicans made clear from the beginning that they were, in effect, going to boycott the Obama brand, and if they couldn’t stop the president and Democratic leaders in Congress at every turn, they would throw up roadblocks where ever possible.

Whatever you may think about the health care legislation, the way it unfolded and the way it was perceived left the impression that it was a prolonged fiasco. It set the tone for what was to follow.

In the process, the Obama White House lost control of the agenda and never really regained it.

Republicans won the marketing war and the Republican brand proved to be the most popular in the mid-term elections, permeating well into the political ranks, as was the case in Arkansas, where the GOP had probably its strongest overall success ever.

It was the third successive “change election” nationally - an unprecedented development but indicative of the volatility of the times and the widespread frustration and discontent.

Never mind that we had to suffer through a prolonged season of campaign advertising, much of which was misleading, and in more than a few cases absolutely false. TV political ads, which were a major part of the $4 billion spent on thecostliest midterm contests in our history, managed to sink to new lows.

Some of that advertising and campaign rhetoric was based on over-simplified or misdirected claims. “Big government” was a popular attack target, and there’s no doubt that elements of government are bloated and that spending must be reined in. But it wasn’t big government that caused the banking crisis or the housing crisis or the Wall Street manipulations.

“Cap and trade” was another bull’s-eye. And although it has become a toxic term, who even knows what it involves? What we do know is that it is politically poisonous.

But successful marketers and campaigners have to be able to cut through the fog of political war. And the Obama team, so successful in the 2008 campaign, never really ventured into the marketing competition until very late in the 2010 campaign.

President Obama remarked at his post-election press conference this week that he found himself in the same position at this stage of his presidency as two of the greatest communicators in modern politics - RonaldReagan and Bill Clinton.

It is true that both Reagan and Clinton had low approval ratings and took significant hits at the midpoint of their first terms.

However, both of them subsequently demonstrated sharp marketing skills that enhanced their political standing.

As a result of Tuesday’s elections, the political dynamics are going to change, especially in Washington. But promising to go to Washington and balance the budget is one thing; accomplishing that is another. With Republicans controlling the House, will they move beyond serving as a deterrent? Will we have some genuine bipartisanship or will we be going from gridlock to the political equivalent of that world record Chinese traffic jam last summer - a 60-mile backup that lasted 11 days?

How the major players and parties handle the new alignments on Capitol Hill and who is best able to market their positions and promote their brand will significantly impact what happens in 2012.

HOYT PURVIS IS A JOURNALISM AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR.