Election Follow Up

So, long time no posts. The election was nuts for a political communication junkie. On top of that, I took a new job, as an online channel manger for Best Buy. It’s been a fascinating ride so far. Now here’s my quick recap of the election from a brand and symbolic identity perspective. My analysis is not meant to explain all facets of the election or the psyche of the electorate, or talk about spending, I just want to highlight some things that interested me and helps explain why Obama won.

Obama had a better use of technology and connected more with young and first-time voters. C’mon he even had an iPhone app that could provide localized news. Obama seemed more presidential, as he remained calm. While his election is historic and he ran a great campaign (even the conservative CNN talking heads agreed – the only big mistake was the “clinging to guns and religion” statement). However, I feel that McCain’s team did a lot to beat themselves by not grounding their symbolic vision. As I outline these items, they are not on my ethics, but rather based on where brand promises are broken.

*McCain’s “maverick” status would have worked to separate himself if he didn’t vote with Bush 90% of the time.

*McCain’s choice of Palin was a high-risk choice. At the end of the day, may have hurt him more than helped (which is out of the norm for a VP choice).

*Joe The Plumber – was not really a plumber, was not trying to buy a business, and could not afford a shopping spree the likes of the Palins.

*The key issue moved from Iraq to the economy in late summer. McCain looked erratic and indecisive (yet wanted to be the one with experience to lead). He wasn’t sure if he would be at the first debate, if he would be on Letterman, etc. At the end of the day, he votes for the bailout (like Obama). So there was no unique differentiator on the vote, and how he got there did not instill confidence as a leader or a maverick. I had a conversation with conservative friend of mine who felt that McCain could have won if he made only two different choices: Pawlenty for VP and voted against the $700B bailout.

*Economy part II: Warren Buffet endorsed Obama. Among most voters, Buffet has recognition of being a smart investor. The Obama endorsement is hard to overcome for McCain. Obama’s weakness on foreign policy and experience led to the choice of Biden. McCain’s admission of not being strong on economics led him to the choice of Palin. It’s hard to say that the nearly “socialized” economy of AK would translate to a strength on the National or International level.

The takeaways: Don’t break brand promises. When trying to ground a brand identity, make sure that are reality links to can make the symbolic tangible. You can’t be all things to all people. The here-and-now changes the landscape. If the economy wasn’t the chief here-and-now issue, McCain’s weakness on economic issues may not have mattered.

Politics brings out incongruity and some of it is laughable, but too much of it and a vision can not be grounded or reach critical mass.

The problem with airlines? The customers.

Listen to the story from NPR about airfares and other hidden costs associated with a failing business model. Listen to the jackass about 3:00 into the audio portion. It's you. Yes you and your travel sites that are destroying the airlines. You and your pragmatic searches for a low cost. You're letting the terrorists win, but showing what a free market can do to the poor widdle airlines.

Spitzer Swallows…Hard

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and congratulations and best wishes to New York Governor David Patterson. Patterson takes over after a week of sordid and titillating news about Eliot Spitzer.

As the stories of Spitzer continue to come out, I wanted to highlight two symbolic identity elements involving the former gov and the now (in)famous Emperors’ Club.

First with Spitzer, he (and his political advisers) created a symbolic persona of one that fights crime and more specifically government corruption. This key element is now lost as he moved money around to hide the fact that he was spending thousands on prostitutes. His symbolic identity has imploded. All symbolic dramas have the seeds of their destruction sewn in there “genesis” story. When those items are no longer grounded in reality the vision collapses. Cheating one one’s spouse is not illegal, prostitution is. So, now the one wanting to stop corruption and crime, especially in government, becomes the criminal. From brand perspective, we need to be diligent about protecting and grounding an authentic persona with our constituents.

Now, a bit more lighthearted example with The Emperors’ Club. Part of the club’s appeal was to be highly educated, sophisticated women. Clearly, not the main value prop, but part of the identity. I liked seeing screen shots of the site (which has been disabled) with no apostrophe on the site design and what appears to be one of the product/services with a prison-yard tat on her hand. I suppose if you pay enough, you can stick the apostrophe anywhere you want.

(Hat tip to Andrew for the insight on the apostrophe.)

Take-aways:
Your symbolic identity already contains the seeds for its destruction.
When you can’t ground the vision, the vision declines (some more rapidly than others)

Wait, Macs get sick too!

Apple broke one of their brand promises with me this week. Everything doesn’t always work with a Mac. In this case, a hard drive failure on my iMac. Thankfully, this happened within the first year of the warranty, so the replacement will be free. Data recovery, well that’s another story.

After multiple calls to Apple support and hours of verifying, reparing, and repeating, my hard drive finally gave up. I was living a definition of insanity, trapped in the closed-loop system of Apple Tech Support. Apple level-one phone techs refused to believe that it could be a hardware issue – telling me that we want to try this again, just one more time. After the fourth attempt at verifying, it was clear the hard drive wasn’t getting better, nor was the tech support. One stop at our trusted, local, Apple authorized, service center and it’s clear it’s a hardware issue.

Then, this week in the midst of the problems, I see the cart of sick PCs on a recent “Get a Mac” add. It was like a punch to the gut.

Hopefully, after the new hard drive and some other upgrades and restores, everything will just work on my Mac.