My apologies to Seth Godin for stealing the title of one of his recent blog posts. I hope he doesn’t mind. But, hey, I wanted to write about the same thing as he did, and there’s only so many different ways to title it.
There are three lessons marketers should come away with from this election season:
1) Stories matter. Again, apologies to Mr. Godin for stealing from his blog — his first takeaway was “stories really matter.” But my take is slightly different than Seth’s. For me, the stories that matter are the stories that voters told themselves — not the stories told by the candidates.
After all, the story that McCain told — that Obama wasn’t qualified or ready to lead — clearly didn’t connect with a majority of voters. And the story that Obama told — that voting for McCain was like voting for four more years of Bush — clearly didn’t resonate, since more people voted for McCain than voted for Bush in 2004.
Instead, what mattered were the stories that the voters told themselves. Stories about the state of the economy, the direction the country is on and needs to be, and who would be able to fix the economy and put the country back on the right track.
Where did these stories come from? From their research, their discussions, their experiences, their beliefs….from a million different sources and inputs. From a million different things that the candidates had absolutely no control over.
And that’s the lesson: The candidates couldn’t control the stories that voters told themselves, and neither can marketers. Marketers can only create “environments” (online, offline, service channels, etc.) in which customers and prospects can experience the company or product and form their own stories.
2) Engagement matters. If the stories that customers tell themselves are the most important stories, and if those stories come from their experiences, then engaging customers (customer engagement) is the most important thing a marketer can do.
And that was clearly the key to Obama’s victory: His ability to engage — at both a behavioral and emotional level — a large number of voters. Did McCain get the same level of engagement? I doubt it.
But let’s not forget that McCain did (as I mentioned before) get more people to vote for him than voted for Bush four years ago. Which is important because of the third lesson….
3) What you measure matters. A local Boston paper ran a headline today claiming an Obama “landslide.” Bullsh*t. With 52% of the popular vote, Obama’s victory hardly qualifies as an landslide. And McCain did win (at least) 20 states.
On one hand, Republican “marketers” should be proud that they garnered more votes for their candidate than they did in the previous campaign. That’s a measure of success.
On the other hand, however, they should count it as a failure that there were states they carried in 2004 that they lost in 2008.
The lesson for marketers: What’s important to marketers here is the realization that, unlike a political campaign, with marketing campaigns, there is no winner or loser. There is only performance. Absolute campaign performance is one important measure of success. Generating a higher conversion rate in a campaign than a previous campaign is something to celebrate.
But which customers convert or respond is important, too. If marketers aren’t converting customers in their target market — i.e., the right customers — then it’s back to the campaign drawing board.
Technorati Tags: Marketing, Seth Godin
Not to sound too cynical, but it often seemed like age, gender and ethnicity mattered more than stories, engagement and research.
I think the lesson for marketers is that people are emotional, irrational beings, despite how smart and logical we like to fancy ourselves.
@JP: Don’t worry, you don’t sound too cynical. Cynical, yes. Just not “too” cynical.
And I would agree that people are emotional and irrational — but leaving it at that is an observation, not a lesson. My point about the stories was to assert the ideas that 1) advertising has less influence than many advertisers would like to believe it has, and 2) rather than spending time crafting a “story”, marketers should create opportunities for customers and prospects to get engaged and create their own stories.
If those stories are irrationally emotional, or emotionally irrational, I don’t care. As long as there’s a story a customer is telling him or herself.
I have to admit that it was only a year and a half ago we got TV and hooked up cable. It had been a long time since having 24/7 TV in our home. The PVR is my chosen mode of watching so commercials are not a large part of the diet for the most part.
What I have found is that the most interesting ads are the ones that tell a story. They don’t have to promote a product to any great degree. If the story is good, funny, entertaining or just plain different I tend to remember the brand no matter how little it is mentioned. If I see an ad that gives me 834 images flashing at me in 30 seconds forget it. I’m outa here. You have overloaded my senses and I find that disconcerting.
The really good ones are the ones I’ll mention to people. Those are the real stories.
Hi Ron,
I’ve also been thinking about the presidential race and in every election I can recall (at least that I could have voted in), the more attractive candidate won. I call it “presidential branding” Ok, Al Gore lost, but he won the popular vote.
I’m a measurable marketing guy and not a brander for the sake of branding only. However, in these cases, the outcome was the win, which was the measure of the success.
As for stories, I have not seen anything that beats a compelling story in marketing.
Thanks for the post.
@Gene: [Sigh]. I guess I didn’t make my point clearly. Good “storytelling” in advertising might be memorable and entertaining, but it isn’t what drives the emotional connection you have to the companies and products you’re loyal to.
And in fact, if the ad doesn’t move you along the purchase cycle, then, to @Grant’s point, the fact that it was entertaining doesn’t mean it was successful.
I think one of the most important points you make is the creation of an experience through engagement…if we can create a an experience (and it doesn’t have to be using one of our products) for consumers they will learn more about us than they will with interruption marketing.
I think the real is key what happened when you put all three of your points together: Obama told a story that actually got people off their butts to do something that hadn’t heard a worthy story until this election. Your stat on McCain getting more votes than Bush stopped me in my tracks – it shows how big a difference new groups can make, rather than just fighting over the same old groups.