This week I am inspired to write my first blog post on the US presidential election and how the Obama and Romney campaigns are using some best practices of marketing to try to win the election and woo voters. 

This post will first look at the recent President debates. The debate is one of the most anticipated parts of any campaign. The purpose of the debate is to sway voters, particularly those that are undecided, not only to vote (voter apathy was at 43% in 2008) but also vote to for the candidate in question.

Overall, the debate demonstrates a couple lessons in marketing.

Lesson 1: Earned, owned and paid media

The debate is the ultimate ‘earned media’ event over the course of the campaign.  “Winning” the debate can mean a significant boost in the polls, which means candidates are more likely to win the election and can also help the campaign focus their resources. These resources are either in the form of paid advertising or volunteers knocking on doors. These precious resources are the most critical asset of any campaign – where they target their paid advertising dollars and volunteers can mean the difference between winning and losing the election.  This really reinforces the relationship between paid, owned and earned media and demonstrates how increasing earned media can reduce the need for resource allocation to paid media.

Lesson 2: Debate`s key messages

Romney and Obama’s debate strategies can be analyzed using traditional marketing plans.

Objective: Both candidates had the same objective, to sway undecided voters in targeted states to vote for them and not to lose any of their existing bases.

Identify their target market: Both candidates seem to be targeting a similar target audience – the undecided middle-class female voter. Obama’s platform is called “A Plan for Jobs and Middle-Class Security.  https://secure.assets.bostatic.com/pdfs/Jobs_Plan_Booklet.pdf

Romney’s platform is called “Mitt Romney’s Plan for a Stronger Middle Class”  http://www.mittromney.com/jobsplan

Develop your message: Obama’s key campaign message focused on the #webuiltthis. He has focused on his record as being strong on foreign policy, Obamacare and managing the economy under the circumstances. Romney’s key campaign message focused on positioning himself as fiscally responsible but socially moderate candidate who hopes to use his experience in the private and public sector (working for Bain, saving the Salt Lake City Olympics and serving as Governor for Massachusetts).

Sell your message: 

• Keep it simple – James Carville coined Bill Clinton’s 1992 strategy “it’s the economy, stupid”. Carville has continued to reinforce the need in political campaigns to keep your message simple and clearly communicate it.
• Use stories to convey your idea: Facts don’t persuade voters, but stories can.  That is because stories follow a universal structure and can evoke strong imagery.
• Use dichotomies to distinguish yourself from your opponent: Obama’s campaign has tried to position his plan as moving the country forward – not backwards, which is how his campaign has characterized Romney’s plan.

Lesson 3: Understand the medium

This was the first presidential debate with a mature facebook and twitter platform. The first president debate was the most tweeted event in history with more than 10.3 million tweets during the 90 minute debate.

What struck me about this year’s debate is that candidates are not only fighting for the five second news highlight but also to dominate the chatter in the twitter-sphere.  If you ask most individuals what they remember about the debate, most will say – big bird, binders and bayonets.

The presence of social media has disrupted the debate. Whereas traditional debates used to be structured as follow:

• Traditional: Live debate watched on TV — at the end of the debate commentators would analyze the results — the newspaper would report on the debate the following day.
• Contemporary: Debate watched on TV or streamed online — viewers are able to post comments on social media or directly to media sources — at the end of the debate commentators analyze the results and provide instantaneous insights from viewers — media outlets report on the debate immediately following the debate and post online.

I created this blog as part of class assignment to explore hot topics in marketing. I have to say, the most difficult part thus far has been coming up with a name for my blog. After much deliberation, I ended up name my blog after my two passions in life, politics and yoga. While this might seem like a random combination, I believe that politics and yoga actually have much more in common that you would think.

Politics

I got bit by the political bug when I was in university, and when I graduated, all I wanted to do was work in politics. I joined a political party on campus, got an internship working at the provincial legislature and before I knew it, I had been elected to a youth political party executive, I had been asked to co-Chair the party’s Annual General Meeting and I was asked to co-run the youth campaign from the “War Room”.

Politics gave me some amazing experience to meet incredible people and to feel like I was able to have a tiny contribution to a party that I firmly believed it.

Politics taught me three key life lessons.

1.       Understanding yourself is paramount: Before you can try to convince someone to vote for you or your party, you need to have a strong idea of what you stand for and what you are willing to compromise. (For me, access to health care and education are always non-negotiable).

2.       Hard work and perseverance isn’t always enough: Working on campaigns taught me in certain situations, regardless of how many hours I worked; sometimes it was not enough to win the election. But, that doesn’t mean the effort; the time and the cause were not worth it. As in life and sports, losing really teaches you more than winning.

3.        Remember to breathe. Some of my most stressful moments in life stemmed from my experience working in issues management for the Minister of Economic Development, during the financial crisis and the Minister of Health during the H1N1 and eHealth Ontario crisis. These moments instilled upon me, the importance of taking a breath – to refocus and not to make decisions in haste that could have significant consequences.

Yoga

I am not going to lie, I still have a hard time calling myself a yogi and I still find some yoga classes and yoga studios intimating.

For me, yoga came into my life at a very critical point. Two years ago, I picked up my life and moved across the country to Vancouver. I had done a fair bit of yoga before moving to Vancouver, but yoga in Vancouver is very different than anywhere else I’ve done yoga.

Similar to politics, at times yoga can be a bit of a cult… That said all of the life lessons from politics are also applicable to yoga.

Yoga taught me three key life lessons.

1.       Understanding yourself is paramount: Yoga is many different things to many people. For me, it’s about understanding who I am today, where I am going and how I am going to get there. I have found that spending an hour on my mat multiple times a weeks has given me far more introspection that I could have thought.

2.       Hard work and perseverance isn’t always enough: Similar to politics, yoga does have some areas over which you have no control. For example, there are many, many postures that I know I will never be able to do properly. That said, every class allows me to get further into my own yoga practice and either motivates me to work harder on a posture, or deal with the challenge of having to settle my mind.

3.       Remember to breathe: Breathing is one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned from yoga. One of my instructors always says regardless of what position you’ve found yourself in, all you can do is focus on you can control – your breathe.

I hope this blog provides some insights on current events, particularly in the business and political arena and teaches you something about marketing.

This is an experiment, but I am looking forward to it!

Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!