Seems like there's a whole class of agencies that works only for political campaigns. By and large, their work is subpar--way below the national standard for branding, design, and all-around understanding of the current marketplace. Obama's campaign is a notable exception; these guys and gals were the first ones in recent memory to get it right (vs. the old-school folks on McCain's campaign who understand little about how the grassroots operates these days, or current graphic design standards). Whether this translates into success or not remains to be seen; I just find it interesting that for all the money spent on this stuff, the end-product comes out looking like--well, crap.

Obama's campaign looked NICE. His logo is nice. His design standards are good. Perhaps this is a targeting issue--after all, Wal-mart looks horrible, but that's part of its appeal. Maybe I just don't understand The Target Audience.

Still, a few things puzzle me about the political marketing vs. the advertising campaigns I've lived with and worked on for my entire adult life:

1) Why no print ads? Are they being smart or stupid with this? You rarely see a concerted print campaign (and I'm not talking direct mail) from the politicos. Why? Have they tapped into some secret governmental knowledge base that tells them print doesn't work? Are the rest of us wasting our money? I really want to know. It wouldn't suprise me if they had some data to back up their decisions on this; it also wouldn't surprise me if they didn't.

2) Outdoor: Why is all the outdoor hogged with local campaigns and not national? Or is it because I'm not in a swing state so I don't see the outdoor? They seem, in other words, to concentrate everything onto TV, which seems expensive, blunt, and stupid (I guess not unlike government itself).

3) Why has it taken so long to embrace online, and why has Obama been the only one to pull it off? You hear these pundits on the radio and TV and they're like, "WOW! Obama is going to TXT people! Amazing!" I mean, is it because these consultants and pundits are so behind the times that they really think this is breakthrough marketing? I have no other explanation for this, actually.

4) PR: How can their PR be so bad? I mean, I get it, it's hard to run a high-profile campaign with a lot at stake and still expect to control your media image, but come on. This Sarah Palin thing, they couldn't have handled that a little better? Who WAS the PR firm that advised them on that anyway? Most agencies would be fired for that kind of mishandling. Or is it that the campaign itself does their own PR and advertising? Because if so, perhaps my old rule still holds: "Don't take it in-house." The worst thing a client can do is take it in-house. There's no perspective, there's no education in the latest greatest research--it's just a bad idea. Maybe that's the problem.

It's my personal belief that in the case of the political campaigns, more than half their media budget is wasted, and they know exactly which half it is. They just can't bring themselves to do things the way that corporations--with corporate accountability and P/L responsibility--have established as their best practices. Even corporations get it wrong a lot, but nowhere near the level that campaigns do. It's disheartening. I picture a whole bunch of hoary, provincial Beltway types running lush, ineffective agencies, with budgets soaring to the moon, and yet they're unable to control the brand well. I'm sure they'd argue this point assiduously, but the bottom line is that the old ways of doing things are not the same way to do things now. And the way they used to do things wasn't that great anyway. You know Zogby polls no one--NO ONE--on cell phones? Amazing.

Labels: mccain, Obama, Old Media Deathwatch, politics