When bad advertising wins, who loses?

Voters in the swing states for the presidency have been accosted for some time now by political attack ads. So if you are of voting age in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia or Wisconsin, then you are witnessing the power of marketing and branding communications to do more harm than good.

It’s a lesson that applies to B2B marketing and especially brand identity development. When our firm sets out to build a manufacturing client’s brand identity, we would never think to do it by tearing down somebody else’s brand. Yes, we do use positioning strategies to help a customer segment distinguish the greater value that our client offers, versus the competition. But our method is all about value definition and value recognition, achieved through strategically honest communications.

But wait a minute, that’s what B2B marketing and branding does. And we are talking about political attack ads, which are centrally not about strategically honest communication. Attack ads are crafted to distance, discredit and divide election votes. So a good attack ad is not designed to appeal to your intellect, but to your fears and suspicions, your paranoia and perhaps even your prejudices. A good attack ad does not build an argument around “the issues” or set out to explain a candidate’s plan for change.

There’s always candidate fodder for attack ads, because no candidate’s history is as saintly, successful, so perfectly managed or perfectly lucky as to not have some scar capable of being reopened by exaggerated scrutiny. A good attack ad finds such scars and stabs its thumb into them.

A good attack ad then, is not just an attack on a candidate’s credentials or ideas, so much as it is an attack on the human condition, an attack on all of us who are not perfect, but who are otherwise of good character, intent and have the capacity to do great things.

Attack advertising is as old as America, because in some circumstances it works. But why is that? Perhaps the answer says more about the segment being marketed to, than the quality of the marketing and branding behind the ads.

jb

www.centrifuge-now.com

When is the next tipping point?

Comes a time, a tipping point, whether in the course of our personal lives, our businesses, or even our government, when a convergence of facts and insights forces a clearheaded sense of urgency that can no longer be ignored.

These are healthy events, vital events, because unlike so many rituals aimed at preserving the efficiency of sameness, these are transformational events powered by a feeling of urgency that demands change.

And yet the very word − change – has become a clanking cliché. The mantra of political candidates for decades, “change” is an emotional word and hence its short-term effectiveness. “Change” is a word made impotent in the long-term, for lack of any disciplined process for follow-through.

During a tipping point, new insights, facts and opportunities compel true leaders to ask themselves how the business model must change, whether the existing framework and its interdependent workings still serve the greater potential of the enterprise. This is not a question of changing the business charter of an industrial manufacturer or changing the U.S. Constitution by which our politicians are empowered to govern. It is a question of leadership and the use of a change process predicated on intellectual honesty and agreement, a process for change that is almost never based on a consensus as to the solution.

The process for progressive change has been documented well enough in the business world. It is a process characterized not just by a gathering of insights and facts and a resulting sense of urgency, but by agreement among a company’s leaders as to how the company’s business model must change.

This seems to be the impasse experienced in our government, and often enough in the boardrooms and corner offices of American industry. It is a tipping point that cannot be overcome by such activities as IT, accountancy, HR or even sales. It is a tipping point that is centrally managed by the disciplines of marketing and branding.

Yes, marketing and branding.

Guided by truly effective marketing and branding, a business leader can evaluate when and how to change the present business model. Guided by marketing and branding, a business leader can build a core coalition, establish the company’s vision and mission, communicate and empower change, document and celebrate the resulting victories, and ultimately grow a winning culture that thrives.

All by managing the tipping points for change.

jb

www.centrifuge-now.com