Why Change works for Obama but not for Hillary
Obama was brilliant when he chose the word “change” as the theme of his campaign. While Hillary’s theme of “experience” is also effective, it is not nearly as effective as “change.” “Hillary Clinton realized her mistake and jumped on the change bandwagon. Her new theme: ‘Countdown to change.’”
“It’s too late. Obama has pre-empted the change idea. A typical example is the cover of the Jan. 14 issue of Newsweek with a picture of Barack Obama and the words “Our time for change has come,” wrote Al Ries in Advertising Age. And what was John Edwards’ theme? Who knows??
It shows how important a theme, a big idea, a word association can be to a success of a candidate or any other brand. “A great slogan not only connects with consumers, it can help keep everybody in the organization focused,” Ries says. And I have to agree. I believe public relations is most effective when every plan, every strategy and every tactical move are developed with that slogan or theme in mind. And this big idea has to be consistent. Going back to politics, I don’t think it helped Hillary or Romney to suddenly after Iowa start talking about change. It was not consistent with their previous messaging – they did not seem authentic.
Ries concludes: “The three most important rules of advertising used to be: Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Today, we seem to have forgotten these rules.” And what should the three most important rules of PR be? Repetition, repetition, repetition.
