Out of the Box

As an avid reader of marketing journals, it was quite interesting to see the number of columnists who actually discussed the selection of Governor Sarah Palin as a marketing decision. It is always challenging in marketing to take a rather obscure product and to quickly position it as the product of the future. The flip side is a tried and well branded product that “needs no introduction,” a phrase I am sure you have heard many times.

You might say that Senator Barack Obama went for the brand while Senator John McCain opted for the challenge of promoting a new product. Both marketers and political pundits now admit that McCain’s move was a stroke of genius, again by using a marketing analogy. As tried and established as the brand is, the dynamics are quite different when it has a serious competitor. Many companies often struggle with nudging market share up for a proven brand, only to find themselves locked in with a competing brand. No matter what they do, they cannot seem to gain share. What to do preoccupies the conference rooms of many a corporation.

A savvy marketer might counsel to do an end run around the established competing brand by introducing a new flavor that is not currently available in the marketplace. Instead of constantly investing to prop up the more established brand, invest in the new flavor and realize the benefits from such a move. Many companies often face the choice of whether to invest in an established brand or in new product development. There is no textbook answer but the McCain choice seems to favor the new product.

When it comes down to it, McCain no doubt evaluated his potential choices against the competing brand. The Democrats fielded a young charismatic orator who could captivate an audience with a proven brand US Senator as candidate for Vice President with impeccable credentials in foreign policy. McCain certainly could promote his own virtues as a hero and as a “maverick,” a term that makes even more sense after his selection of Palin.

Instead of investing with the proven brand, McCain chose the new flavor. He no doubt calculated that if he was to win, he needed the disenfranchised Hilary Clinton supporters who seemed to have nowhere to hang their hat. In addition, he was banking on fighting charisma with charisma and oratory skills with oratory skills. In the marketing vernacular, he absolutely decided to invest in the new product, and so far it has been paying off big time in support and in money.

Marketing experts say that McCain was also cautious about how much damage the media could do to one of the more proven brands. Would it turn out that the brand really did have some skeletons in the closet that might garner national attention. Going for the rather obscure governor from Alaska gave him a measure of security that whatever the media comes up with on her role as a mayor, governor, or oil explorer, it would not be as bad as having a damaged super brand.

Now if we look at it from the competitor’s side the choice of investing in the new product makes even more sense. While Democratic strategists were no doubt planning their strategy for increasing market share, they were not prepared for the end run. They were forced to scramble on how to respond or react. They clearly looked frazzled as did Obama himself. The competitor suddenly woke up to realize that the fight is not with the proven brands, but indeed with a new product. By the way, the time that will now be necessary for the strategists to regroup is valuable time in an election that only has 50 plus days.

The consumer’s lifecycle of a new product essentially includes trial, awareness and loyalty. Sarah Palin certainly passed the trial phase with an outstanding speech at the Republican National Convention. She is now in the awareness stage where the customer learns more about the product before settling on the brand. That may not be as smooth as the trial but the odds are that she will emerge in good shape.

Marketers were also dumfounded by the turnaround of so many Americans, including McCain’s core Republican base. In the immediate aftermath of the Palin selection, the buzz was that McCain had blown the election. Republican strategists were hard at work trying to assure their own base that it was a good choice, but nothing convinced them until Governor Palin took the national stage and convinced America that she is an ordinary mother with blessed talents to lead.

There are many lessons to be learnt from this big moment in American history. The first is that while conventional thinking may be comforting and appear to be the most secure, it is not a replacement for some risk tasking. Competing in business requires out of the box thinking that can throw the competition off guard and give consumers something new to cheer about. A good product will somehow find success in good packaging and ultimately become a successful brand.

I never thought I’d use politics as a model marketing lesson, but if you think about it, the Palin selection is exactly that.

Out of the Box is a collection of strategic marketing articles that Lubicom has published on various topics, trends and ideas in the marketing world. The articles have been published in the Hamodia weekly newspaper circulated on three continents to a readership of well over 100,000.

The name, "Out of the Box" is a term used frequently in business nowadays to describe creative thinking that is not the norm. It is meant to help a business pull away from the pack or separate oneself from the competition. It is to some extent fraught with risk, simply because it is not the run of the mill thinking, but it is at the same time the key to reaching the next opportunity.

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