Thom Hartmann: Democrats Assert Your Brand!

[BlueInRed]

A lot of people have been talking about framing and branding. Hartmann talks about the same thing in terms of basic marketing principles. He says Rs have been using basic marketing techniques, as did FDR and LBJ, but today's Ds have forgotten the art of branding.

Progressives and Democrats: Assert Your Brand!
by Thom Hartmann

~snip~

Politics is all about branding. And brands are not about issues or details - they're about identity.

When progressives and Democrats think of how Bush voters understand the word "Republican," they assume these folks are thinking "pro-life"; "moral values"; privatization and deregulation; "free trade"; lower taxes; and stripping power from what Republicans call "special interests," like labor unions and groups advocating rights for women, gays, and other minorities. . . .Instead, like any good brand, the words "Republican" and "conservative" evoke feelings as much as pictures. The main feeling is one of identity: "My tribe." The main picture is the brand's logo - the American flag. At a deeper level, they carry pictures, stories, and feelings of NASCAR, Budweiser, the American flag, "standing tough" and "standing tall" in the world, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps .

Not only are most Republican voters largely unaware of the details of the issues facing our nation, studies show that most are badly misinformed. In some part this is the fault of the media, but the larger reason is that when a person has bonded to a brand, it becomes part of their identity. They then develop a psychologically sophisticated and largely unconscious internal system to filter out and reject contradictory information.

Progressives, liberals, and Democrats have failed to apply this simple reality, and therefore have allowed conservatives to define our brands for us. The very sophisticated effort to do this has been led by Gingrich, Luntz, and Limbaugh, three men who understand the psychology of branding, and have used it to sell the Republican party and the word "conservative" to Americans with all the zeal - and all the cash - used by other famous brands like Coke, Levi's, and Wal-Mart.

This is not rocket science, and it's not a secret. There's an entire industry devoted to teaching these concepts (in which I worked for two decades). . . .The largest lights of the Democratic Party - it's founder, Thomas Jefferson, and it's two most famous recent presidents, FDR and LBJ - knew their brand and their identity, and brought the majority of Americans along with them. The largest landslide Democratic election victories of the 20th century were FDR's after he introduced the New Deal, and LBJ's after he introduced the Great Society. Their logo was the flag, and their identity was average working people, and those who aspire to the economic and educational middle class.
~snip~

Continued at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0210-26.htm

[GetTheRightVote]

1. I like this ideal, my brand sounds just like these suggestions

I am a Democrat who cares about my neighbors, their rights, their freedoms, their right to eat everyday just like me, their right to seek a better future for their family, I want to help them meet these kinds of goals, it helps my country to help them.

:kick:

[BlueInRed]

2. I agree, when I think of our core principles

I think of taking care of and providing opportunity to average Americans :hi:

[nashville_brook]

3. music row democrats did a great 30-sec tv campaign ad that was all

branding. i loved it. it was just all kinds of normal people and the tagline was "im a tennessee democrat." it was homespun and warm. and usually i hate that sort of thing.

[BlueInRed]

4. I wish I could have seen it

I used to live in Nashville (well, Nashville and Franklin). I heard the Music Row Democrats were shaking up the apple cart. Glad to hear it's working a bit. Now if we can get Soros to give them some more $$. :hi:

It makes perfect sense the folks on Music Row would understand selling and branding.

[Blower]

5. Hire me as a branding expert--