Filed under: Political | Tags: Associated Press, Liz Sidoti, media relations, messaging, Obama, political communications, public affairs
Although political communications is a field of endeavor distinct from the type of public relations I typically practice, I’d like to point out lessons you can draw and generalize to your own business or non-profit needs. Two of the most important are the quality of your media relations skills and the power of your messaging.
Barack Obama, as we have all seen, is an absolute genius when it comes to both of thise critical factors.
First, the media relations. This story from AP is about as close as a news story can come to being a press release right from the White House’s public affairs office. The transfer of messaging from the Obama administration to the news story is almost total, with almost no countervailing opinions. The lead paragraph is positively glowing:
Barack Obama opened his presidency by breaking sharply from George W. Bush’s unpopular administration, but he mostly avoided divisive partisan and ideological stands. He focused instead on fixing the economy, repairing a battered world image and cleaning up government.
This is stunning stuff, for PR people to get such clear messaging into a wire service story. It’s as if the reporter, Liz Sidoti, cut and pasted the top three key messages from the White House PA staff’s vision document. This could conceivably be due to Sidoti’s personal bias, but that would require the collusion of her edito(s) as well. While not impossible, as a former journalist I would hope it’s unlikely. So what we’re left with is that the PA staff is really good at its job.
The second factor is the power of the messaging. In Obama’s case, as is the case with any President of the United States, the issues he’s addressing are weighty and of concern to virtually everyone. When it comes to our sinking economy, our standing in the world, and the ethics of politicians (appointed and elected alike), there are plenty of low-hanging fruit to pluck when it comes to improvements, and Obama’s administration has leveraged them to great effect.
When powerful messaging is used, it can translate into very positive news coverage. It also can serve as a shield against criticism. If one frames the discussion in terms of saving the economy, repairing our damaged international image, and cleaning up government, there are few counter-messages to worry about. Nobody is in principle against these things, and therefore critics are put in the difficult position of trying to counter the messaging with detail-oriented messaging.
So a visionary president can propose saving the economy, while critics have to counter by saying, in essence, that they also want to save the economy (making them sound like “me too!” afterthoughts), but they disagree on the way it’s being done. Then the visionary messagers can counter by dismissing the critics as “nitpicking” or practicing the “politics of divisiveness.”
Messaging that allows you to set the agenda and frame the discussion, therefore, is critical to success. Repeating the messaging and ensuring that you have plenty of proof-points is also important. As you keep up on news coverage of politics, look for these tactics among politicians… that can inform your decisions in the much more civilized world of business or non-profit communications.
Filed under: Political | Tags: image management, McCain, messaging, Obama, presidential campaign, public relations, reputation management
How the candidates for president present their images to the public has hit the headlines a few times during this campaign, but now that the election is just a few weeks away, one of the biggest stories of the election season has become how the McCain-Palin ticket has failed to conduct their image management effectively. For public relations practitioners, it’s nice to see our profession in the headlines. Although I will admit, as a voter, to being insulted by the notion that mere communications about the candidates will sway me more than the candidates’ actual positions.
Nonetheless, we rely on the fact that correctly communicating a person’s or organization’s attributes can mean the difference between success and failure, and nowhere are the stakes higher than the run for the presidency.
So what’s the main critique of McCain that can be used as a lesson by those running businesses or non-profit organizations? To answer that question, let’s look at the criticism McCain is facing from both Republicans and Democrats, as reported by the AP and the New York Times:
“He has to make the case that he’s different than Bush and better than Obama on the economy,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
He’s cheery and smiling during question-and-answer sessions with crowds but becomes visibly annoyed — even surly — when he reads aloud scripted attacks on Obama and Democrats.
They said McCain can prevail if he presents himself as the optimistic visionary the public wants at deeply worrisome economic times.
“He has an opportunity to step up and be a forceful leader during these challenging times,” said Ron Kaufman, a veteran party operative who also worked for Romney. “McCain got the nomination because that’s what his brand is, but somehow it’s gotten muddled.”
The main thing he needs to do,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota, “is focus on a single message — a single, concise or clear-cut message, and stick with that over the next 30 days, regardless of what happens.
This last point is, arguably, the most important. Public relations, when done well, is about getting your message(s) to the target audience in the best way possible. The simpler the message, the easier it is to get it into people’s heads, but the trick is finding one that’s not just simple, but also resonates with your target audiences and moves them to action. In political campaigns it’s even harder, because you have people actively working to discredit your message as soon as you utter it.
Nonetheless, it’s not impossible, as the Obama campaign has shown. They have stuck with “change” (as dull as that may sound initially) since the get-go, and made sure everything they say falls under that umbrella. McCain’s messaging has seemed to bounce around quite a bit – focusing on Obama’s lack of qualifications and other alleged shortcomings (I come at this from a totally non-partisan standpoint, so I don’t judge right and wrong in terms of content), as well as trying to embrace the “change” mantra himself. This, it seems to me, made the McCain campaign far too Obama-centric, which – in the long-run – simply serves to focus more attention on Obama.
McCain’s supporters are right to be nervous. The last few weeks before an election can be the most important, but one of the principles of good communications is that repeated messaging over a long period of time will work. Obama has made that investment already. McCain’s only hope is that those who remain undecided until just before it’s time to pull the lever almost all decide to go with him. That’s looking like an increasingly slim possibility, given the polling numbers so far.
So the take-home lessons are: carefully choose key messages that impact your target audiences positively, stick with your key messages through thick and thin, and don’t focus on the competition.
