How Hillary Clinton can still differentiate herself from Barack Obama on foreign policy
Obviously, these are difficult times for the Clinton campaign, and Barack Obama is the most likely Democratic nominee for president. His messaging strategy, so far successful, has in essence been:
- Pitch “change” as a top-level message.
- Claim that being a pro-change outsider is more conducive to getting things done than being an experienced insider.
- Adopt similar policy positions to his rivals, so as to reduce the chance for differentiation there.
- Show that he’s not “too much” of an outsider, by collecting insiders’ endorsements.
- Claim that primary electoral success demonstrates both that he’s likely to have general election success in the fall and also that he’s likely to lead effectively once elected.
So Clinton desperately needs to differentiate herself from Obama, beneficially, more than she already has. But how? Read more
| Categories: Campaign 2008, Companies, products, and candidates, Hillary Clinton, Political marketing | 1 Comment |
All-purpose Valentines Day ditty
For those stressed out with a need to write Valentines Day content:
Roses are red
Violets blue
Cyrano’s dead
You’ll have to make do
| Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment |
Engagement marketing
More and more, consumer branding is about engagement. On the Internet, you’re most likely to see references to the social media aspects. But it goes further than blogs, chat, and diggery. For example, a huge fraction of the sports business now is apparel sales – replica jerseys and the like. This may be “tribal” in Seth Godin’s lexicon, but it’s not particularly online-social.
US politics is heavily about engagement too. The traditional centers of engagement – unions, churches, and so on – have no been joined by the Internet as well. The Washington Post has a great article today about old-style engagement in the Clinton campaign. Micah Sifry makes the case that this time it’s different, and in the process describes the crucial role of internet-based engagement to this year’s presidential campaign.
And of course the same thing’s happening in software. Read more
| Categories: Marketing theory, Political marketing, Technology marketing | 3 Comments |
Death to PowerPoints
I hate traditional PowerPoint presentations. Indeed, I usually flat-out refuse any briefing that involves sitting through a WebEx of PowerPoints. Instead, I insist that slides be emailed in advance. That way, I can see what the key points are, what I find most interesting, what I most want to challenge and drill down on, and so on. (Similarly, I rarely sit through entire sessions at conferences. If that be ADHD, make the most of it.)
Fellow analyst Seth Grimes’ recent post decrying PowerPoints confirmed that I am not alone. And come to think of it, Seth feels the same way I do about conferences; he complains when he’s the host and actually has to attend the sessions, because that gets in the way of conversations he’d evidently prefer. On the other hand, not all analysts agree with Seth and me. For example, it would seem that a couple of Forrester research analysts actually like structured pitches.
If nothing else, this is an illustration of my point that different (kinds of) influencers need to be communicated with differently.
Edit: Another analyst turns out to share my utter hatred for WebExed presentations.
| Categories: Analyst relations, Technology marketing | 6 Comments |
Many levels of influencer — long tails, tall tales
Duncan Watts is getting a lot of attention for attacking the notion that markets can be divided into influencers and influencees. The influential 
Seth Godin argues the market wants to gather into “tribes” of people who, no doubt, influence each other. On the other hand, he also argues for a more classical, top-down, influence-the-influencers approach as well. Guy Kawasaki buys into an extreme form of the Watts argument.
I agree with Godin, not Kawasaki. More precisely, I think there are many kinds and levels of influencer. The most important can be identified, and should be direct targets of your market outreach. But you should also be trying to reach an influencer “long tail” as well.
If selling enterprise technology, for example, you should separately target 8 different kinds of influencer, namely: Read more
| Categories: Analyst relations, Marketing theory, Technology marketing | 7 Comments |
Negative marketing in the internet era
Mark Hemingway’s recent article in favor of negative campaigning makes some good points, such as:
- Negative advertising highlights differences between candidates.
- Negative advertising undercuts opponents’ misrepresentations.
- False negative advertising can itself be debunked quickly online, and will likely backfire accordingly.
He’s right.
However, there are two big differences between negative marketing in politics and negative marketing in enterprise technology.
- If you say something negative about a technology competitor, it’s likely they can come back with the rebuttal “That’s not true any more.” Rapid product cycles are wonderful things.
- Whatever rebuttal you have to negative advertising in technology, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to present it. If it’s late in the sales cycle, your salesperson can deliver it. If it’s early in the cycle, internet-based marcom has time to take effect.
So should you go negative in enterprise technology marketing? If so, when and how should you do it? Here are my thoughts: Read more