To readers of Seth Godin, Sarah Palin's run of success is no surprise. Seth talks about the transition from the old school of marketing, where messages were fashioned for the largest common denominator, to the new era -- driven by novelty, remarkability, and inciting the interest of the 'otaku'. Being remarkable (people tend to remark about her) and novel, Palin naturally draws attention from the press and the general population, much as Obama did when he emerged on the national scene. This interest in her is heightened by her scarcity, which is driving even more mystique and intrigue.
What rises, must eventually fall. Luckily for the campaign, the Palin phenomenon needs to be stoked only for a few more weeks. For McCain the plan is simple -- Keep her scarce, pick and choose softball interviews to limit exposure. For any gaffes, set up Obama or the media for blame beforehand, and keep those sexism cards handy to discourage criticism. Second, continue to keep her on the agenda, even as the stump speeches get old. This means that if Obama says 'lipstick on a pig', he's calling Palin a pig. Clearly without substance, this is again a remarkable story, and the press will cover it, guaranteeing another few more days of Palin coverage. And so it is played...
For Obama, the goals are equally clear -- the more Palin stays in the news, the more the issues at stake for the election are not, and McCain wins. Find a way to tie every reference or every attack or comment made by the GOP to the the economy, foreign policy, the Bush years in the White House to draw focus back on their message.
Sarah Palin benefits from two human biases -- Liking and Scarcity. She is likeable, attractive, relatable, and she is scarce (hockey mom's with infants running for VP are rare, candidates for VP who don't talk to the press are rarer). Cialdini mentions that to avoid bias, one must disassociate oneself from the biases, and focus on the issues. I foresee a tough sell for Obama to convince the voting Americans to do this. I'm sure he'd really appreciate Godin's lie detector to cut through the Republican cobwebs of spin.
This is the second American general election I am following, and it is every bit as exciting!
Okay, its about time I posted an entry!
Its about my trip to New England, and how not to fly.
I was traveling across the country to Camden, ME for the weekend to attend a cousin's wedding. I decided to save time traveling, and got tickets with a close connection. Indeed, I had to pay a premium for it. Hey, I got to spend less time in transit, right? Wrong, not just once, but twice last weekend.
I started out mighty pleased that I had only an hour to wait between connections. But then the nightmare began. There was bad weather in Las Vegas which somehow only delayed flights approaching Las Vegas, so I missed the departing flight and had to spend the night there. Luckily my hotel was right on the strip, so I ended up visiting MGM Grand and a local nightclub, not bad for an unplanned trip. I ended up in Boston 10 hours late, killing my sightseeing plans for the day.
I flew back from Portland, ME, as I had a wedding to attend in Maine. My airplane had mechanical trouble, and the tiny airport didn't have an engineer on duty, so they had to page one and get him out of bed early Monday am. It took him over fifty minutes to get to the airport, and then 10 minutes or so to fix the problem. And as a result, I missed a connecting flight in Cincinnati, Ohio, and had to spend all day there.
And that, ladies and gents, is a grand total of 41 hours of transit time for 12 hours of flying time! Via reinforcement, this experience also erased my "Short connection time" = "Good" notion. On the positive side, I was afforded the opportunity to work from the Cincinnati airport on a Monday, sure beats going in to work :p
Maybe my next post will be about the trip itself :)
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on Sarah Palin: Marketing lessons from the GOP