Presidential branding

It takes companies time, effort and allot of money to create brand identity – and it can take even more time, effort and money to redesign it once it’s established. Presidential candidates operate on a much different schedule than the traditional companies or organizations. This is visible in the design management strategies concerning it’s branding. Allot of it has to be done in a short time span, therefore as Gorb states about design's central role in planning,

"design becomes the key element in the planning process of the business - the plan for the things the enterprise makes, sells, uses, or communicates with.”

But just as with products and services, after the strategy has been layed out and put into play. Once the possible voters have a collection of related images and ideas in their mind, it’s very difficult to change those perceptions.

A good example of this is, major oil companies have spent millions on marketing in the last few years. Trying to show there “green” way of doing business now and in the near future. But a 2006 study by Harris Interactive, showed that only 7% of the surveyed people believed the oil companies concern with global warming and the environment.

“Democrats saw Hillary Clinton as the best prepared, most experienced and most competent candidate for the presidency despite a lack of warmth and likability. Barack Obama had all the personal attributes Clinton lacks – but he also lacked her depth of experience. Despite efforts to address these brand weaknesses, each candidate’s success at changing these perceptions has thus far proven marginal.” Chernoff Newman

So changing a brands perception is difficult, still a brand needs to respond to change if they want to remain relevant on the market. When people became more aware about their health, fast food restaurants added salads and vitamin containing meals to there menu and further brand expressions.

For instance John McCain has a true American maverick, stable brand identity – but his brand is losing trust among Republican primary voters and the huge amount of “floating” voters. His brand value was damaged, for a large part because Obama’s campaign, linked it with Bush his brand promises and brand values. By doing so McCain was forced to distance himself and rebrand his campaign from more of the same into a innovative one. One thing he did was choosing the young conservative female Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Hereby trying to put himself as a innovative brand in opposite of the old non-trustable and outdated one.

Obama’s success proofs that with his design management organisation, in which change & innovation play a huge part, it is possible to build a massive brand in such a short timespan. Building it step by step and manipulating the momentum, changing from topdog to the underdog position.

The Democrats use of radical change in design management was the key,

“Most companies do not rely on radical innovations; they rely on incremental innovation, none more so than Japanese companies, which demonstrate so well the use of frequent redesign and modification to enhance performance and quality” Cooper, R. and Press, M. (1995)

By this they were directly answering to the needs of the US people, the need for change of old fashioned politics.