What McCain and Obama Can Teach Tech Marketers

June 25, 2008 | Posted by: Alan Kelly

If you don't follow presidential politics, perhaps you should. Any of the 2008 campaigns - from stumbling Fred Thompson to insurgent Ron Paul to I'm-not-a-quitter Hillary Clinton to damn-the-torpedoes McCain to yes-we-can Barack Obama - are each clinics in influence strategy and no less applicable to technology marketers.

Take the campaign of John McCain, detailed in our "Plays for the Presidency" blog and podcast. However confused his effort is today, he wouldn't have come close to his presumptive GOP nomination were it not for a single a decisive play he ran in April 2007 at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA. McCain's move was what I call a "Crazy Ivan," a discreet attacking play based on a risky submarine maneuver. He didn't shy from his many anti-Iraq war detractors. He rushed them. And in one news cycle his Straight Talk Express took the position that the extremely unpopular Iraq military surge is right and that it'll work. It almost killed his campaign, but over time, it was shown to be (at least) marginally true and, thus, gutsy and oh-so Presidential.

So what's the connection for marketers of on-demand solutions, open integrated enterprise database solutions, and mobile-based design support systems, blah, blah, blah? It is simply that no player in a marketplace should shy away from what it knows to be true and what drives its beliefs. Brands and reputations that are "not" rooted in such things lack resonance, richness and constructive controversy. They are uninteresting and thus tougher to market. Think of the differences between Google and Microsoft. One is solidly connected to innovation and has something to say. The other doesn't.

For my money, no better political marketing game is being played than by the Barack Obama. Crisis consultants should be taking notes; so should tech companies with particularly aggressive competitors. How so? The Illinois Senator is doing something fundamentally different in his battles with conservative playmakers. Like McCain, he's running attacking plays but of a sort I call a "Preempt." If Obama is criticized, he's not deflecting or ignoring the sharp point. He's confronting it. Say what you will about his handling of the Rev. Wright, the elitist "bitter cling" gaffe or his hesitation to wear American-flag lapel pins, he's not been shy to discuss them and to take preemptive action. In other words, if someone says, "Hey Barack, your ears are kinda big, aren't they?" He says, in effect, and in the same news cycle, "Actually, they're huge!"

You get the idea. Where once our politicians operated in the mode of avoidance and denial, Obama is moving the game to the other end of the influence strategy spectrum, using his shortcomings and exposure points as fodder and foils to nip bad news in the bud and move his messages along and on-strategy.

What's the lesson for technology marketers? If you're missing a feature in your solution. If you're missing a solution in your feature. And someone's calling you on it...don't blink. Acknowledge the matter categorically so as to control it and, while you're in the spotlight, make something of the matter. Moments of public recognition are not to be designed so much as they are to be exploited and modified for competitive advantage. Just ask our future President.