Who's with Charlie

Who’s with Charlie-


The first debate I was able to attend this year seemed like a giant circus. There was the incumbent and her entourage, looking more like an aging folk band than local politicians. There was the royal blood apologist who peppered conversation with profanity much to the print media’s delight and the broadcast media’s disdain. There was the career politician who stood for nothing with such fever and conviction, normally unseen outside the Beltway. And then there was Charlie.

Oh, election season. For those of us in the business, it’s a special time of gluing your cell phone to your head, yelling at the newspaper every morning and surviving solely on a diet of those little wrap sandwiches and cheap red wine served at fundraisers and forums. It’s not a job for the faint at heart, but it is a good job. For marketers, political work is somewhat of a Petri dish where brand, persona and voice can be meticulously tweaked with nearly instant results.

Charlie is a grandfatherly man who always has the perfect joke for the occasion. He was once a police officer but only has one arrest to his credit, a story he tells with neither pride nor shame. He drives several counties over every week to preach at a small church that ten years ago needed a preacher, and Charlie heard the call. As a young man, he was once literally beaten while trying to vote, yet today he is a serious contender to be our next mayor.

He is not a hard man to admire. I’m proud to say I’m with Charlie.

I sincerely encourage every marketing professional to help someone run for office. While our day jobs allow for the positioning of one product or service against another, politicians often adopt similar platforms requiring the marketer to split nuances and push persona to the forefront. In marketing, we often divide and departmentalize our efforts. In politics, the packaging, promotion and product have to work together in seamless harmony, or all you have to show for it is the payments you ending up making on the newspaper publisher’s Mabach.

This is my third election working with a candidate, and in each I’ve learned a little more about people and communication. I’ve learned that nothing is more potent than the truth and the rawer the truth is, the more impact it has when it is put out there. I’ve learned that people like people, and the more we distance candidates’ humanity, the more we distance the candidate and the voter. I’ve learned that the lessons learned by others are valuable. Knowing such, I’m going to try to pay it forward and tell you some of what I’ve learned. And because I think so much of Charlie, I’m going to use some of Charlie’s quotes to head each lesson.

“Do what you always did and you’ll get what you always got.”

Early in the election, professional political consultants started showing up like zombies at a mall. Charlie was pressured to listen to a consultant or two but in the end, he decided to be a maverick and just be himself. Resulting was a truly grassroots campaign that has unified once deeply separated groups, a feat no other candidate in this area has been able to accomplish.

As marketers, we are often guilty of doing what we always did but expecting something different than what we always got. While the prospect of defying convention can be uncomfortable, a strong strategy rooted in principle can give direction in otherwise uncharted waters. Charlie stuck to a strategy of being himself, and companies could take a lesson from Charlie in this respect.

“The guy with the cheapest price is probably overpaid.”

Today’s market is flooded with “great opportunities.” Media people have flooded the campaign office with the offer of web banners, sticky notes and special signage. All of these things promise to get out the vote for less money than conventional methods.

Today, companies border obsession with podcasts, YouTube and other assorted stunts aimed at bypassing traditional media. The truth is, it doesn’t matter if you tattoo the brand name on your forehead, if the strategy is flawed or undefined (which it often is), there is no manner of webcasting that’s going to save it. Charlie’s take: say it from the heart wherever you can. Charlie ran three newspaper ads and the local politicos said he was out campaigning the competition. Three ads in the old newspaper, a medium that is supposedly declining, defined a platform and drew first blood.

“The day after Election Day, no matter what happens, we’ve still got to live with ourselves.”

After a searing editorial from my friends at a local paper (friends whom I sometimes call lying broods of spineless vipers unworthy of authoring a condo association newsletter, much less a newspaper), I was crestfallen and Charlie noticed. I wanted to counterattack with such overwhelming force that those pencil necks at the paper would shrink by 15 percent. Charlie consoled me. He said, “The day after the election, I will still be Charlie, and you will still be Jeff, and those people who confirmed the mistrust the public often has for them will have to live with their choices.”

It took getting into more mass market efforts before I realized the significance of this little pearl. When working with smaller companies’ marketing efforts, we did what we said and said what we did. But as the budget and expectations grew, I began to find promises made to the consumer that had no real intention of being fulfilled. I saw lavish sales presentations aimed at energizing a sales force but no follow through.
Relationships and expectations matter in a marketing effort. Business is about relationships. It’s the relationships between companies and consumers. It’s the relationships across the web of interconnectedness between suppliers and vendors and end users. It’s the interpersonal relationships within an organization.
I believe relationships are at their best when they are respectful, caring and beneficial while containing a mutual sense of responsibility and benefit. Many call such a relationship “win-win.” Relationships which by attention, compensation, respect or any other means dictate that one side of the relationship wins and the other loses are not positioned for long term success.
A market effort requires such a relationship, and the way that relationship is handled will be what we have to live with after the polls close.
Whatever your company’s hanging chad, when it come to marketing, you could benefit from a refresher in political science. Nowhere else can you see and hear the consumer with such personal connection. Nowhere else must you position a hair’s breadth from the competitor and say, “ I’m going to do what my competitor is doing, I’m just going to do it better.” Nowhere else can you meet such people who volunteer their time, money and sweat in the hopes that democracy gives each person voice in our nation’s destiny. I’ve met at least a handful of great people in politics and each one is a brand unto themselves. Dreamers, crusaders, optimists, nutcases and various combinations thereof. I’ve met plenty and I’m happy to say, I’m with Charlie.


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Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com