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VOTERS AND VALUES: ICONOCULTURE'S GUIDE TO INTERPRETING THE 2008 ELECTION by Advisory Team After years of listening to speeches, hearing sound bites and watching political commercials, the votes are cast and counted, and citizens have let their values be heard. This was a historic campaign for many reasons — it was very long, it was very expensive, it saw a woman appear on the GOP ticket for the first time, and it culminated in the election of the nation’s first African American president. Over the next several months, we’ll begin to better understand how the new president-elect’s policies and ideas will influence Americans and the American consumer experience. Today, though, while our political hangover is still hanging around, we wanted to take an immediate look at some of the ways the candidates’ marketing campaigns connected (or didn’t connect) with a few specific groups of American voters. In this Point of View brief, a companion to the “Voters and Values” podcast we previously released on this topic, we’ll focus on just a few of the groups that were of interest to the candidates this year: youth, multicultural voters and women.
Millennial voters: Media and money | values: identity, sharing, belonging
While national political campaigns have attempted to tap into social media and other emerging media previously, Obama’s use of media — including an unprecedented half-hour commercial in prime time — mobilized voters across age groups, but it connected especially with Millennials. In true new-media fashion, the social network My.BarackObama.com and a slew of Facebook initiatives encouraged youthful citizens to express aspects of their identities to their peers, making their beliefs known and creating connections with friends, acquaintances and others interested in the election. Most notably in this campaign, both McCain and Obama — but especially the Democrats — made use of a growing cohort of the social tools that Millennials use daily (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, text messages and beyond), instead of only blaring at them through one-way media. This election’s fundraising story also obviously played an enormous role, no matter the demographic group. Because Obama opted out of public financing, he was able to generate huge cash reserves and spend heavily on media. But in the case of youth voters, even Obama’s fundraising tactics helped. By directly seeking out small — and often repeat — donations over a widespread network (rather than simply fishing for the whales), Obama offered politically active Millennials an added dose of ongoing involvement — an element that has proven key in many successful Millennial-focused cause-consumer campaigns. When it came to message content, Obama’s theme of change resonated better with younger voters (especially first-time voters), conveying a sense that this was “their moment." Women and Boomers | key values: expertise, practicality, trust, authenticity
This was a historic campaign for women as well, as Alaska governor Sarah Palin appeared as the first female on a GOP presidential ticket. And prior to Governor Palin’s prominent role, Sen. Hillary Clinton inspired women voters — and a broad spectrum of the Democratic electorate — as she fought Obama late into the Democrats’ nomination process. The difference in the marketing of those two candidates — Clinton and Palin — was marked, though both connected well (if briefly) with women voters. Hillary Clinton conveyed savvy, toughness and expertise (and leveraged the impact of her Boomer-icon husband). Sarah Palin, meanwhile, enjoyed great appeal among centrist younger Boomers — at first. Palin fit the demographic target for independent women: She had a story that many women could relate to, she had a style that many Boomer women wanted to connect with (sales of her signature glasses spiked) and, in the early stages of the campaign, she communicated her chosen maverick image effectively. However, Americans were more wary of bravado this year than they were in the last election, and Palin's appeal eventually diminished among women. Notably, beyond candidate choice and messaging, the ways the two parties tried to connect with women didn’t differ much from recent cycles. The multicultural voter | values: hope, aspiration
As the first African American to be elected president, Obama clearly has broken boundaries and opened up a whole new future of possibilities for African American Millennials and other people of color. We’ll delve deeper into the historic implications for multicultural consumers in future pieces. Here, though, we look briefly at how both campaigns fought for some key swing voters. Latinos were especially important in this election, particularly undecided voters in swing states such as Florida, Virginia and Nevada. For these voters, the tone of the messaging was key. One of the ways Obama successfully connected with this group was by stressing concrete positive impacts on individuals, families and communities. Indeed, Obama went positive-only (no dissing McCain) on Spanish-language media a few weeks from the end of the race, keeping his messaging hopeful while he courted this contingent. For many Latino voters, it’s crucial not to underestimate the importance of key media, including such figures as Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo, a Mexican American radio host. He helped get Latinos engaged in the electoral process and brought both John McCain and Barack Obama onto his wide-reaching show to offer them a chance to address the specific concerns of Latino voters. Additionally, Voto Latino and Univision/Telemundo’s joint “Y es hora” ("Now is the time") media blitzes engaged Millennial Latinos. Hope – and sacrifice?
Campaigns, especially campaigns as long, expensive and important as this one, are complicated organisms, and they’re about more than just marketing to specific groups of consumers. Other ideas that were core to the marketing of the candidates and that connected with voters’ values across demographics were 1) the economy and its impact on Main Street (especially how Joe the Plumber’s taxes would look under either candidate’s respective plan) and 2) America’s overall standing in the world (a key consideration among many voters from both sides of the aisle). And while we’ve isolated a few voter values here, we’ll dig deeper into the implications of the election and consumers’ mindset in coming months. In his acceptance speech, President-Elect Obama talked about the need to tackle the economic crisis and ongoing geopolitical strife head on — and to do so with some measure of sacrifice. Now that the ballots are counted, the question is whether that message will resonate with the values of consumers.
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