The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”
Before entering the world of public policy marketing three years ago, I spent 18 years exclusively in the corporate and small business world creating and marketing consumer and business-to-business brands.
Wow. What a difference!
In the for-profit sector, marketers develop brands very carefully to own a unique position in a consumer’s mind. They do this by creating products with distinct attributes in price, promotion, product and placement – the “Four Ps.”
The Four Ps have been marketing mix gospel for decades. The narrower your target market and thus brand definition, the more powerful your brand. Think Volvo versus Chevrolet. One stands for safety, the other… many things.
Yet, in Washington, many organizations fight for sameness. They purport to be the true representative of “all-American values” with red, white and blue colors and the shortest name or acronym possible. Their communication strategy is cluttered; they try to be all things to all people. In short, the General Motors of politics.
I suggest that many advocacy organizations could increase their influence by narrowing their focus and creating a distinct, defendable mental position in the minds of their target audience. They should invest strategic thinking into determining the emotional benefit their organization offers that distinguishes itself from its competition in what analysts call our “attention economy” (the result of the fact that, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon phrased it, “the rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention”). Capturing attention is where profits and influence can be found.
