Archive - May 21, 2008

Chip Heath and Dan Heath of Fast Company Magazine wrote an interesting piece offering great social commentary the way ad agencies implement and sell their propaganda in this consumer world. I had always contemplated the ethics of the manner that ad agencies pushed a clients agenda for the all mighty dollar. Pharmaceutical adverts come to mind as attractive people share their experiences of a medical condition and how that given medication has improved their life.

Heath approach this article by explaining how adverts create social stigmas that otherwise did not exist before that given ad. There is the infamous VISA ad that portrays individuals that pay with cash not as hip as those that slide their card during point of sale transactions. The subtle commentary that they are trying to indoctrinate in the masses is that cash is a hassle and paying with a card is not. The sheeple seem to buy it as revenues have climbed for VISA.

Then there is the way that they sold the Chinese people on the stigma of dandruff. Procter & Gamble scored when they were able to market Head & Shoulders in a non-existent market. Before this propaganda, Chinese culture did not associate any negativity to individuals with dandruff.

From tanning, to straight white teeth, the media has been successful in pushing certain messages of how individuals of that society should be or behave. The impact on society may not seem detrimental on the surface but one may experience backlash when they accidentally violate a societal norm that they otherwise did not know existed. I recommend checking out the article “Dirty Marketing Campaigns” for some insightful observations.

It may seem that Obama is invincible or that his charm may just be enough to carry him through the general election but if one reviews the lead that either Democratic candidate has, one would think that nothing has really changed since 2004, let alone 2000.

Recent polls put McCain behind both Democratic hopefuls but by not a large margin. In fact, McCain is only a handful of percentage points behind which translates to not much of advantage for the Democrats. The last eight years under the GOP have been dismal. Americans are concerned about every aspect of American life. The mortgage crisis, national security risks, economy, weak dollar, ill-managed war efforts, dubious justification for the war in Iraq and gasoline prices increases have devastated Americans trust in the competency of our government. The GOP has made a great case to literally hand over this election on a silver platter to Democrats. So, why is that McCain even has a viable chance. Logic would indicate that Americans are ready for change, yet half of the country seems to think otherwise as they support McCain. That means that half the voting population have not been sold on the concept that four more years of Republicans rule will result in negative ramifications for everyone.

I would surmise that the longer than usual primary has hurt Democrats from hitting home with the message that Republicans are incompetent to be trusted with another 4 years. If Obama were to win the nomination, he would have to initiate a campaign that illustrates how McCain is not different from Bush.

McCain has actually made it easy for Democrats to portray him as a continuation of Bush’s dismal policies. McCain makes it no secret about his  fondness of the Bush doctrine and Democrats need to explain how this means bad news for Americans. Polls indicate that McCain's biggest issue are his ties to President Bush. If you thought the last 4 years got pretty bad, well entertain the possibility of another 4 years of the same.

This election has landslide written all over it only if the Democrats can capitalize and are successful in branding McCain as a continuation of Bush. This election should not be hard for Obama or Clinton to win but if they are not able to logically illustrate how the last 8 years have been detrimental to Americans then we risk another 4 years of GOP ineptitude and we have Democrats only to blame for.