Lately every day when I log on to DailyKos, I see another impeachment thread on the recommended list. Clearly this is an idea whose time has almost come. Working in market research, I am surrounded daily by people who are in the business of crafting messages, slogans, visuals and narratives in order to sell a concept to an audience of consumers. It has recently occurred to me that a concept, or a recommended course of action, could be sold as easily as a product. In this diary, I am challenging all of you who are succinct of mind and creative of visual imagery to put your creative skills to the test. Pretend that WE are now all employees trying to create an internet marketing campaign to sell constituents and ultimately politicians on the concept of impeachment. How can we market this impeachment concept? What slogans, messages, images, and narratives could we craft to motivate the change we believe this country needs?
If you want to try your hand at marketing impeachment, make the jump:
Here are some things we need to create in order to have a successful marketing campaign. Please use the comments section of this diary to post anything and everything you can imagine for how YOU would sell impeachment to the people and politicians of America. For those of you who are not familiar with marketing terms, I’m including the following examples, but feel free to ignore them and create whatever you like:
Slogans: Simple and appealing, slogans are short, memorable phrases that help "brand" a product, create product recognition and associate the product with favorable qualities in the mind of the consumer. "A diamond is forever" is one slogan that has been used to market diamond engagement bands. It associates the product (the diamond engagement band) with the positive concept of "forever," or a happy, long-lasting marriage. Our challenge in this area is that the concept of "impeachment" already has so much negative baggage attached to it from Clinton-era politics that it may be difficult to craft a slogan that can sell it, since many see impeachment as a "problem" and not a "solution". What slogans can you think of that could put impeachment in a positive light?
Messages: A message is typically no longer than one sentence, and conveys an important piece of information about the product. One example I saw today: "The HPV vaccine is recommended for females ages 9-26". Think of a message like a bullet point. Between 3-5 messages can be used at a time to convey different dimensions of a single concept. If an idea or narrative is too difficult to be conceptualized in a single slogan, often using a few short, simple messages can convey enough of the bigger picture that the consumer is able to form a conclusion. Our challenge in this area is, there are so many reasons for impeachment, facts and figures about each of Bushco’s various scandles—which of these make the "best" or most compelling argument for the cause? Which have the greatest ability to hold the attention of the consumer? Which make the most amount of sense together, allowing the consumer to glimpse the wider narrative? Thinking over all the facts you know, pick out a few key items you think all Americans should know. Make sure they are short, and also the ones you find to be the most compelling arguments for impeachment.
Visuals: A visual is a picture, graphic, video or other piece of visual media, designed to create maximum emotional impact. Juxtaposing opposite, contradictory or out-of-place imagery with normal images is just one technique that can be used, for example in this famous 1964 political commercial: http://www.youtube.com/... The commercial creates impact by putting something cherished (a little child playing with a flower) next to something horrific (a nuclear mushroom cloud). These images are not just your standard silly picture of a politician with devil-horns drawn on his head or photoshopping of some politician’s head onto Hitler’s body. We need to create a high-impact image that can rally people behind the notion of what is good and true and worth supporting about our democracy. Questions to think about when trying to create a visual might be: what do the benefits of impeachment look like? What do the consequences of failing to impeach look like? If you can create a visual, go for it, if you’d rather just describe what you think a successful visual would look like, go ahead—the more ideas the better!
Narrative: When collected together, the marketing materials should form a cohesive narrative, or a "big picture" story that consumers can understand. If slogans, messages, and visuals all work together in harmony, a broader understanding of what the product is about will sink into consumer consciousness. When 9/11 happened, American consumers were sold a multi-part narrative that was crafted from the wreckage which included, among other things: that Al-Quaida terrorists hijacked 4 commercial airplanes, that the passengers of flight 93 tried to thwart their attackers, that the twin towers fell due to the airliners crashing into them, that nobody in our government could have foreseen the attack, that a new need existed in our nation to prepare to fight terrorists at home and abroad, that training camps in Afghanistan, headed by Osama bin Laden, were the source of the 9/11 terrorists and thus had to be destroyed, and finally, that Al-Quaida had ties with Iraq which necessitated the removal of Saddam and our war there. While the factuality of many parts of this narrative has been questioned, this "big picture" is what most Americans came away from the 9/11 experience with. It is so hard to dispel because it contains elements of story which people gravitate to, such as compelling villains, brave heroes, innocent victims, and a moral or exhortation to action that allows its listeners to participate (or at least consider participating) in the form of carrying on our economy, joining the military, donating blood, etc. etc. etc. Our challenge for an impeachment narrative, then, is to pinpoint which parts of the various scandals can be simplified enough to be put into an easily-understood story. Who are the heroes of our story? Who are the villains? Who are the victims? What actions can be taken by the listeners? How does our narrative square with other narratives America has already bought into?
I want to keep this diary up as a place for people to brainstorm ideas on how we can market this impeachment concept. If there are a lot of responses, I plan to also post follow-ups and maybe polls to discuss any of the better ideas/slogans/messages/visuals/narratives we come up with. In the meanwhile, good luck, and get cracking—I know we can sell this impeachment thing if we try! :)