(Posted as a comment to Kid Oakland's
diary "a twinkle in the eye"--a reader made the point that KO's diary was another discussion of internal thinking and perception and not a call to action (or along those lines)--and it was suggested I post as a diary. OK, hope y'all don't mind...flame me if not, I'll delete.)
Yeah, I get tired of more discussion about how to get our frames in line and how we need to understand the real evil nature of the GOP and we should understand our goals and blah blah blah...
And the key thing is: we are still getting killed in the marketplace. We need to pay attention and figure out what to do!
I'm an old marketing guy with a lot of wins and losses in the marketplace. In the Tech business I've bested Intel for marketshare and in turn Intel has destroyed me. Marketing is war using words, images, and perception.
We are involved in a political battle for the hearts and minds of our customers and for the domination of specific target markets.
We need a strong, centralized, cohesive marketing effort for our cause, and we also need a set of marketing efforts for each 'product' (candidates and positions) that echoes the main points in the central marketing message. We have to deliver a set of messages that convinces our `customers' that we have the product that helps them in their lives, is clearly better than our competitors, and is backed by the truth.
Meaning, they believe we can deliver on our promises better than the other guys. That's all marketing is.
In order to do that, we have to:
Ø define the enemy so we REALLY understand what we are up against,
Ø define our positions,
Ø synthesize our positions into a core message,
Ø create a set of key messages that expand our core message into specific points that accurately tell our story to our target markets,
Ø educate our messengers so they can educate the mass market,
Ø create a specific marketing plan that addresses each key market,
Ø and regularly evaluate and adjust to fit reality.
I see KO's diary and others I've read over the last year as trying to get us to think clearly about our enemy, our product (positions and leadership), our cohesion as a party, our message, and our specific steps. True, in this diary KO didn't say "go do this now", but he's done some critical thinking that is worth reading and thinking further about. Especially about GW's centralized, cohesive effort to use the Regan marketing history to win each and every battle, while we are left reacting and wondering how people can be so stupid as to buy their shit.
I just hope Dean's got a serious, reality-based marketing group meeting somewhere and planning the next three years, `cause otherwise we're going to end up wondering what happened...again.