Monday, December 17, 2007

Voting in the Shampoo Aisle

"Political marketing is a fairly pure analog to commercial marketing. I'm looking at a package of shampoo the same way I'm looking at my next leader."
- David Remer, chairman of Lucid Systems, from a recent Wall Street Journal article.




Perhaps Mr. Remer can be forgiven for his glibness. His company is trying to sell a program that tracks certain biological responses of people to the stump speeches and debates of the 2008 presidential candidates. According to the WSJ article, several of the campaigns are using this kind of uber-focus group technology to try to hone the scope and delivery of their message.

It's like turning trial balloons into biometric reporting weather balloons.

It seems that we just want to feel good about our candidates. It's not just a candidate. It also cleans your hair. My scalp is all tingly just thinking about it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

all I hear about these days are image consultants; and they're arguing about whether a blue tie or a red tie should be worn in the next appearance. and we all have heard that had the nixon/kennedy debate been broadcast on the radio, nixon would've won.
so don't we market a candidate like any other 'package'. how many more newsmagazine stories do we need to see with a political advertising consultant walking us through each frame of an election advertisement. i agree with mr remer.