Branding Personality and Political Campaigns

Last week we talked about how stimulating it can be when different clients approach us for their online marketing strategies as well as how important it is to be up to date with lots of industries.  This week I would like to focus on another campaign we are currently working on.  This is the campaign for Joe Symmon who is running for Governor of California. Anna is a political science major at Chapman University in Orange and she is a key contributor for this account. I sat down with her to discuss how she spearheaded this project.

Marieke Hensel: How familiar are you with political campaigns?

Anna: I follow national campaigns pretty closely, but I have to admit I am not as knowledgeable about local campaigns.  I am personally very interested in studying what shapes the way people vote, such as religion, socioeconomic status, gender, or level of political interest.  I am excited to see if the conventional wisdom for a national campaign works locally.

MH: What did you do to get more information?

AF: The internet is my primary resource for information about campaigns. I read various articles from the Drudge Report, Huffington Post, Daily Kos and others.

MH: How do you stay informed on current political hot topics?

AF: My primary source of news is podcasts.  I know people aren’t really familiar with them, but they’re amazing.  Podcasts are like radio shows that you can download as a file and put on your iPod or MP3 player.  You can listen to them whenever you want, usually commercial free.  You can pause, rewind, fast-forward, everything.  And what’s great is you can ‘subscribe’ to podcasts and the new shows will automatically download into your iTunes.  I listen to podcasts from CNN, NBC, NPR, and independent news and commentary organizations like The Young Turks. I usually listen to one or two hours of political news and analysis every day, but if I listened to all of it I could be spending four to five hours getting all the news I want.

MH: If you could have lunch with any political figure, dead or alive, who would it be? Why?

AF: It is almost impossible to just pick one political figure to chat with, but the one that comes to my mind first is President Lyndon Johnson.  When he was president in the 1960′s, there was a big progressive push in the country, and LBJ was able to capitalize on that energy and pass a huge amount of legislation that our country loves to this day.  Programs like medicare, medicaid, food stamps, work-study programs, and others are very popular today, though they faced harsh opposition when they were first passed.  I would love to talk to LBJ about President Obama’s current problems with health care legislation, hyper-partisanship, and the War on Terror.  I think President Johnson could have some sound advice for the 21st century.

MH: What’s the hardest part about this job?

AF: The hardest part about this job is educating myself and the campaign about the issues voters care about.  The issues Californians face are very complex, and I firmly believe that everyone who wants to run for office should be extremely educated about the issues.  There is a lot to learn, but I am eager to learn alongside the other people on the campaign team.