Political and commercial product marketing have lots in common. There are slogans to be tested, advertising to be purchased, demographics to be analyzed, credibility to be established, alliances to be sought, maintained and occasionally restored, communities to be built, brand loyalties to be strengthened or shifted.
With the Democratic National Convention taking place in Boston this week, you can -- no matter what your political affiliation is -- learn a lot about interactive marketing and image-making from clicking on the mostly partisan Web logs of the more than 30 mostly partisan bloggers accredited to cover the event (here's the list). The DNC also has an official blog, Kicking Ass.
As we will do just prior to the Republican national Convention next month, we spent time visiting the Democratic-leaning blogs -- not to analyze the rhetoric and political arguments, but to analyze the bloggers' efforts to capitalize on the perceived demographics of the Kerry-Edwards ticket. The most creative approaches combine overt or between-the-lines marketing for their favored Presidential ticket, while taking demographics to heart and using this data as a business model for their own Web logs.
Let us, then, examine how some bloggers accredited to cover the DNC are going about this work:
Blogs such as The Command Post are turning sloganeering into revenue-generators. They do this by selling branded t-shirts and coffee mugs via an affiliate relationship with create-your-own apparel and housewares distributor CafePress.com. Linked from The Command Post home page, the branded Command Post PX (a sly commentary on the Iraq war, perhaps?) area on CafePress.com offers t-shirts with a depiction of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as a courtroom witness of marginal credibility. There's also a branded travel mug.
A number of blogs feature advertising from magazines that have a subscriber base with a perceived affinity for the Democratic message. Taegan Goddard's Political Wire (politicalwire.com) carries this strategy a step farther. When clicked, a New Yorker ad lands the Web surfer on a subscription page with a tracking URL for each unique user. The order page is hosted by direct response online marketer and real-time report tracker ParadyszMatera.
Political Wire also carries advertising for books many critics have deemed critical of President Bush's policies. The first such ad is for "We the Media," a book that heaps scorn on the media consolidation favored by many conservatives. For what seems to be a fleeting second, the ad for author Dan Gillmor's "grassroots" entreaty to thwart what he sees as a conservative media monopoly clicks to Blog advertising agency Blogads.com. As soon as that Web address appears, it quickly redirects to an order page on the Web site of Gillmor's publisher, O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Blogads.com shows its ubiquitous presence on several other blogs as well. Rich media is even part of the game. On blogs such as pundit Jerome Armstrong's My DD, an ad for the remake of "The Manchurian Candidate" follows the same click-path as the Gillmor book -- from an ad, to Blogads.com, and then to the politically-themed, newly released film's Web site. The site has a trailer for the movie, which retells the story that obviously is of interest to the political junkies who might follow links from blogs such as Armstrong's.
Amazon.com, arguably the king of online book affiliate relationships, appears on several blogs as well. On Matthew Gross', eponymous offering, there are Amazon order page click-thrus available for such works as Thomas Frank's "What's The Matter with Kansas?" and Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies." Frank's work criticizes socially conservative voters for not voting their economic interest, and former National Security advisor Clarke's book -- embraced by many Democrats -- criticized the current Administration's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Enhancing brand loyalty is important, too
Interactive marketers, of course, do lots of proselytizing to current customers, seeking to enhance already-existing brand loyalty. This is also true in political blogs.
Not surprisingly, then, ideological causes deemed in sync with key Democratic voting blocs also achieve significant click-thru exposure on several DNC-accredited blogs. On her TalkLeft, self-avowed liberal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt of television legal analyst fame, carries an ad for Bush v. Choice. The initiative, from NARAL Pro-Choice America, seeks to convince voters that the current President is the "most anti-choice President in history."
The click-through path goes from the ad on Merritt's Blog, to the Bush v. Choice ad page, and then to a secure donation form powered by online communication tools developer GetActive Software, Inc.
Just as with consumer marketing, taglines, slogans and brand identity statements are also common sights on political blogs. One of the best examples is Pacific Views. The site's home page features the slogan, "Send Bush back to Crawford (whether they want him or not.)!" Above the tag is a quote from the late French writer Anatole France: "The law, in its infinite majesty, prohibits rich and poor alike from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges." A crack at the Republican opposition's alleged softness on white-collar crime, perhaps?
Another memorable tag line sure to energize the base and incentivize more page views, from LiberalOasis: "where the Left is right and the Right is wrong."
Some use affiliate marketing
Some blogs cast a wider net than links and affiliate relationships with compatible causes, products and publications. Bound for the DNC in Boston, Kerry-friendly Afro-Netizen offers a link to Mobile Wirefly, an online cell phone equipment and subscription purchase portal.
Clicking the Mobile Wirefly ad leads to a branded Afro-Netizen ad on the Mobile Wirefly site. Yet depending on whether you left- or right-click, the URL in the address bar will be different. Left-click shows the ad with the Afro-Netizen URL. Only if you right-click the ad do you see the true click-path: from the ad on Afro-Netizen to a quick stop at affiliate marketer LinkShare's site, and then, in the blink of an eye, to Mobile Wirefly's parent site, InPhonic.
Proximity information is a key tool of interactive marketers. This data often comes in the form of store-locators, where products ordered online can be picked up. In the Blogosphere, the rough parallel might be event-locator search utilities. On such DNC-accredited blogs as former Presidential candidate Howard Dean's America Coming Together blog, a Find Events search engine (immediately to the right of a post lauding controversial filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911") lets site visitors look for America Coming Together-sponsored events in their area.
It's all about the image
Notice then, the parallels between the image-science of politics and the image-science of brand marketing? This brings to mind a quote from the late Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who in 1971 wrote: "Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be."
Next: How will the message and marketing Republican-leaning bloggers differ from those who will be convening in Boston? The Republican National Convention begins in New York on August 30. Check with us a few days before then, and we'll tell you.
