Tantillo’s Weekly Winner and Loser: O'Brien & the Republican Party
Folks, without further ado.
The Winner:
Conan O’Brien is our winner of the week for sticking to his ground, recognizing the changing television environment and getting paid an enormous amount of money simply to walk away from The Tonight Show.
Along the way, he also won new supporters and fans by showing that he cared about those he worked for by insisting that even his non-contractual co-workers were taken care off under NBC’s multi-million dollar settlement.
As I’ve observed before, NBC’s mistake wasn’t that it is wrong about the traditional television model changing. Absolutely not. Broadcast television only makes sense if you have big, captive audiences and the Internet, hand held devices, cable and TIVO are doing away with these.
No, NBC’s mistake was that it was either insufficiently bold or prematurely radical in repositioning its brand.
Once NBC decided to shake up prime time, they should have remained committed to the shakeup, keeping Leno in prime time and, if necessary, sending the affiliates, who were complaining about declining lead-in ratings, some of the cash they were saving by reducing their prime time programming costs with Leno. I’m not sure that they could do this, but surely NBC could have stuck to their guns a little longer and seen whether this prime time shakeup would bear fruit in the long-term.
Barring this resolve, it would have been better for them to have simply paid O’Brien the penalty amount for not taking over the Tonight Show and kept Leno at the helm.
But why pick O’Brien as a winner? After all, he’s banned from doing TV for months. Because all along Conan knew his brand when others were doubted it and when the going got tough, he did nothing to his brand which would hurt his current Target Market and might have even gained new followers. He knows he is not a comedian or entertainer for everyone and so he builds on what he is. This is exactly what you want to do in marketing: add customers without alienating your current customers.
Moments of crisis can show a) what a brand is made of and b) the depth of commitment people have to a brand.
O’Brien won on both counts. He came across as an entertainment brand that has legs and, moreover, one who many people (judging from the outpouring of support and ratings spike) like very much.
The world really is his oyster now. He might be wooed by another network or he might finish the job that NBC started: go where no talk show host has gone before onto the Internet with a serious venture. A tech commentator in The New York Times made the point that many in O’Brien’s audience already connect exclusively with him via the web and don’t even know what time his show airs. With his NBC payout perhaps he can control his own brand outside of any network involvement, building segments financed with corporate sponsorship or some other new business model that will become the future once the broadcast model has breathed its last.
Who knows what the future holds, but O’Brien’s brand exits this past week stronger than ever and sure to claim a big piece of it.
Stay tuned.
The Loser:
In the wake of Scott Brown’s victory many people might wonder how I can single out the Republican’s as this week’s brand loser.
Easy.
The Republicans are on the verge of making the same mistake that the Democrats did when Barack Obama was elected: thinking that the victory is an endorsement of the party when it was really an endorsement for a man and a new way of tackling the same old problems. In both cases, we saw an election of individual personal brands --not company brands (i.e., Democrats or Republicans). That was why these two candidates were winners.
Folks, once again, people buy brands, not companies!
For his part, the new senator is playing it smart. He’s distancing himself from the Republican status quo and calling himself a Scott Brown Republican.
But as for Brand Republican there is the danger that they will pat themselves on the back and continue to be the party of “no.”
In the wake of Obama’s election, the Republicans have lacked a clear cut vision of the future. Being the party of NO is simply not enough. This is like marketing a product because of what it is not instead of what it is. This strategy has been tried before. How about 7-Up…the “un-cola”? 7-Up might have gained some market share at first, but it never managed to gain too much momentum against Coke and Pepsi.
Successful brands have clear cut visions of the future that are positive not negative. End of story.
Reagan was not so much against big government as for small government and the wherewithal of the American people to make good choices if they were just left alone to do it. With a positive brand vision, consumers/voters know where the brand plans to go and grow and because they know this they become a part of the brand’s growth through their support.
What does this vision involve? Well, it needs to be based on what the GOP has always stood for: equality of opportunity but not guarantee of wealth and happiness (i.e., we’re talking about our nation’s foundational values, “the pursuit of happiness” not the automatic right to happiness).
In other words, Republicans need to make clear that they are not for government handouts, a nanny state, but they are for a society that supports opportunity, a free market and individuals willing take roll up their sleeves and take risks. They need this kind of affirmative, concrete platform to build the future of the party brand.
Scott Brown might be that transformational leader that can supply Brand Republican with this kind of foundational road map and the energy to get there. We will see. But until Brand Republican stops being a party in disarray without a marketing vision, no amount of tea party enthusiasm and special election victories will translate into long-term electoral success.
And, remember, business of entertainment and politics is always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.
John Tantillo is a marketing and branding expert and president of the Marketing Department of America who markets his own services as The Marketing Doctor. His book, People Buy Brands Not Companies, is being published in the first week of February.
