John Tantillo’s Winner and Loser of The Week: Lost – The Finale & Rand Paul
Winner
ABC’s Lost has shown us that even in the increasingly uncertain world of television, content is still king. Lost never forgot its Target Market and never forgot that it had to remain top quality entertainment.
The show’s finale and the anticipation of its outstanding viewer numbers also underscore that “event” broadcasting has great power.
Fact is, human beings crave communal events and a common experience that can be shared simultaneously. The future of visual entertainment might be on-demand, Internet-sourced video, but big “events” like the Lost finale, shown at a specific day and time, deliver this sought-after communal experience.
Event broadcasting builds up excitement for a brand and allows for other programming and experiences to be built around it. For instance, Jimmy Kimmel, a Lost fan, is doing a special with the cast of the show, and many Lost parties are being held around the country.
Lost has built its brand tirelessly, and my guess is the content and interest in the show will continue to be a successful commercial presence for years to come.
Loser
This won’t be popular, but I’ve got to say it: Rand Paul is no Ronald Reagan.
You simply can’t carry too much complexity into the public square, especially against a hostile press. In other words, off camera and off mic, a politician can and should be complex, but keep the message simple when you’re being quoted.
It’s a romantic myth that the only person fit for political office is the man right off the street with no political experience, à la Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
We might scorn the idea of politics as a profession, but the truth is: politics is a profession, and like any profession, it takes time and talent to learn its ways. Even the founding fathers, often cast as political outsiders, had significant experience in colonial legislatures.
Ronald Reagan was a professional politician, and because of that, he was able to turn his core philosophy of limited government, strong defense and a business-friendly America into political reality.
As a politician, you must be careful of the words that you use, because words are almost all that you have to convey your ideas, positions and identity to the electorate.
Words are the arrows in your quiver. They must be precise and precisely targeted. Ronald Reagan used words to unite, to inspire and to clarify. But he also knew the value of not using words and when it was smart to avoid commenting all together. (Remember his famous “I can’t hear the question” walks to the helicopter?)
The problem is that too many words conveying too many different ideas will make a politician seem conflicted and unsure of what he or she stands for.
Rand Paul is learning this now and will need to nail down his approach before the elections this fall if he hopes to win. This means going through his libertarian ideas and testing them step-by-step against big issues, interest groups and judicial/legislative history —and then determining appropriate public positions and simplifying his message accordingly.
But there is a larger problem here, and that problem is with the Tea Party that helped make his primary victory possible.
The Tea Party is like a 500-pound gorilla in the room that’s ripping everything off the walls: its energy is awe-inspiring and its rage is understandable, but it’s unfocused. More than that, this gorilla is impossible to focus —meaning the only way to deal with the gorilla is to calm him down. The problem is, once calm, all the gorilla’s energy is gone and the force for change vanishes.
To put this in marketing terms, can the Tea Party brand be effectively extended if it’s just a whole lot of energy, without a way to be channeled? I’m doubtful. Fact is, the core characteristics of the Tea Party movement simply seem incompatible with genuine political, institutional change. In many respects, the emotion of the Tea Party is negative, and its ideals are political “Uncola.” This reactionary approach has nothing in common with Ronald Reagan’s positive affirmation of the great potential of our country and the clear road map he presented for achieving that potential.
If the Tea Party has a genuine, politically productive future, it will be discovered the moment a politically experienced visionary —someone who hews to conservative ideals but knows how politics really works— comes along. If this happens, though, it will be the members of the Tea Party supporting him or her and not the other way around.
And remember, things are always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.
TODAY'S TANTILLO TAKEAWAY -
In politics, your brand can be complex, but your message must be simple.
