The GOP Problem Is Their Product, Not Branding

Since Michael Steele became the head (and even before) of the Republican National Committee (RNC) he has said some fairly bizarre things. But some of his recent comments are almost beyond words and shows a lack of understanding of product marketing 101. From an interview with the Washington Times:

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

The RNC’s first black chairman will “surprise everyone” when updating the party’s image using the Internet and advertisements on radio, on television and in print, he told The Washington Times.

He is going to update the party’s image? What I find so bizarre as a marketing person is the head of the Republican party seems to think that the real problem with the current GOP is an image or branding failure. I don’t see that as their core problem. What they can’t seem to grasp is that the public did not reject their branding , they rejected their product. Not the other way around. George Bush was nothing if not an amazing branding success story.

In fact, an argument is often made from the “left” that the GOP managed to sell a deeply, deeply flawed product for years and years, and that only their successful branding kept them winning elections for as many years as they did.

Say what you will about the GOP but they were nothing short of masters of framing the debate on their terms (think “liberal” vs. “compassionate conservative” for just one example).

Think I am wrong, then take a look at the polling data. On issue after issue, large or small, the majority of the American public hold “center” to center-left” views. Immigration. Size of government. Taxes. Unions. Abortion. Gun control. Gay rights. Health care. All center-left, often just liberal.

But call a person that holds these views a “liberal” and they’ll scream in horror.

This is cause, again, the Republicans have been masters at messaging and attaching the meaning they find most beneficial to certain terms and phrases and then drilling them into the minds of their target audience over and over again (i.e. effective branding).

So that the Republicans find themselves in the position they are in is not cause of a lack of branding, it is because the public doesn’t like their product. No matter how much money they spending on advertising or new “packaging”  won’t change the opinion of people that have come to dislike their core product/ideas. It is that stupid simple.