{"id":19200,"date":"2017-02-08T08:31:07","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T15:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.web-strategist.com\/blog\/?p=19200"},"modified":"2023-06-08T10:28:41","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T17:28:41","slug":"19200","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/08\/19200\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of the Political Brand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-19201 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/commercial_brands.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"641\" height=\"429\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/commercial_brands.png 641w, https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/commercial_brands-300x201.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 641px) 100vw, 641px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"graf graf--p\">Corporations are being expected to take a political stand, a risky proposition that could result in backlash, boycotts, or a raving army of advocates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf graf--p\">Since the dawn of business, the influences of politics have resulted in private political advisors, quiet lobbying in political offices, and funding political programs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf graf--p\">But now, <a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/datafreaks\/2015\/03\/12\/brands-take-a-stand-when-speaking-up-about-controversial-issues-hurts-or-helps-business\/#d418c4c0869c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/datafreaks\/2015\/03\/12\/brands-take-a-stand-when-speaking-up-about-controversial-issues-hurts-or-helps-business\/#d418c4c0869c\">customers are expecting brands<\/a> to take a public, forward expression on how the brand affiliates with a particular political bent, notion, or value.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf graf--p\">Careful, if you do it wrong, b<a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JeremiahOwyang\/posts\/10154443450441523?pnref=story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JeremiahOwyang\/posts\/10154443450441523?pnref=story\">oycotts are emerging<\/a> against brands that don&#8217;t align with a political stance of their customer base, which results in app downloads, lost revenues, and a tarnished brand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf graf--p\">This means the CEO, CMO, and other executives must lean forward on deciding if they should make a position. The examples are increasing:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"postList\">\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">Last night&#8217;s Superbowl game sported ads from Audi, Budweiser, 84 Lumber and others had political bents.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">Tech companies<a class=\"markup--anchor markup--li-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/news\/2017\/02\/06\/97-tech-firms-file-court-brief-opposing-immigration-ban\/97538208\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/news\/2017\/02\/06\/97-tech-firms-file-court-brief-opposing-immigration-ban\/97538208\/\"> just signed<\/a> an anti-immigration ban document, rallying as a group, clearly indicating their values.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">Uber CEO pushed to step down from White House advisory board, while Elon Musk states a clear stance on why to stay.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">Starbucks promised to hire many immigrants, and three years ago, Hobby Lobby, stood by their values, which set off the country in debate.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">Most noticeably, is last night&#8217;s Superbowl performer Lady Gaga, <a class=\"markup--anchor markup--li-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2017\/feb\/05\/lady-gaga-half-time-performance-super-bowl-51\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2017\/feb\/05\/lady-gaga-half-time-performance-super-bowl-51\">is being analyzed<\/a> for not taking an overt political stance. As this sentiment grows, brands will need to prepare for questions on why they should \u2013 or should not take a political stance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"graf graf--p\">What does this future hold? A few predictions:<\/p>\n<ol class=\"postList\">\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">CMOs will hire political-brand advisors. No, I&#8217;m not talking about lobbyist or government relations professionals, but experts in political campaigning and brand influence. For example, a few years ago, Uber hired David Plouffe, who worked on the Obama campaign.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">A new professional category will emerge, agencies, consultants, authors, speakers will emerge that tie together political and brand strategy that aids the CMO \u2013 and achieves bottom line growth.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">A new feature of enterprise marketing software will emerge to measure customer political preference and affiliation \u2013 with a dashboard for the CMO to manage.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">CEOs will lead a discussion at board level, with the CMO to discuss if a brand should take a political stance, after carefully examining the impacts to government relations, regulation, customer preference.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">Brands will politically poll their customers, partners, prospects and competitor base to ascertain the political bent of their constituent base. Some bold brands will publish these polls in public.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">A more public association between brands and their preferred political ideology and perhaps candidate will emerge.<\/li>\n<li class=\"graf graf--li\">Customers will sport their favorite product as a form of political activism: Supporting, advocating, or boycotting online and in front of their real world friends.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p class=\"graf graf--p\">Companies have no choice to consider their political bent, not just behind closed doors, but now in public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Corporations are being expected to take a political stand, a risky proposition that could result in backlash, boycotts, or a raving army of advocates. Since the dawn of business, the influences of politics have resulted in private political advisors, quiet lobbying in political offices, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/08\/19200\/\" class=\"more-link\"><span>Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Rise of the Political Brand<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advertising"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}