How Can McCain Leverage His Brand To Best Win In 2008?

For this exercise, three writers here at Personal Brands Online chose a candidate potential from the field, and will be acting as his or her personal online brand advisor.  Keep in mind, these suggestions are based on how to do this online, and how to curry favor from those who don’t already support you.  With that said, Senator McCain, here are the facts, then the proposal I have for you:

 

Facts:

 

• You have a rock solid brand, one the media is helping you build – that of a Maverick. 
• You are painting a fine distance between yourself and the GOP, where the brand is damaged.  You have begun to be set apart from the wrongs of the Republican party.  Those ratings need to be averted, as they have never been lower since Watergate.
• You are making strides in agreeing to more coverage online and in office than any other candidate out there. 
• You have leeway to do things as you see fit – and can fall back on the statement “I said I had my own way.”

Now, with those things said, and established – let’s take a look at the work still to be done:

 

·        Trusting the media to continue to propel and support your brand – no matter how much they seem to like you now – is a double edged sword.  With little to no money into the branding from your own campaign – if the press begins to find flip flops and fault in your brand you are in trouble.  If they succeed in showing how you have changed on the issues – which you know you have – the brand of maverick can quickly become the brand of renegade – which is far less appealing.

·        Again, your attempts to distance yourself from the GOP are remarkable – only dwarfed by your success in doing so.  Despite having a lifetime ranking of 83 from the American Conservative Union, and having fallen into rank and file with President Bush on many occasions (thanks for both links to MediaMatters.org and author Eric Boehlert), you are still “outside the party” in the perception of most Americans.  However, perception can change, and with it, your reality.  Be aware that the more the campaign steers to online promotion, which you are engendering, the more transparent it becomes.  The more transparent it becomes, the more times you are dragged back to account for the decisions you made which supported the party you are trying to distance yourself from.

·        Again, your recent proclamations of more transparency and weekly press conferences, with intense Q&A and even a bi-weekly live blogger session make you seem larger than life – someone who can truly change the way America communicates with its President.  However, two things remain paramount here.  First – be sure to stick to the promises now that you’ve made them.  To truly cause change and take the lead, you must continue to do these things.  Second, shore up your online brand so it coincides with your offline brand.  Your brand of maverick does not cover the disparate image you portray in the two worlds. 

o       How do you do this?  Keep you online strategy easy and simple – reflect the very best aspects of your offline persona.  The McCain online needs to become the McCain offline – the guy who is willing to release over 1,000 pages of medical records, the guy who is easy to talk to and will answer any question.  Right now, that isn’t the case.  Right now, the McCain online is more wooden than Al Gore and less likeable than John Kerry.   The gap between the world’s is almost Grand Canyon-esque..

o       You also need to learn to communicate online – short, succinct and simple.  Your current requests for funding and statements to the supporters you own are arduous and boring.  Sorry, but that’s the case.  You won’t win new traction with them.

·        Tirades and temper tantrums don’t count in the “I did it my way” portion of campaigning.  Be sure your replies and responses are measured, are smooth and are still supporting your role outside the Republican party.  Any singular blow up can be tantamount to disaster, just ask Howard Dean. 
If your infamous temper takes the lead at any time in the next 6 months, you will lose credibility in the camp you need it the most – those who truly believe that you have changed and are more in control.  One slip ala George Allan and you will lose the traction you may be gaining with the middle of the road.
Everything you do and say will be captured, catalogued and if the slightest bit provocative, blasted into the internet.  Once it is out there, you can’t bring it back.

·        Along those lines, stop trying to duke it out with acknowledged political pundits and those who hold sway over the middle ground online.  If you can, tell it straight and forward – and if you can’t – keep your mouth shut.

·        Use online branding to show your personal history, to tout your strength, to show your age shouldn’t matter when the time comes to pull the lever.  Show yourself as a leader who takes care of himself; show yourself as a person who is transparent both online and off.

·        Make more of the current leading position you have.  Take this time to get America to identify with your core platforms, show how you are different than the Republican core, what benefits underlie your plans.  This is the time to set the path for you to walk on once the candidate from the Democratic side emerges from the fracas.  Where is the meat of “what makes McCain a maverick” – when it comes to the platforms you are running on?  Why don’t we see and hear more about that.  Does McCain the Maverick have substance?  By the time November is over, no one will care if you are simply a personal maverick – they have to understand how that position helps and aids them.

• Clean up your staff.  Hire someone to do DEEP background checks!  The company you keep, especially with online deciders, is enough to sink you.  You can’t simply dismiss previous wrongs like your GOP office holders – or guess what? – you’ll be just like them.

·        Finally, remember, no one likes a bully, dictator or shock jock for very long.  Be careful how you answer questions about the opposition.  Again, this is about winning over those who you don’t have the support of, those who may choose either way come November.  This isn’t about wooing hard core Democrats, or “Vote-Republican-or-die-no-matter-the-candidate” partisans.  This is about those who are waiting to choose – and among them are plenty of fence sitting Dems and hard core Republicans.  When you attack the other candidate’s positions, be sure you attack the position and argument, not the actual candidate.  Take issue with the stance, not the author or proponent of it.

 

Follow these guidelines, Senator McCain, and there’s a decent chance the White House is yours for the taking.  However, you still have a long way to go, and the next few months will seem like forever if your transparency begins to go opaque, or your maverick begins to turn renegade.