Public Branding2009-02-13

 In politics and in the private sector, mistakes are an everyday part of the landscape. But what smart politicians, political parties and for-profit enterprises know is to protect their brand at all costs.

Two recent examples stand out: the dumping of former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle from Cabinet consideration and Republican recalcitrance on the stimulus package.

In the first case (argued here by Time’s Joe Klein), President Obama needed Daschle to withdraw his name from consideration or push him out because it risked damaging the very thing Obama’s candidacy was based on—cleaning up Washington and freeing it from the grip of special interests.

Had Obama put his full weight behind Daschle’s nomination (especially after the Tim Geithner tax mulligan), it would have undermined his credibility as a change agent, making him look like just another politician.

Unlike Geithner, Daschle’s primary problem wasn’t overlooking unpaid taxes but that the taxes were for a car and driver bought and paid for by special interests and for speeches he gave to the very industry groups that he was supposed to regulate as Health and Human Services Secretary.

Obama understood he was voted into the Oval Office over candidates with more Washington experience particularly because many voters had given up trying to sort out the differences between the two parties and instead said “a pox on both of your houses.”

By dumping Daschle, Obama protected that change agent brand, even at the expense of one of his closest advisors.

On the other side of the coin, while some might question the policy wisdom of Congressional Republicans voting in lock-step against the President’s stimulus package as the country falls deeper into recession, look no further than the Republican brand for answers. 

‘The party of fiscal restraint had stained its brand during the Bush years,’ reasoned many Republican Party thought leaders, ‘and they aren’t going to trust us to govern again until we get it back.’ They knew they didn’t have the votes to stop the bill, but by tagging the stimulus package “the spending bill” and squealing over pork barrel projects, they did something more important—begin rebuilding the faith with the party faithful.

Come the Fall of 2010, if the economy hasn’t markedly improved, you can bet that Republican congressional candidates from coast to coast will be reminding a larger audience of voters that the Republican brand is back—and ready to lead.

Public policy ideas and personalities are subject to the same branding laws of physics, which directly correlate to their success. Wind energy rebounded from its bird slaughtering past and is now a central player in the nation’s drive towards energy independence, while nuclear power has remained the Barry Bonds of energy—powerful but tainted.  

Speaking of baseball brands, slugger Mark McGwire may never make it to the Hall of Fame because steroid use shattered the brand of the affable giant who hoisted his son at home plate after shattering baseball’s single season home run record. Meanwhile, Yankee star Alex Rodriguez is likely to pass McGwire on both the home run list and Hall of Fame ballots despite this week’s admission of steroid use, in part because A-Rod’s brand depended more on his cool competence than universal everyman appeal. All Rodriguez has to do this season is put up numbers similar to his last five years and baseball fans will long forget this embarrassing episode.

The lesson in all of these cases: brand matters.