Three Marketing Lessons from a $55 Million Dollar , Election Campaign Colossal Fail.
What an interesting phase we have been through in the last coupla months. First up, a hearty congrats to Scott Morrison, for winning the mandate to run the country for the next three years. He is the man dubbed to have been running a one man campaign, and contesting in an ‘’unwinable’’ election. Well, he went against the odds and against the opinion polls that tipped Bill Shorten to be the man to pick up the mantle, and ultimately won.
Having said that, there are many lessons from the campaign phase that we can take. More to come, however, today I want to shed light on three marketing lessons from Billionaire, Cliver Palmer’s marketing efforts.
Know Your Audience, or your Target Market.
This is one of the many reasons why marketing campaigns fail. A failure to understand the targetted audience, this means their needs, their wants, and their aspirations and the demography. This is why we need great copy writers, who can ‘hack’the minds, the emotional needs and wants of their targetted audience. If you are in Australia, you are likely to have received text messages from Cliver Palmer’s marketing machinery.
Well, here are a couple more.
He was basically everywhere, including Youtube, with ads that went for about 30 minutes, 25 minutes etc. Now, majority of ads on Youtube normally last a coupla minutes, very few go to 5 minutes let alone half an hour. I have watched a few of them, and they start off him talking about how politicians fight each other and dont care about Australians etc. He goes on to cover issues around Coal etc. Having said that, it was quiet clear that the messages were not clearly striking a code with the recepients, why? People have much more pressing needs that they need to be addressed than what he was pushing for. In other words, he seemed out of touch with his audience. However, on the flip side, Scott Morrison, did know the needs of his audience. He knew and understand the needs of the ‘’ quiet Australian’’. In a nutshell, marketing lesson, know your audience or market well.
The Messenger and the Message, should resonate with the target market.
Many times the right message, can be tainted by a wrong messenger. Sometimes either of the two can be stronger than the other, and a campaign can get away with it. I remember when Jeep first came on the scene to attract the female market, with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omZ801jrPQw
This totally resonated with the female audience and I understand sales went upwards. Obviously this was one of many ads by Jeep targetted towards the female buyer.
Returning to our Cliver Palmer story, despite deep pockets, he got no seats. This basically means, the targetted audience, were not impressed by both. This can be a tough pill to swallow, but like they say, numbers dont lie. After such a big spend, and you get nothing but …..wait for it……..*crickets* it will be a mamoth task to go back to the drawing board. This would require to wipe off all that is on the ‘’white board’’, and start off from the message, the target audience etc.
Last But Not Least, No Amount Of Money Compensate For A Product That Customers Dont want.
Many marketers with huge and deep pockets had to learn this the hard way. No amount of money can compensate for a product that customers dont want. In our case, product basically means, Clive Palmer, his message and what he represents merged into one. In his firy exchange with Deborah, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkPDLntHhJE we can see clearly he is passionate. However, his targetted audience were just not interested.
Over the years, we have seen product launches backed by deep pockets, go nowhere. Simply put, customers were not interested. This is why many companies are engaging customers in the design and production of their services and product. Many times samples of products are given to customers so they can try, and using customer feedback, tweaks are made. By the time the final product gets to launch, its more improved than the original idea or concept. This process outweighs dee pockets!
During product testing, things like ‘’functionality’’, ‘likeability’’ etc are looked at by the targetted end user. Results of this process can be the difference between a product that tanks and the product that makes it into the mainstream.
Having said that, the world is evolving and the market place is a place of change and rapid growth. If you have aspirations to turn your Passion to Profit, you are welcome to check out this Free Webinar, Passion to Profit, which will give you nuggets on how to turn your passion into Profit. You can check it out here, https://wisdomunlimitedinternational.lpages.co/passiontoprofitwebinar/
Blessings and always remember, you have an Uncommon Destiny!
Wisdom V Mupudzi.