Voting Special Part 2: Selling the Message

We continue our 4-part series that looks at various aspects of the election process. Tonight, we’ll discuss the campaign process and how candidates can effectively sell the message of their campaign. Here to provide their input is Chuck Coughlin, President and CEO of HighGround Inc., and Jason Barraza, Partner with Veridus LLC.

How Vital is it to Market Candidates?

“[It’s] incredibly vital. I mean, it’s the narrative of a campaign. It’s the lifeblood of a campaign, because what you want to try and establish with the candidate is a narrative that carries throughout the campaign and that the media and others can follow, and that your opponent is reacting to,” Coughlin said.

“It’s the absolute cornerstone of your campaign. This is your ability to tell your story and describe who you are and why voters should come into your column on election day,” Barraza said.

When considering what kind of ads to use for a candidate, there are certain things to consider.

“It depends on what you’re actually trying to communicate, whether this is a persuasion type ad or whether you’re doing a fundraiser type ad. Typically, though, if we’re talking about persuasion, you want to be on T.V. You wanna be talking directly to the voters while you have a captive audience and they’re watching their nightly T.V. shows,” Barraza said.

The best way to present an ad as a candidate is to talk about the candidate’s campaign and unique selling points first before tearing down the other candidate’s campaign, according to Coughlin.

“You can’t criticize someone else before you establish your own identity,” Coughlin said.

Usually, repetition in advertising is essential in establishing a candidate’s campaign and relaying to the audience what a candidate stands for. If numbers and feedback from polling and research show that the ads are not changing anything and numbers are stagnate, then modifications should probably be made in the ads, Barraza said.