Politics aside, Michele Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention was brilliant. She was able to paint her husband as the quintessential, mythical American, ‘common man’ hero. And in so doing, she held a metaphorical mirror to Mr. Romney and the reflection was as unflattering as it was clear.
How’d she do it? C’mon, you know the answer is the story she told. And while you can disagree with the politics, you simply cannot ignore the lesson she gave to marketers: there is nothing more powerful than a convincing, moving, compelling, slightly understated narrative.
Here’s what the
LA Times said:
The principal narrative of her nationally televised speech was about President Obama’s ability to maintain his ideals, and even his gentle touch as a father, despite the heavy strains of office…
Narrative is the operant word.
Notice, there was not a single mention of facts… the narrative spun a series of images that had nothing to do with facts, per se. If you intensely dislike Mr. Obama, there’s still nothing you can point to in his wife’s speech that was inaccurate… nothing that stretches the truth.
The First Lady had an airtight story grounded in a shared myth and these gave her the focus needed to decide which anecdotes would be included and which would be discarded as off point (and thus, seemingly untrue). In marketing terms, she found her niche message and gently stayed on it until the audience was in tears.
Mrs. Romney, on the other hand, told story after small story but to no real end, or to the overly large end of showing her husband to be kind, generous, one of the guys, caring, smart, witty, a great father, a shrewd businessman, etc. That was too big a task to bite off, so her message was scattered. Consequently, you can’t summarize what she said as succinctly as did the
LA Times with Mrs. Obama’s narrative.
Ann Romney is an attractive and articulate woman. But her speech was just so much talk show chatter. She had no narrative focus and no way of deciding which stories to include and which to leave out; consequently, she seemed to have told them all, hoping that the totality of her speech would miraculously move the audience.
Here are a few narratives that would have been better for Mrs. Romney. Just pick one – ONE – not all of them.
1. Mr. Romney was born into privilege but walked away from it to help those who had far less. (Myth of the benevolent aristocrat who, like George Washington, put aside his interests to help fight for his country.)
2. Mr. Romney used his privilege and power and money to help others in need, and without fanfare or self-gratification. (Myth of the Lone Ranger, when you think of it.)
3. Mr. Romney used his privilege to educate himself. He studied long and hard so that he could put his knowledge to work in finding new, better ways to improve the lives of others. (Dr. Salk or George Washington Carver.)
4. Mr. Romney’s background shows a man who understands the plight of blue collar Americans, something he learned at his father’s knee. As president of American Motors, George Romney was very concerned about the life of his workforce. (Myth of the benevolent aristocrat who, for example, pays for the education of his workers’ kids or pays the hospital bills for the gardener’s sick wife.)
Again, pick one.
And whatever you do, don’t use the wrong myth. Why try to paint Mr. Romney as coming from humble beginnings? He’s not Abe Lincoln nor do we expect him to be. We admire wealth and don't care if candidates were born into the upper class. How disingenuous would it have been for JFK to speak in his posh Boston accent about his childhood struggles delivering newspapers on his little bike in the pouring rain?
Kennedy’s narrative was that he was born into wealth and taught that it carries responsibility, which is why he (JFK) went to war, saved a fellow seaman and dedicated his life to serving his fellow Americans after the sacrifice of his older brother.
Bottom line? Mrs. Romney chose the wrong mythical backdrop for a man of means and used a narrative shotgun; Mrs. Obama chose a classic American middle class myth befitting the child of a single parent and used a narrative laser.
We should do much the same with our marketing. But experience tells me we won’t. In spite of the clear lesson about the power of a tight, cohesive story, we’ll continue to produce work that’s fact-driven, repetitive, dull, boring and does not connect with our target audience… then scratch our heads when nothing sells.
“Consumers want a new story... authenticity, not spin... participation, not propaganda.”
