June 29, 2008

John McCain’s Slogan Problem

In the world of consumer goods, advertising slogans should differentiate and fit the products they intend to sell. On that basis, John McCain needs a new campaign slogan.

Marketers were dubious of the John McCain campaign slogan “Leadership You Can Believe In” which appeared to be a play on Barack Obama’s slogan “Change We Can Believe In”.  Results from the OPTIMIZE*08 study concur that co-opting a slogan is not the best idea.

Voters were presented a list of twenty un-credited current and historical campaign slogans and asked to select the three that best describe their top pick presidential ticket.  Only 34% of McCain supporters selected his current campaign slogan.  Worse, 23% of Obama supporters selected McCain’s slogan to describe an Obama ticket – ranking it third.  This suggests that “Leadership you can believe in” is not an effective differentiator for John McCain.

Nor was McCain’s slogan the most descriptive of his ticket.  It came in second to William McKinley’s 1896 presidential campaign slogan “Patriotism, Protection, and Prosperity” – as selected by 45% of McCain supporters.  Senator McCain may be better known for his bus moniker the “Straight Talk Express” which appears to be increasingly interchanged as his campaign slogan.

Although Barack Obama’s campaign slogan “Change We Can Believe In” had the most frequent association with his ticket, it was only selected by a moderate 36% of his supporters.  Just behind it was “America Needs a Change” – Walter Mondale’s 1984 campaign slogan selected by 35% of Obama ticket supporters. 

Though Obama’s slogan had light association with his ticket, the central idea of change was a reoccurring theme among voters in the study.   When asked how significant a change their top pick ticket represents from the current administration in Washington, 50% of those optimizing to an Obama ticket responded with the maximum rating of 5 out of 5. Whereas only 16% of McCain supporters gave his ticket the same rating.