Develop swing ideas rather than target swing voters?
13 Jan
In the ever deepening era of the Great Disruption, nicely coined by Scott Anthony in the Harvard Business Review, I’m an even more vehement supporter of transformative ideas and campaigns than normal. Who likes things that are average? And more importantly who likes to think of themselves as average? So if everyone hates averageness why do we spend so much time trying to target and appeal to the median?
I’m not just hoping that 2009 will see brands tackle the anesthetised state that people are currently in when it comes to communications, but see it as a necessity to develop an extreme position that fundamentally breaks up this ever shrinking median. This is also much bigger than tweaking the advertising message; it will have to start with getting the product experience into a truly polarised and interesting space. Gone are the days of covering up your faults with a shiny button of a campaign.
In a study conducted by economists at the University of California they challenge the perceived notion that winning election is about appealing to the swing voters;
Extreme positions can build trust among an electorate, who value ideological commitment in times of uncertainty.
“A rational electorate is reluctant to support someone who does not exhibit commitment to some ideology,” Carrillo says. “Voters rightly perceive that someone without ideological commitment cannot have developed a valuable political program. They reason that, ‘If you tell me what I want to hear, it probably means that you don’t have any ideas of your own to share.’”
Carrillo and Castanheira’s paper is an important challenge to the widely accepted median voter theorem. In the median voter theorem, voters who are fully informed will use their understanding when casting a ballot, choosing the platform that is closest to their own beliefs. Thus, it stands to reason that to attract the majority of votes, parties should try to appeal to the majority of voters.
But, as the researchers point out, it is rare for a voter to be fully informed in real life. More likely, voters will have incomplete and sometimes inaccurate information about how left-leaning or right-leaning stances actually translate into high quality proposals for, say, withdrawing troops safely or reforms.
This information comes from the press and other sources, such as campaign advertisements.
“To attract a majority of votes, parties cannot simply try to appear ‘median.’ Quite the contrary,” Carrillo says. “Winning an election is generally about crafting a convincing philosophy that the electorate will view as superior to that of the opponents.”
This is closely related to the debate around the Bell Curve and the Power Law views of the world which is covered in the entertaining and thought provoking Black Swan, but if you want a detailed and somewhat more objective view on the subject John Hagel’s post is probably a good place to familiarise yourself with the argument.
Tags: Brands, Politics, Ideas, Communications, The Black Swan, Voting, Carillo, Castanheira, Bell Curve, Power Law, Harvard Buisness Review, Scott Anthony
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