The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

This wasn't the first time we'd seen Senator Edwards speak and one of the things we were most interested in was verifying something we'd started to notice. We weren't sure if it was simply campaign fatigue or a genuine shift in Senator Edwards feelings about the campaign.

NextStage did go on record in How Politicians Want You to Think - Who's Saying It Best, Finale that Senator Edwards' campaign was doing a good job of communicating their message in a way that the populace would respond to favorably, what NextStage recognizes as the K12 Rich Personae. At that time his campaign's strongest message was "You can see that I count" (perhaps a statement that his staff realized his campaign was not doing well in the polls) and its first message (meaning the message that people would non-consciously receive first) was either "I have a Plan" or "You can see that I have a Plan".

Please note NextStage isn't endorsing any candidate or political party. This material is based on our research and studies.

• The people at the rally demonstrated much more zealotry than we've seen elsewhere. It seems to be a matter of belief and conviction rather than political strategy or campaign
• Senator Edwards' communication style indicated he was not looking for your vote so much as he was looking for your belief he can change things
• The people at the rally were mostly middle-aged. There were few young people in attendance who weren't part of the campaign staff
• There were no alpha individuals either in the crowd or in the campaign staff
• Senator Edwards made eye contact and acknowledged people with a smile or nod whenever possible (excellent strategy)
• Senator Edwards clearly demonstrated an "us/them" divisiveness" in his speech
• A telling phrase was "...movement to change the country"
• A telling phrase was "...when you se two presidential candidates fighting with each other..."
• Based on the two above we concluded that Senator Edwards does not see himself as the same as the other candidates. We conjectured that he no longer sees himself as a "candidate" per se.
• We all recognized that he willingly and openly admitted when a questioner was not going to like his response.
  There were several other conclusions and conjectures. Also, we've begun to formulate a rally methodology that will be a strong influencer, definitely at Democratic rallies, perhaps at Republican rallies.

  Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

  Links for this post:

  • Rich Personae Links:
    • Intelligent Website Design: Expand Your Market (Page 3 of 5)
    • Intrusive Little Windows or "DeBranding Made Easy"
    • Know Your Audience, and Reach It
    • Mapping Personae to Outcomes
    • Personae Mapping Tool
    • What does NextStage do?
    • Working with Prediction Markets via NextStage's Evolution Technology
    Upcoming Conferences:
    • IMedia Brand Summit on 9-12 Sept 07
    • XChange on 20-21 Sept 07
    • DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
    • Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
    Come on by and say hello.