The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

Second and more to the point of this post, Tex, one of NextStage's researchers whose specialties is politics and sports, was sent an email solicitation to "Team Mitt: Create Your Own Ad!". There was a link in the email solicitation that led to a website shown in the "Continue Reading" link. The point of the email and resulting webpage is to get people to design a nationally advertised political TV spot.

Can you say "SuperBowl"?

It amused me that this kind of solicitation would come to our attention, especially in light of my Is the future of political advertising social networks? post. Let me go on the record that Governor Romney's team is using a brilliant strategy here. Want to spread a viral message and brand on the fly? This is the way to go. Brilliant, brilliant maneuver.

Yes, I'm keeping my political agnosticism with this post. I'm not endorsing Governor Romney, only stating that this strategy is a brilliant one.

Of course, we wouldn't be NextStage if we didn't investigate all the messages that are in the solicitation and webpage, right?

• These people prefer to experience things first-hand
• They base decisions on immediate experience and tend to be negative in nature
• They tend to ignore positive-based information as either unreal or unsubstantiated
• They are attracted to and will focus on demonstrations of problems or difficulties

We compared that with the actual page linked to in that email and shown here. This is where someone would actually take up the offer of designing an national TV spot. This page is well designed for the K10 Rich Persona. K10's share some aspects with Myers-Briggs ISTPs, ISFPs, ESTPs, ENFPs and ENTJs and have the following noteworthy features:

• These people learn by doing and tend to be risk-takers
• They tend to have a positive outlook on life
• They can be convinced by demonstrations of positive outcomes
• They take action when they believe there'll be a reward for their endeavors

But what really caught my interest is that the email and webpage have a very different style than Governor Romney's site has demonstrated in the past. Here's the breakdown:

• 10 Feb 07, V7 (ISTJ, INFJ, ENTP)
• 6 Mar 07, V7 (ISTJ, INFJ, ENTP)
• 22 Mar 07, V1 (No Myers-Briggs Equivalents)
• 23 July 07, V10 (INTJ, ESTJ, ESFP, ESFJ)

So we analyzed the website homepage and learned that today, Wednesday, 29 Aug 07, Governor Romney's campaign site is designed for a K9 (ISFP, ESFJ) Rich Persona. Noteworthy features include:

• These people prefer to experience something firsthand before making any decisions about it
• They are hesitant to attempt anything new
• They are convinced by arguments which end with a warning about what might happen
• They make decisions which favor avoidance of future problems rather than acceptance of future rewards

There's also the fact that these new Rich Personae -- K9, K10 and K13 -- are very different from the V1, V7 and V10 Rich Personae that dominated the campaign site in the past. In fact, if you were to make a "color wheel" of NextStage Rich Personae the shift in Governor Romney's campaign site would look like the following pie chart.

That big yellow chunk at the bottom of the pie chart shows the audience distribution the campaign site had, the blue triangle on the left shows the audience the email, the tv ad site and the campaign site now share.

What this is showing is that the Governor's campaign staff is narrowing its market, perfecting its message, realizing who the Governor appeals to and going after that market.

Governor Romney won the Ames, Iowa straw poll because his message at the time was one the largest part of the population could respond to. His shift in messaging? His new voice is reaching 1.82% of the population. Doesn't matter that it's low, all that matters is that everyone else reaches a lower number.

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

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.