MARKETING TIPS

by Ken Mitchell

In a recent City News article I commented about the importance of the AIDA model (Awareness Interest Desire Action) in advertising and promoting the candidates as one promotes Brands of products and services. By Brands I mean recognised party’s “Liberal”, “Labor”, “Greens”, “Democrats”.

From research prior to the election it was quite clear that many voters had made up their mind which brand/party to vote for even though they did not know who the specific candidates were. This reinforces the value of brands and in branding a party so that people know what the party stands for irrespective of the local candidate.

Unfortunately not many non-main party (unbranded) candidates were able to campaign successfully and many ended up frustrated and wondering how to get airtime and be noticed. This is hard enough at the best of times however with the big issues of the boat people and international military action dominating the news, it has been hard to get the public to notice or pay attention to the many unbranded candidates.

Some candidates appeared uncoordinated with their campaigns, displayed a poor grasp of how to be noticed and have no projected point of difference – they are merely making noises that no one is listening to.

We are now in the post mortems of the two elections. Clearly it is time for some candidates to now start looking at the post mortems as the key learning exercise and document the successes and failures and begin planning for next time. They, like marketing any business, must plan to succeed. Good planning includes research to establish what works and what does not and learning from your mistakes – lest you repeat them.

One clear lesson from the recent local Legislative Assembly election is that unless you are a high profile person in the first place, you MUST allocate over $75,000 towards an integrated media campaign to develop a winnable level of public awareness and recognition of an individuals candidates brand.

Ken Mitchell is the CEO of Australian Marketing & Research Services and can be contacted on 62576677w, or kenmitch@austarmetro.com.au.

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