The Value of Knowing Your Audience

One thing we can take away from this election is an appreciation for knowing one's audience. This is a vital skill in game design, public relations (my day job), and any sort of mass communication.

Everything has an audience - games, books, television, campaigns, whatever. To truly succeed at your endeavors, you need to find a way to appeal to that audience in a way that is relevant and creates value. This is called your brand, which can include everything including spoken and written communication, graphic presentation, and eventually, assignment of value and relevance by the audience to that brand.

Let's look at Bush. Over the course of the election, he has constantly referred to his "base," which in this case happens to be evangelical Christians, conservative Republicans, social conservatives, and the wealthy. He has cultivated this audience throughout his term, aggressively moving against taxes, promoting conservative social policies such as gay marriage and stem-cell research bans, stuanchly opposing terrorism at all costs, and further portraying his image as a man of deep faith. This is his brand, and it creates a feeling of deep commitment and emotional value in his audience. When it came time for re-election, he was able to go to that base and convert the value he created within his audience to political currency.

Kerry had an uphill battle ahead of him. Coming into the race, he has no value, but he could have had a brand. We've seen many parts of a brand - Vietnam vet, diplomat, successful sentator, bridge builder - but one never gelled as the definitive John Kerry. He tried to capture disparate audiences by changing his message, which ended up undermining his need to build the Kerry brand. All the while, he was under assault from the Bush campaign, forcing him to react and change his campaign's tone rather than be proactive, thus enforcing accusations of his 'flip flopping' If Kerry had identified the audience he needed to vote for him (admittedly a tough issue with the always fickle swing voter), and then stayed his course, taking the lumps and shrugging them off rather than bobbing and weaving and sticking to his guns, he might have been able to pull it off.

While I remain amazed that intangibles are more important to the American voter than someone's record, Bush knew his audience better, what they wanted, how to speak to their needs and desires, and ultimately how to covert that into the presidency for another 4 years.

Goddamnit.