Conservatives have mastered the art of framing issues in a way that moves people to act, and liberals keep trying to get a dead horse to giddyup. Here’s how conservatives manage to frame ideas people may want to buy.
Conservatives view the decision-making process as simple. They believe consumers need to know that the choice is easy. When conservatives view the issue of healthcare, they offer one big choice: Say “No” to the government controlling your healthcare decisions. The audience gets it. They don’t have to spend too much time studying the nuances of our healthcare industry.
By giving the consumer a simple choice, the conservative frame inspires hope. It tells the audience: this issue is easy to solve if we act now. It’s no coincidence that the book Gross National Happiness found that conservatives are happier than liberals. They are given a more customer-friendly lens to view issues.
Here’s how liberals sometimes fail to sell their ideas.
Liberals view the decision-making process as complex. They believe consumers need to know all the information before making such a complex decision. To persuade the consumer, they offer a cluttered list of benefits, features and attributes. Healthcare reform is about Joe who was just laid off. It’s also about the Mom-and-Pop shop that can’t afford rising insurance rates. But, it’s also about saving our economy. And, let’s not forget that too much fast food can cause diabetes.
The liberal frame tells the audience: the issue is more complex than you could ever imagine. The audience is paralyzed by too much information and choice. More importantly, they don’t feel like such a complex issue can ever be solved, so why engage?
I’m not arguing that consumers are too dumb to grasp a complex issue, but they are busy and saturated with marketing messages. They want a brilliant, but simple choice.
Smart brands and communications strategists get this. They wade through exhaustive research, arguments and counterarguments to find the marketing gem — a brilliant, simple choice. And when they find that precious gem and offer it to consumers, they make the choice effortless.
I hope you find a broader audience for this point. On some level, most of us have struggled to understand why liberals have so much difficulty branding their issues, framing the political argument. The answer, for me at least, was always just out reach, like that one word you want but can’t find. This, though, is not only right on the mark, but is also at the heart of some of our most beastly problems as a party.
As a die hard liberal, I’m not sure the conservative model is the one I would follow but I do take your point. The conservatives definitely “dumb down” their message which is what drives us all crazy–how can they get away with such misinformation, much less lack of it? But they do, and it is the liberal’s challenge to find a way to offer an intelligent alternative to such uninformed, spoon-fed choice. (Btw, aside from George Washington, the Founding Fathers–Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin–were all intellectuals who weren’t afraid of a complex issue.) So what do we do? I appreciate your solution but I would also want to see an example of what you’re suggesting. In the meantime, we better come up with some solution mighty quick or we are sunk.
Or is it that liberals have a lot of ideas but struggle sticking with one and conservative have only one idea and stick with it, hammer it until the end?
Very interesting blog! Conservatives are doing the American people a disservice by strong-arming (I would argue insulting) their constituency into thinking that there is an EASY solution for healthcare. Just voting “no” on everything isn’t a solution and it sure isn’t leadership – but it makes for sexy sound bites. But have we really become such a nation of ADD that we can’t think past the word “no”?
Healthcare is more than an inch-deep issue and we owe it to ourselves and to our kids and grandkids to give this issue more than 30 seconds of thought.
The liberals on the other hand may get tangled up in their underwear when it comes to selling healthcare reform, but at least they acknowledge that not everything in life is simple. While they may have a “7-layer-bean-dip” approach to their message, at least there is substance behind their sound bites.
The onus is on US to get informed and understand the real issues at hand. In my totally biased opinion – liberals are trying to be too “all inclusive.” Here’s a tip Dems: you WON the election! Now DO something!!
I think your basic premise, that simplistic messaging is what wins elections, is sound but your conclusion is flawed.
“Hope” “Change” “Yes we can”
Not exactly multifaceted messaging there, but they were enough to get Obama elected.
Or going back further.
“Compassionate conservatism”
“It’s the economy stupid”
“No new taxes”
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Great point, Ama. And to all who might want to explore this further, I recommend George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate.” Slightly outdated (2004), but the foundation remains true.
The key of the last election was the ability to brand “change”. Beside the perpetual messaging strategy and techniques (2-3 sentences snippets, hammered at each appearance so it become sticky in the Joe the plumber audience) the branding of CHANGE was THE sticky point.
Beyond the political discussions, it is well know that in a country of plenty of scale and taste (good or bad), corporations have traditionally channeled their messages and funneled them to 2-3 core messages to ultimately drive the customer purchasing behavior inheriting from the 60’s techniques of sure-proof marketing 101 classes. The standard marketing machine tells you that if you don’t get the message in 2 seconds it doesn’t work, to the demise of the creative crowd that always aspire for more “aspirational” ways to communicate on a product or service. The QVC channel and the 3.00 am infommercials are strong reminders that for the not-so-sophisticated crowd, the narrowed-hammered messaging terribly works well.
Unfortunately, like the automotive industry did for years, telling customers what they need rather than really pushing the envelope of end-user experience and innovation, is becoming a threatening strategy.
Did you know you needed an Ipod? I didn’t but when it came I knew it definitely enhanced my experience of listening to music and never looked back. (I still have a turnable though, but different experience call for different products) Today the information revolution led by technology and the ready to download content on a 24/365 schedule makes the end user in charge of the messaging they want to let in. just remember that “The customer isn’t a moron, it is your wife” to quote David Ogilvy.