As I write this essay on October 23, unlike the pundits on cable TV, or the print pundits known as columnists, I don’t know who will be elected president. But at this juncture I know two things:
- It doesn’t look good for Ms Harris. Her once former lead over the former president has vanished, and in some swing states she now trails Mr. Trump. However, the race is so close, a swing of one percentage point to either candidate can result in an Electoral College landslide.
- But there’s one thing that I know for certain. Despite what I consider her running a faulty campaign, one facet of it has provided a valuable lesson for PR practitioners. It is in the use of endorsers.
During many past elections, boldface name entertainers have endorsed the Democratic candidate for president. But it didn’t help Al Gore, John Kerry or Hillary Clinton, all of whom lost to the less-endorsed GOP candidates.
That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve always believed that endorsements don’t sway people on how to vote, and that is also true of the endorsers people in our business use
But I can understand why political candidates want endorsements; even though history shows they don’t result in considerable votes. They can encourage people to donate money that can be used by the campaign.
Then there are the not-so-boldface names that PR practitioners use to hawk products by arranging interviews
Let’s use football great Peyton Manning as an example. He has endorsed so many different products that you can’t keep up with them without a Dun & Bradstreet spreadsheet. Does any would-be consumer believe that Manning knows why the products he endorses should be bought instead of a product endorsed by another football great, Tom Brady? If you think either of them can honestly say why the products they endorse are better than products endorsed by other athletes, I have a football stadium I’m willing to sell, and it’s the best football stadium money can buy.
I’ve always believed that using a celebrity as a product hawker didn’t help clients
The usual interview would go something like, “So and so is a representative of XYZ Company,” and then delve into what the endorser is doing now, resulting in an interview without the benefits of the product. But many PR practitioners still automatically suggest athletes and other boldface names, because it’s easy to arrange interviews with celebrities.
Sometimes it made sense to use a celebrity for a promotion—I used Olympians to promote a client’s Olympic tie-in; a former all-star baseball player to promote Gillette’s all-star fan voting program. And sometimes, despite my advice not to use a celebrity, a client would say, “I want an athlete.”
But when I had my druthers, I would have a spokesperson who was a natural fit for the product
A few examples:
- For a health-related client: I used a physiologist to explain the workings of the human body.
- For a medical-related client, I used a cardiac specialist to explain how to keep a person’s heart healthy.
- For a manufacturer of vitamins, I used vitamin researchers to explain how vitamins work.
- For a National Basketball Association promotion, I used an NBA pioneer to talk about how the game has evolved through the years.
- For an educational program, I used a former New York City Mayor, who was also a school teacher.
All of them had one thing in common: Because they were a natural fit, it made it easier for interviewers to include talking points in their stories.
This brings us to the use of endorsers by Kamala Harris
Ms. Harris has been endorsed by some of the biggest names in show business. But she campaigns with former Rep. Liz Chaney, a natural fit for a political campaign. Because of her background as a very conservative Republican who was part of the GOP House leadership, her message, asking anti-Trump voters to cast a ballot for Ms Harris, is much more powerful than if an entertainer, no matter how popular, would ask for a voter to vote for a certain candidate.
In my opinion, the more natural fit that a spokesperson is for a product, the more powerful the message
Our business is known for people stealing other’s ideas. In this case, when deciding on a spokesperson, don’t hesitate to use the natural fit model.
