Making Money In Politics

Probably Not In Loose Bills

Like many people who do topical content, I'm really tired of feeling compelled to write about politics, especially Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President... but, well, when things that have never happened before happen, it's pretty much impossible to not have it sneak into your work and thoughts. Especially as it relates to marketing and advertising.

The hype du jour comes from a seeming ad lib in which the candidate either implied about the assassination of his opponent, or was alluding to the political power of Second Amendment enthusiasts. And for the purpose of this column, it doesn't really matter about our opinion of the tactic, since it achieved the goal of "earned" media -- which is to say, a carrying of the news cycle.

The fact that this doesn't seem to be translating into votes -- at least, according to the various polls and trending analysis -- doesn't seem to be having that much impact on the candidate's fund raising, which pulled in $51 million in June, and $80 million in July... but with almost none of that cash going to TV ads. According to Business Insider, the Trump campaign has even been outspent by third-party candidates Gary Johnson (Libertarian) and Jill Stein (Green).

Which leads me to wonder... well, what is the campaign spending the money on, since the single biggest expense of a presidential campaign is typically television ads?

As I write this, there are 91 days, or 13 weeks, left until the voters put this thing out of our collective misery. Historically in America, elections reach another level of hype and awareness to casual voters after Labor Day, but as you might have guessed by now, this isn't a typical election, if for no other reason that both major party principals have been very well-known public figures for decades. Minds are being made in the here and now, and media buying being what it is, it seems increasingly likely that the Trump campaign just isn't terribly concerned with reaching ad parity, at least not on television, or against the benefit of keeping campaign costs down.

This isn't without some minor and recent historical precedent. In 2004, John Kerry kept eight figures of revenue in reserve past Election Day for a legal challenge that never came, as the campaign said they were worried about a repeat of the Florida hanging chad experience. (A claim that, frankly, didn't pass the smell test, since it's not as if donors wouldn't have been energized by that news.)

But that campaign followed a typical media buying pattern, including extensive advertising in the primaries. Trump's approach has been to dominate programming, either with call-in interviews or created controversies.

And so long as we all play along -- which makes me really worry about what's coming down the pike to count as more noteworthy than what we've already seen -- it seems the candidate is content to let the Democrats control the paid air channel.

Partisan advocates note the increasing ineffectiveness of paid media, or how much social is driving the conversation now. Trump has also been highly active in banner , but I have a slightly different question to ask.

What if the entire exercise is just, well, to collect contributions... that the candidate is under no obligation to spend? Or return?

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

The Serious Business Of Real Fun

Bring The Fun

For about 10 to 15 minutes a day at my current gig, the people in my office get, well, there's no other word to describe it.

Goofy. We get seriously goofy.

We pull out Nerf guns and blaze away at each other -- having made significant personal investments of time and money in the gear we use to peg each other. A growing percentage of the office play on the foosball table, with increasingly over the top trash talk adding to the festivities. (My go-to phrase when trying to coax the ball away from an opponent, because I am of that age: "Come to Butthead.") On summer Friday afternoons when we close up shop a few hours early, I've pulled out a putter and putting green and tried to make shots from 100 feet of long hallway carpet away. This week, there's going to be a Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament, and I'm leaving out other details, because, well, this isn't a laundry list. There is, in fact, an entire committee based around Fun. It's also a continuing scandal to my children that I am a part of that group.

By Silicon Valley standards, none of this is particularly startling or over the top. We have no gaming consoles, don't use office computers for serious timewaste, and even in the most raucous of moments, you can always pop in headphones and grind away to your heart's content. Even the most distractable among us seems to be desk-bound for the vast majority of our day, and the foolishness is contained to more or less break or meal times.

But by the standards of the more traditional industry that we inhabit, all of this is kind of a big deal, and the occasional reactions that I get from people who work elsewhere tell me this isn't very common. I've also worked at a number of martech companies where this level of seeming frivolity was matched or surpasssed, but actually, not quite, because the underlying current of the place weren't, well, in any way fun.

Fun in the office is, at its core, something that comes from the top, spread by an actual fondness among groups and people, and something you just can't fake. When your CEO is speeding along to a meeting on a scooter, that might seem fun... but when they are going fast as a matter of showy athleticism or efficiency to get somewhere quicker, that kind of kills the purpose. When there's an after-work happy hour where people aren't talking about work, that's fun. When it's a frat-level test of tolerance to see who can pitch ideas while sloshed, it's not.

This all seems like something that should be obvious at an HR or leadership level, but the nature of business is that you are not always going to have the right people in those positions, or a company that's going to work out in the long run. If your top people are insecure about their role or the direction of the company, fun becomes just another way to show those problems. When they believe in the direction and are comfortable in their skin, you get heartfelt compliments on your foosball game from the execs, without a moment of snark over how much time you may have wasted in your life to get those skills. (To be honest, many, many hours. And as an aside, any marketing pro that wants to get something out of their engineering team should learn to play foosball, at least to a level of tolerable. It pays off in spades.)

So the question really isn't whether or not your company has fun at the office. Because every company claims that now, because every company knows that fun in the office is critical to reducing turnover and keeping morale up.

More accurately, it's this: how many people are faking it?

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Harry Potter And The Too Fast Payday

I've Got A Golden Cash Cow

This weekend, my wife, a very strong Harry Potter fan, went to the local book store to get an immediate copy of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child." This is, of course, the first new entry in the JK Rowling series that was one of the first great signs that Young Adult literature was going to be publishing's most lucrative segment when it launched, nearly twenty years ago. For the first time in ten years, fans of the series have a new full-length release to dig into, and my youngest grabbed it and stole off to her room for hours of reading. That's all to the good.

Based on pre-order sales, "Child" is on pace to be the top selling book of the year on the big sites that sell books in physical and digital formats. Rowling claims that this will mark the end of Potter's specific adventures, but that leaves the very large out of just continuing the series with new characters that are introduced in the book... and, well, not to quibble too much here, but Rowling didn't really write this one, either. Instead, she collaborated with playwrights Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, with the book an actual screenplay for the stage production that's currently running in London.

As a screenplay, "Child" is a quick read, without the usual heft of previous Potter works... and to be honest, I found it unsatisfying. I've defended Rowling's work as something of a modern-day Charles Dickens, who was also a massive commercial success in his day. There are entire chapters late in the series that I believe are genuinely touching and meaningful. While much of her work would have benefitted from strong editing, once the series moved away from the early bankable concept of tweens learning magic in a secret world that was analogous and parallel to the modern, universal human truths and motivations were given great insight. It's difficult to judge such things in one's lifetime, but I think the Potter books will be taught in academia as the definitive works of their time period.

"Child", on the other hand, reads like fan fiction, with past characters re-worked to generate wish fulfillment from the audience, and plot twists and holes that seem beneath the previous level of the series. It also seems like, well, a missed opportunity.

From a marketing and advertising standpoint, there's no denying that Potter fans are extremely underserved, with very little new content from Rowling for characters that the audience is clearly unwilling to let go. By showing her inclination to let others add to the canon, there are, simply, better avenues to monetize and produce than a single story. (I'm also ignoring, for the moment, the other new piece that's coming down the pike this fall, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", with new characters from the same world, but in an earlier time period. If it's the same level as "Child", we're dealing with a diminished brand.)

What Potter fans really want is the certainty of more, and depth, rather than one-off stunts. Imagine if Rowling gave the green light to a long-form series (say, on Netflix or HBO), and hired a top-flight showrunner. You could easily have a multi-tiered audience approach, with a more youth-oriented approach for a new generation of students, or in a different home country, and something more dark and adult for the generation that's now 20 years past Young Adult themes. If you are concerned about the cost in re special effects, explore animation, or just move more effects off screen. Potter fans want more from these characters, rather than the latest in CGI.

It seems amazing to think that one of the world's most successful book and movie properties is being underserved, or making the wrong choices in long-term brand building. And I could easily be wrong about this, especially if "Child" has deeper sales penetration than just the existing audience. But having read through it, I have my doubts that it's going to stay in the spotlight for more than a couple of weeks. Or that it will force too many changes in the Potter theme parks.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.