The self proclaimed capital of Capitalism goes to elections next month and I cannot but help to analyze the paradox faced by the country which has conditioned its citizens to the frivolousness of its own capitalistic thinking.
The campaign holds up the “sleaziest brand” of the century and comes up with the most mundane media strategy of creating controversies through “sex lies and videotape” to generate eyeballs (television ratings) and social media discussions. For the lack of any creative energy the communication strategy is a straightforward repetition for an “easy sleazy” brand recall. And in spite of such a nagging media presence when the going gets tough and the brand begins to feel insecure it creates the most childish diversion through a two pronged defense strategy of “counter malice” and a “continuous whine”. Not to mention the constant interruptions, but then like I mentioned earlier this is a part of the capitalistic upbringing.
Now, now let’s not get carried away under the wave of capitalism and attribute some credit to the public for checking on the brand’s quality. We use the most modern technologies to analyze the performance of such an “X rated brand” and Voilà, it’s not a surprise, the brand is being talked about not just in the political world but across all the segments, entertainment world, news channels, corporate world, academia, social media and even the Tupperware parties. Now this is what a majority of marketing campaigns aspire, any publicity is favorable to no publicity. So, with a marketing mindset if a “Brand XXX” is so much talked about, even if unfavorably, a percentage of users are willing to give it a try, if nothing maybe just out of curiosity. And, the statistics are much higher than you and I would like to believe.
In fact, many marketeers will agree with me that an appalling number of companies have made a fortune selling sub-standard products like the 'wonder-mop' that don’t work in reality but have been sold in large numbers through such a repetitive and/or controversy driven campaigns. In a capitalistic world money needs to circulate, the more the companies make people spend, the better the country’s economy performs.
This is United States of America’s moment of truth as the citizens vote their new brand of leadership, the outcome of these elections will tell us how the majority of Americans think. Are they conditioned to think like the "Capitalistic Brand Rhetoric" that I have outlined above or do they have the depth of reason and are able to see through that they are subjected to an extreme form of "Media Sensationalism". I do hope for the latter.
