Election day was Tuesday this week, and there is much in the news about winning and losing – what caused one candidate to win, and another to lose.
I am a marketer by background so I’m always interested in the factors that cause a person to choose one product or service option over other options, and on election days choose one candidate over other candidates.
From a marketing viewpoint, we could think of politicians as “products” that offer benefits to their customers, the voters, and the voters “purchase” their preferred products (politicians) with their votes.
And we could say that the politician who wins an election over his or her opponent in a sense wins the market share battle (wins a greater percentage of the total votes).
In the same way, state ballot propositions that propose various changes in state laws can also be considered “products” to be chosen by each voting citizen in that state with a yes vote, or rejected with a no vote.
And again, whichever proposition wins the greater percentage of votes, yeses or nos, wins the market share battle.
Of course, analyzing everything that happened on Tuesday in terms of “market share” wins or losses related to candidates or ballot propositions that specifically impact pro-life issues is well beyond the scope of this short article.
However, I think I’m on safe ground to conclude based on Tuesday’s election results that from a political standpoint the “benefits” of the pro-life product did not resonate strongly with the majority of voters in many states, even in states that lean politically conservative.
For example, in conservative Kentucky, the following proposed amendment to the state constitution was rejected by a majority of voters: “To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.”
Clearly, there is something about the pro-life “product” that is not resonating with voters, but does losing the market share battle at the ballot box mean the pro-abortion product is objectively better than the pro-life product?
Of course not.
Any more than a product or service winning the market share battle against competing alternatives in the market place means it is objectively the best product or service.
But while it may not be true that the objectively best product or service always wins the market share battle, it is very often true that the best marketing (the combination of product, price, distribution, advertising/promotion) wins the market share battle.
I think the same could be said of politicians and ballot propositions – whichever candidate or proposition wins at marketing by resonating most powerfully in the mind of the majority of consumers, the voters, wins the day on election day.
If it’s true that marketing wins elections, then based on what happened on Tuesday relative to ballot choices that impact pro-life, I think it’s fair to say within the pro-life community that, “Houston, we have a marketing problem.”
To be continued next week…
This article was published in Heroic Media‘s weekly newsletter