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Let me begin by stating that I do not consider myself a particularly political person. I do vote and I have political opinions, but I’m not the type to turn red or have my blood pressure skyrocket if someone should disagree with my views. That said, the following discussion may appear at face value to be political commentary. For those of you who are “political,” I stress that this article is about marketing, and politics is only brought up as a “case in point” example.
If your blood pressure tops out, I claim no responsibility.
So, here we go…
Much has been circulating of late about President Obama’s job performance and approval ratings. I think what makes the dialogue particularly interesting is the contrast in popular opinion from Inauguration Day to now.
In a January 20, 2009, article entitled Barack Obama Faces Historically High Expectations as President U.S. News & World Report reported Gallup Poll findings showing that 83% of Americans approved of President Obama in his transition from President-elect to the position of Head Honcho. The article also pointed out 72% of Americans believed then that the nation would be better off at the end of his first term, and 62% of Americans expected him to be an outstanding or above-average president.
Fast forward to October 1, 2010, and we see a very different picture. Gallup today reports that only 47% of Americans approve of the job that Barack Obama is doing as president, and just last Friday CNN reported 56% of Americans feel Obama has “fallen short of their expectations.”
So, Class, can anyone point out today’s “word of the day?” How about a hint? It’s expectations.
From a purely marketing perspective I think Obama’s greatest mistake was setting expectations too high. I call it the “locks on the bathroom doors and McDonald’s in the lunchroom” situation.
Now that may sound odd to many of you, but hear me out. At RHS (at least in my tenure), it was not uncommon for students to run for student government positions on platforms of promises for things over which they had little or no control.
For example, the doors it the girls’ bathrooms never seemed to have working locks… most likely because students were always breaking them. Sure, the school replaced them a time or two, but after doling out cash a couple of times I think the powers that be decided it was a lost cause and permanently redirected funds elsewhere.
Also, it was a highly popular campaign promise to assure the student body that McDonald’s would be served in the cafeteria, which sounded great to the masses but couldn’t realistically be accomplished by a 17 year old SGA president.
So what did Obama promise? (Politicals, at this point you might want to have a paper sack handy just in case you need to inhale/exhale a few times.)
Let’s see, he promised to end the war in Iraq AND get health insurance for every American AND fix the economy AND invest more in education and early childhood programs AND close Gitmo AND figure out immigration AND reduce our dependence on foreign oil AND go back to the moon or somewhere even awesome-r in space AND increase taxes for the wealthy AND cut health insurance premiums AND reduce taxes for small businesses AND expand tax credits for the working poor AND cut government spending AND fix the housing market AND increase minority access to capital AND fund more afterschool programs AND require 401k enrollment AND expand Medicaid AND modernize health records systems AND increase HIV/AIDS education, research and treatment funding AND do a lot of good things for people with disabilities AND expand and improve the Veterans Administration AND support domestic violence programs AND fund debt cancellation for indebted poor countries AND expand the size of the Army AND make us a greener nation AND end military use of Stop Loss AND improve emergency preparedness AND reform lobbying laws AND increase cancer research funding AND end earmarks and pork barrel projects AND reform No Child Left Behind AND recruit more teachers AND improve graduation rates AND create a college football playoff system AND expand coverage for phone and broadband services AND increase the minimum wage AND increase arts education AND restore New Orleans AND update copyright and patent laws AND toughen discrimination laws AND communicate with the nation more AND reform Amtrak AND reinstate stem cell research AND make Al Gore king of everything relevant to global warming AND… well, I think I can stop there.*
Now, I am not indicating that all of this is bad stuff. The point, rather, is that he promised to do A LOT… a lot for 1 guy to accomplish in 4 years with a congress that could easily be named the nation’s most dysfunctional organization. And what he promised was not all small stuff. Heck, I’m thinking he might as well have added in locks in RHS’s girls’ bathrooms. He surely didn’t miss much else.
I hope I’m making it clear that President Obama set himself up for failure by overpromising and creating unrealistic expectations for himself. Forget that he’s accomplished some of it and that much of it is still in the works. I think people—people who really should have been rational enough to realize that only so much can realistically be expected from the office of the President—bought into a milk and honey-type dream believing Obama could probably move mountains, too.
So, if you’ve made it this far through my pontification (A) I’m amazed and (B) you deserve a prize. Here’s the meat and potatoes for how this all relates to marketing.
Promise too much and it’ll come back to bite you… see El Presidente’s ratings variance above.
Still, promise too little and you might not get a chance to even try to get a customer’s business.
To demonstrate, here’s a real life example on the other end of the expectation spectrum. In the last year or so, Brian and I discovered a new restaurant in the neighboring town of West Monroe. The place had a half-way interesting name, but everything intriguing about the place stopped there. The logo looked like something an 8th grader would make in the Paint application on a PC. Their sign had to be just enough to meet minimum code requirements. The building was brand new, but it was one of those tin and brick things that could as easily house an auto parts store as it could a cheap restaurant.
Did we ever eat there? Nope. The exterior screamed, “We are so not putting our full effort into this endeavor,” so much so that the food had to be just as bland and uncreative and half done as their exterior and image. But was that assumption correct? Who knows? And we won’t ever be able to find out because the place is already out of business. Shocking, I know.
In short, consumer expectations are a tricky thing. No matter what you’re selling, you’ve got to promise enough to entice and bring people in, but not so much as to ensure disappointment.
~Sarah, Emogen marketer
*Admittedly, I didn't know all of the President's goals off the top of my head. Help was received from The St. Petersburg Times's "Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises" at PolitFact.com.
