4 - George W. Bush

Summary

FusionBrand, a consultancy that claims Coca-Cola and Hitachi among its clients, tantalized its online readers with a short piece in February 2006 called “George W. Bush, Branding Guru?” in which company executive Nick Wreden attributed Bush’s electoral triumphs to “superlative branding skills.”

Wreden wrote,

Bush and his advisors understood that he could have never been elected as an ordinary candidate. He had run three businesses into the ground, and was associated with shady stock deals such as Harkin Energy. He slipped into the “champagne unit” of the Texas Air National Guard at a time when his peers were being drafted and dying in Vietnam…. He was governor of a state that was at the bottom of the rankings in education, healthcare and literacy. His verbal mistakes were – and are – legendary. So Karl Rove, one of the most brilliant political operatives ever, re-packaged Bush as a brand. Instead of a Yale graduate who was a scion of a blue-blood Connecticut family, Bush was presented as a straight-shooting Texan. Instead of showing off his 10,000 square-foot house on an estate that is larger than the Kennedy and Kerry compounds combined, Bush told everyone he lived on a ranch. Instead of defending his being the only presidential candidate ever convicted of a felony (drunk driving), Bush shifted the debate to President Clinton’s adultery. While hobnobbing with Enron CEO Ken Lay, indicted Tom DeLay and influence-peddler Jack Abramoff, who has pled guilty to bribery of top government officials, Bush adroitly positioned himself as a drugstore, truck-driving man.

The Bush brand lessons were, said Wreden, the power of strong and positive visuals, consistent messaging, adroit naming, and “branding the base” – focusing sharply on core supporters and contributors. “Bush the brand guru” provoked a lively online discussion. “Stick to business issues,” retorted one poster. “This piece is nothing more than your political rant couched (not so subtlety) as a study in branding.” Another poster objected, “Excuse me fellas – since when has propaganda become branding? Good branding is what happens when a company (or person) does everything else right – and does it consistently. Bush’s propaganda is finally catching up with him…. It’s a modern media savvy version of ‘the big lie.’”