Politics, Brands, and Slogans – Don’t Get Snagged by The Competition

Politics is totally about brands and slogans.

Whatever side you fall into, Democrat or Republican or elsewhere, you want to get your message out there to the people you want to reach. When you create slogans and taglines they become the meaning that citizens gravitate to because of their beliefs, their values. Something to inspire them and associate with their candidate.

The Obama campaign had “Yes We Can” (also used by Bob the Builder in animated TV shows). George W. Bush had “Compassionate Conservatism”, whatever that really means. And Hilary Clinton had “Forward together”. But the goal in all these cases was to connect the brand of the candidate with the audience to shape meaning for them and garner their support with all the issues and messages that are highlighted. You want to energize your “team” (yes political parties are like teams), to get your people cheering, supporting you, and voting for you.

The power of slogans and taglines is about owning the message.

The essential thing about politics and campaigns is they are driven by messaging and visuals that symbolize all the meaning the candidates put behind them. Whether you were supporting Bernie or Elizabeth Warren in the primaries they embodied, by their slogans and actions, all the things you, as a supporter, wanted to believe in. In campaigns you have a very limited opportunity to sell your message, establish meaning, and get an audience, the voters, to pay attention.

The Obama campaign had “Yes We Can” (also used by Bob the Builder in animated TV shows). George W. Bush had “Compassionate Conservatism” whatever that really means.

This is where Trump’s highly targeted campaign messages are tied into digital symbols, bumper stickers, hats, and yard signs to bring to life the campaign and its meaning. The short slogan that the Trump campaign created in 2016, “Make America Great Again” was updated to “Keep America Great”: shorter, self-crediting, and saying we are going to lose this if you don’t vote for us.

They printed stickers and produced t-shirts and custom embroidered hats by the ton you can buy online, of course. But there’s one thing they missed in the process – they did not get the website URL “KeepAmericaGreat.com” or all the other variations!

Control the message everywhere or someone else will snag it.

The Biden campaign, or some clever young folks working for them, noticed this right away and grabbed the URL “keepamericagreat.com”. The sudden confusion of the conflicting positioning of this website, which is obviously not supportive of Trump, was immediately evident and if nothing else was an extremely annoying gaff for the Trump campaign. Even though they promote this brand and slogan through all other media online including purchasing pay per click ads by the ton, when you type in the slogan, no matter what, the first thing that appears after a paid ad is the KeepAmericaGreat.com website. This happens because the Google algorithm sees this as the most “relevant” organic (unpaid) search term. You can only imagine what the Democrats and the Biden campaign have put on this site.

Always make sure you can own your brand message.

So, branding, taglines, and slogans are all about messaging and building meaning. Just make sure whatever you do in your corporate and business branding you truly own the message online and through trademark usage. It’s way too expensive and painful if you don’t.

• Find out ASAP if you can actually acquire the URL by searching on GoDaddy or other sites. This is the fundamental place to make sure you can actually acquire and use the name or slogan.

• Do a preliminary search on the US Patent and Trademark website to establish availability (https://www.uspto.gov/trademark and then initiate the trademark process for the name or tagline, or contact a lawyer who can help you.

• Make sure when you do a Google search that no one else is using any variations that could have a negative impact on your brand. Some simple variations can have dramatically different uses.