Earlier this year, TopRight commissioned a survey to try to get a better understanding of how consumers would compare the attributes of the 2008 Presidential candidates, Hilary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama, to well-known consumer brands.  Our hypothesis was that voters probably have a pretty good handle on what each of the candidates stand for on political issues, but that they may not be consciously tapped into all of the functional and emotional benefits embodied by each candidate.  

Our approach was to select well-known brands across several consumer categories (e.g. Cereal, Beer, Coffee,  Apparel, Technology, etc.) and then ask the consumer to “vote” on which brand in each category best represented the attributes of the Presidential candidate.  For each case, we developed full brand architectures for the brands in a category and this allowed us to map specific attributes, functional benefits and emotional benefits back to each candidate.

To request a copy of the topline findings and results just send us an email.

What started out as a quick and fun survey, turned out to be a real phenomenon!  We were overwhelmed with the response on the very first day of running the survey – receiving hundreds of emails with feedback from enthusiastic participants.  We were also surprised by how many people took the survey (n= nearly 10,000!).  In some cases the results were pretty much what we expected.  For example, see the brand map for the Cereal Category.  In other instances,  there were some interesting surprises.  For example, Hilary Clinton (Democrat) and John McCain (Republican) are actually much more closely aligned  and overlap on more brands than Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.  We were also surprised by how many of the consumers we surveyed were still undecided – with over 30% of the respondents still sitting on the fence!  We’re in for an exciting campaign for those undecided voters through November 2008…

All in all, we had a lot of fun with this survey and we enjoyed demonstrating how the science of marketing can be applied to the political process!   Happy voting!

Last year’s sleeper hit, the Modern Atlanta Home Tour has been broadened and deepened this year. Sorry for the late notice, but it’s today and the rest of the weekend. It is not only a “modern” home tour, but also a fashion show, a building seminar, a lecture series, and more.

Nevermind the word “modern” is an undefined, often divisive word—much like the ridiculous “green” or “sustainable” that has been co-opted by industry. What’s important here is this year’s tour is a shining example of what a groundswell of interest and grassroots volunteerism can create.

Having worked on the largest modernism show ever installed in the United States, I can tell you modernism means different things to different people—even within the same culture in the same time period. From a marketer’s perspective, though, modernism seems to attract a highly segmented group of followers.

What I like about this year’s show is its brand extension and its outreach to new segments. Let’s see if Modern-Atlanta can pull off an Apple and grow by 50% in a year. Help them out—GO ON THE TOUR. It’s worth it!

-Joe