Democrats need a flanker brand

Finding a way to win in red states is of critical importance to Democrats because of the structural advantages that the senate and electoral college give to rural areas. Democrats can — and do — run candidates in rural states whose actual policies appeal to local voters. But these candidates usually get crushed at the polls because many voters who agree with the local Democrat on specific issues see Democrats generally as a bunch of liberal elites who hate them and who want to impose extreme left policies on them. Even many red-state voters who are positively disposed to more liberal economic policies still see Democrats are “them” not “us.”

In marketing speak, when it comes to red-state voters, local Democratic candidates have a branding problem rather than a product problem — but it’s a problem that has a known solution in the commercial marketplace: Create a flanker brand.

Consider for example, Levi’s attempt in the early 1980s to launch a line of men’s business suits. The products failed miserably, not because people thought there was anything wrong with the suits themselves, but because they would be embarrassed to wear a suit from Levi’s. Levi’s learned from this debacle in two ways. First, the company created a new line of clothing that was business casual, rather than formal business suits, so the new line was only moderately different from their existing products. But even if people liked the actual clothing, they still felt uncomfortable wearing “Levi’s” to work. So, Levi’s created a flanker brand, “Dockers,” and the rest is history.

To win in red states, Democrats need a flanker brand.

The timid version of this idea would use a name that included the word “Democrat,” along the lines of the term “progressive Democrat,” only with very different politics, a clearer definition of what the term means, and a sharper distinction between the new brand and the main Democratic party. The goal would be to create and aggressively promote a social identity around the new brand, so that being a “such-and-such” Democrat meant something different from just being a Democrat.

A more powerful, but also riskier, approach would be to pick a name for this brand that didn’t include the word “Democrat.”

The story of DeWalt is relevant here. Black and Decker used to have two brands: Black and Decker, which is for doing occasional projects around the house, and a flanker brand called “Black and Decker Professional” for use on construction sites. Construction workers, however, were proud of their skills and identity, and didn’t want to use the same tools as suburban homeowners. Simply adding the word “Professional” to the tools wasn’t enough to get actual professionals to buy them.  So Black and Decker changed the name of the flanker brand tools to “DeWalt” and changed the color to yellow — yet made no changes to the actual mechanics of the tools. DeWalt became the most-trusted, best-selling tools in their class.

For voters, choosing a party is very much about identity. What does it mean to be a Democrat or a Republican? Who do I want to be? How do I want other people to see me?

It might be the case that to create a new symbolic identity for the flanker brand, it would need to have a distinct name and other trappings of an independent group. The goal would not be to deceive voters about the group’s connection to the Democratic party, but rather to allow red state voters to have a different emotional reaction to the new brand. For example, it is no secret that Chevy and Cadillac are both made by General Motors, but each brand has a largely independent identity in the mind of consumers.

Of course, there would be a big debate between Democrats and Republicans over whether the new group is really something different, or just progressive Democrats in disguise. But that debate would help publicize the new brand. Democrats don’t need 100 percent of voters to accept the their positioning for the new flanker brand — just enough people to find it attractive that Democrats can start winning some elections in red states.

What might this new flanker brand look like? There’s a large number of voters who are centrist to center-right on social issues, yet lean left on economic issues. I’ll can call these voters “soft-populist” to distinguish them from more “hard-populist” voters who are energized by, among other things, racist rhetoric. These soft-populist voters are a perfect target market for a new Democratic flanker brand. This soft-populist group is vastly larger than its mirror image libertarian group, who are liberal on social issues yet more conservative on economic issues. Many of these soft populists voted for Trump, yet don’t have a natural home in a Republican party that wants more tax cuts for the rich, cuts to social programs, and an end to Obama care.

Democrats have accurately argued for years to these soft-populists that the government has a lot of influence over the kinds of economic policy issues they agree with the Democrats on, yet relatively little influence over the culture war issues they agree with the Republicans on. So, when choosing a government, it makes sense to vote Democratic. Unfortunately, culture war issues resonate with people’s sense of identity in a way that economic issues do not.

As all politics have increasingly become identity politics, the Republicans have been able to win this segment’s votes. A Democratic flanker brand that was liberal on economic issues yet center-right on key hot-button social issues, would give these voters what they actually want. And as any marketer will tell you, giving the customer what they want is a really powerful thing.

The main problem with introducing a new flanker brand is that it would harm party unity. But that problem could be managed by educating all concerned about the core principles we all have in common, and that Republicans do not share. 

This issue is as old as political parties themselves. But changes such as the new media landscape suggest that we need to approach it in new ways.

Aaron Ahuvia, Ph.D., is a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and is one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of brand love and on the psychology of happiness. He was ranked 22 in the world for research impact in consumer behavior.