Category: Perspectives

Re-branding is a form of group therapy that every organization confronts as it evolves.

In addition to being celebrated with cake, anniversaries and birthdays typically mark a time of reflection. A review of what has been. A reckoning of what is still ahead.
Coincident with its 15th anniversary, Navigator is moving from its rather elegant headquarters in an iconic heritage building to expanded premises in the heart of Toronto’s financial district.

That pending change in our physical space got us thinking about change in a broader context. Specifically, how could we better reflect Navigator’s growth in size, scope and influence in our corporate brand?

To be clear, the subsequent descent into the rabbit hole of logos, typefaces and templates is hardly unique to Navigator. It’s a process that all companies undertake at some point in their history: an attempt to visually represent a corporate identity that has evolved over time.

It’s much more than a question of cosmetic surgery — eliminating a few lines, tweaking a feature or two and presenting a smooth new face.

This is complex stuff. In fact, it’s close to being a form of corporate group therapy. After all, everyone has ideas about what matters most and how to best express the values and the essence of an organization.

The exercise is not made easier by the fact it also involves synthesizing all the bits of branding that have evolved in an ad hoc way. Those who have contributed the most to that end result are often the most reluctant to relinquish the hodgepodge of the past.

Aesthetics inform this process, of course. But there’s also an essential strategic significance. In the information age, branding and logos are imperative for resonant communication across a number of internal and external channels and platforms.

For Navigator, as for other companies, the greatest challenge lay in matching our look to our position line: ‘When You Can’t Afford To Lose.’ From the outset, our guiding principle was to reflect that in our updated look.

Navigator will roll out its new look — and its new space — over the next few months. And on the occasion of our anniversary, we are renewed, refreshed, and always grateful for a remarkable 15 years.

Let us eat cake.

French author Marcel Proust is famous for his gentle remembrance of things past, his eponymous character-revealing questionnaireﾅ and his love of madeleine cookies.
Rick Mercer, host of the Rick Mercer Report on CBC TV, on the other hand, is famous for his sharp wit, his eloquent indignation and his love for Newfoundalnd. Gentlemen…..
 

 
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
On a dock without a deadline in sight.
 
2. What is your greatest fear?
Wrongfully convicted.
 
3. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Procrastination.
 
4. 4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Chronic tardiness.
 
5. Which living person do you most admire?
Tony Clement.
 
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
Travel.
 
7. What is your current state of mind?
On-the-spot questionnaire-related anxiety.
 
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Patience.
 
9. On what occasion do you lie?
See question 5.
 
10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Too tall.
 
11. What is the quality you most like in a person?
Have you seen my act?
 
12. What is the quality you most like in a person?
Honesty and a filthy mouth.
 
13. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Sent from my Blackberry wireless handheld.
 
14. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Laughing.
 
15. When and where were you happiest?
Performing a drum solo in a grade eight school assembly.
 
16. Which talent would you most like to have?
To be a song and dance man. I am in awe of the triple threat.
 
17. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I can’t sing.
 
18. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Gainful employment.

How to show without telling in advertising

Neuromarketing sounds big, bad and evil, but it’s really quite simple. Perhaps it’s best described as marketing to our subconscious.

Bud Light uses humor. That’s neuromarketing. Chevy trucks use visualization — ‘Like a rock.’ That’s neuromarketing.

Imagine you’re hiking and you see something brown, thin, and long in your path. Instinctively you jump back before your conscious brain has had time to process whether the thing is a dangerous snake or a harmless stick. Your subconscious brain, the same brain that jerks your finger back off a hot skillet before you can process it as a danger, ‘overrode’ your other sensations.

Marketing to that ultra-powerful subconscious brain is neuromarketing. How does such marketing relate to politics? Is it evil? Does it ‘cheat’ or somehow trick the voter? No way. Another term for it might simply be ‘good advertising.’

The idea of neuromarketing is that the use of a base emotional appeal — love, fear, humor, anger — will be more effective than a factual appeal. It suggests that visuals are more readily accepted by the subconscious than words.

Is that new? Well, didn’t we hear as children that one picture is worth a thousand words? That’s neuromarketing.

While it might surprise some, we’re really not talking about a new concept in politics. Neuromarketing is a tactic that has been in use in some form for many cycles now, and my firm has applied the basic principles behind it on ad campaigns dating back more than a decade.

Let’s start with an example from 2004: We produced an ad for the reelection campaign of George W. Bush. There were zero spoken words in it. It showed a powerful static shot of a rock being pounded by ocean waves. The rock never moved, never wavered. After thirty seconds, a simple graphic with three words appeared, ‘Peace through strength.’ The Bush campaign debated the approach, but never chose to use it. That one ad, though, was why the McCain presidential campaign said that they hired us to head their ad team four years later.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was up for reelection in California in 2006. It’s easy to forget that, when that campaign began, he was behind by double digits to the generic Democrat. The theme of the campaign was whether voters wanted to go back to the days of the previously recalled governor, Gray Davis, or to continue Schwarzenegger’s reforms.

Neuromarketing is not magic. It’s not cheating. It’s simply marketing to people in a way that’s most effective. Use pictures. Use humor. Use comfort. Use the same emotions that marketers use each day to tell us about automobiles, beer and banks.

Traditional marketing would have suggested that we use detail, numbers, facts and figures to prove we were better off under the new governor. The use of neuromarketing, however, provided a more powerful way to message that backward-or-forward choice to voters. We simply ran all of our advertising visuals that referred to our opponent backward. Birds flew backward; cars drove backward; people walked backward.

Bob Garfield, the advertising critic from Advertising Age, wrote, ‘Between now and November, Schwarzenegger can get caught groping Miss Teen Fresno, the California Republican Party can make Barry Bonds its chairman and President Bush can declare war on Oregon. Arnold is still a lock.’ That’s neuromarketing.

Sonny Perdue, a relatively unknown former Democrat, ran in 2002 as a Republican for governor of Georgia. He had two well-known primary opponents and an immensely popular and well-funded general election opponent in incumbent Gov. Roy Barnes. His message was seemingly simple, but unusual: the governor had become a monarch, autocratically ruling the state and ignoring the people. That would be tough to prove with facts and figures.

As a visual, though, it proved arresting. A giant rat named ‘King Roy,’ as tall as Atlanta’s skyscrapers, was soon seen in a campaign film, rampaging through Georgia and doing as he wished. It caught fire. Sonny Perdue won the primary without a runoff and became a two-term governor of Georgia.

Neuromarketing is not magic. It’s not cheating. It’s simply marketing to people in a way that’s most effective. Use pictures. Use humor. Use comfort. Use the same emotions that marketers use each day to tell us about automobiles, beer and banks.

Use your brain. That’s Neuromarketing.

Fred Davis is chairman and founder of Strategic Perception Inc., a Republican media firm.

Reprinted with permission from Campaigns & Elections, August 18 2014. Featured artwork was not included in the original article.

As a guest of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, I was in the country for the unexpected re-election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Even Mr. Netanyahu’s closest strategists were surprised: The night of the election, we were joined at dinner by his campaign manager, Aron Shaviv. Although he has an international reputation for winning election campaigns for centre-right candidates, as we chatted over dinner even he failed to realize how resonant was Mr. Netanyahu’s eleventh-hour call to action.

The problem, he said, was that Likud voters had been tempted by a ‘package deal’ — they believed they could vote for a centrist party within a potential right-wing coalition but still get Mr. Netanyahu as the prime minister.

Still, the decision to scare Israelis into voting — and voting for him — by casting Arab voters as a threat, stirred an international controversy. Such tactics may be expedient in the short-term, but they can also carry a steep price.

Now, as efforts to build a coalition government get underway in Israel, the extent to which Mr. Netanyahu’s strategy has poisoned his own chalice, remains to be seen.

After a career that has spanned provincial and federal politics, minority and majority governments, and an impressive range of cabinet portfolios, the Honourable John Baird surprised many Canadians — and maybe even the Prime Minister — when he resigned in early February. Navigator Managing Principal Will Stewart sat down for a conversation with his former boss — and long-time friend

 
You’ve just retired as Minister of Foreign Affairs. What got you interested in politics in the first place?

I think I was always interested in watching the news or reading the paper, but in Grade 7 I had a teacher who was very political and ran for the nomination when I was in Grade 8. That was the beginning of my interest. I became even more interested in Grade 9.
 
Then you went off to university. I understand you were active in politics around a Liberal campaign by former Ontario premier David Peterson?
Yes, two friends and I went to protest David Peterson, who was campaigning for the local Liberal candidate. This candidate was running against a senior cabinet minister who wasn’t going anywhere. His name was Peter Milliken. We were handing out copies of a Globe and Mail editorial basically going after the Liberals for saying that social programs would disappear under free trade. Peterson was appearing at a public mall so we thought it was reasonable to approach him. I tried to approach him to question him about this, and the OPP took me away.
 
Was that your first real campaign?

Not really, I had already worked on campaigns and was president of the youth wing of the party.
 
You first ran for office when you were 25 in Nepean. The first time with your name on the sign. What led you to that?
I think I wanted to run provincially since I was about 14. The first time I actually thought about running was for about three hours in the 1990 election, but I didn’t think I could win so I thought maybe I had better finish university. That being said, I had always wanted to run provincially in that riding and I was uncomfortable with my ambition.
So, I resigned from the executive in the summer of 1994 and started a run for the nomination, sold a lot of memberships, and I eventually got the nomination.

 
That was a contested nomination as well, was it not?
We didn’t even have a computer in my headquarters when I first ran. We had no social media. Without the Internet, we had to physically send around 4,000 videotapes because that’s how those things were done. And that was considered cutting edge.
 
How has technology changed campaigns?
We certainly spend a lot more money now. We spend more time and effort on social media than we ever did on advertising in the Nepean newspaper. It’s much more professional, too. My first campaign was entirely staffed by volunteers where, with my last campaign, we even paid someone to ID the voters’ list before the election was called. So it’s much more professionalized now, even at that riding level.
 
The volunteers who came in and manned the phones and stuffed the envelopes for every campaign since Diefenbaker, are they still around?
The term ‘activism’ is deceptively sensational. Institutions are always consulting with management. And being engaged and active isn’t really ‘activism.’
A lot of the people who volunteered 20 years ago when I started just aren’t around, let alone active in the party anymore. That, and the fact you just don’t use envelopes anymore — other than for fundraising letters. Instead, you correspond with emails and social media.
 
How has technology changed the relationship between politicians and their constituents?
Well, you can get in touch with a lot more people, a lot quicker and at a much lower cost. At the same time, though, it’s not as personal as getting a letter.
 
What do you consider to be your biggest successes at the provincial political level, before you made the switch to federal politics?
Learning the ropes. I grew a lot. I learned how to set priorities and get things done. When you make mistakes as a provincial parliamentary assistant, fewer people see it — certainly as compared to being a cabinet minister in Ottawa. There’s a smaller press gallery. There’s not as much focus, not as much attention.
 
How did your time as a backbencher in Ontario shape your future in politics?
I really hated being a backbencher in Opposition. Yes, you’re obviously in the House and representing your constituents. But you’re an Opposition Deputy House Leader — which I did not like. I was getting up every day to complain and criticize, rather than getting things done. Honestly, I did not find it fulfilling. When I was a parliamentary assistant in the first term you could still at least be positive and focused and get a lot of things done for your riding.
 
What are your favourite memories as a cabinet minister federally or provincially?
Federally, it was the opportunity to see and experience things that few other people have done. That ranges from walking through a slum in Mumbai, looking at a development project that Canada is supporting, or visiting a Syria refugee camp in Jordan. Ultimately, you saw people who became human giants, whether it was Malala Yousafzai or so many others who have shown remarkable and extraordinary courage.
 
You were one of the first Western leaders to visit Libya during the revolution there. What was it like in the immediate aftermath?
It was pretty surreal because Colonel Gaddafi was still alive, but he had fled. There were all sorts of people who lived across the street and who had never been inside the huge compound of buildings. Seeing his home, which U.S. President Ronald Regan had bombed in the 1980s was rather extraordinary, to say the least.
 
What about the situation in Ukraine? You were in Independence Square shortly after the fighting had stopped.
I was there before and after it began. Before, it was really extraordinary because I had government security in the middle of an anti-government protest. There were tens of thousands of people in what was, really, a revolution. There were people burning wood in oil drums to keep warm. It was an extraordinary time.
 
What do you think would most surprise people about political life? What are a few of the most common misperceptions about political life?
Well, when you’re in government you have to make dozens of decisions every single day. In Opposition, you don’t have to make decisions and you can just pick and choose what issues you will focus upon. I’ll make hundreds of decisions in a week and, just like anyone else, there’ll be times when I don’t make the right call. But if you obsess over every decision you never get anything done.
 
You get comfortable with making the wrong decision?
While I prefer to collect all the information and take a reasonable amount of time to reflect, it is not feasible to take months to make every decision. The entire government would come to a complete halt. I’d rather people criticize me for what I do than for not acting.
 
What would you say was amongst the greatest challenges you faced in your career?
The scrutiny.
 
In your everyday life? You mean grocery shopping and being recognized?
It’s funny. When you’re wearing a suit and tie people come up to you, recognize you, talk to you. If you’re in jeans and a golf shirt and a baseball cap, people tend to leave you alone.
 
Anything you’d change about your career, anything you’d do differently?
When you make hundreds of decisions every week there are obviously decisions that, if you had more information, as a Monday morning quarterback, you’d do differently. I’ve been very fortunate and (hopefully) wise on timing. Running with Mike Harris and supporting Mike Harris in the 1995 election was a good call. Working with and aligning myself with Jim Flaherty, while politically unsuccessful in the short term, I think was the right move. Then getting behind Stephen Harper and running federally, obviously that was a good call.
 
What are you most looking forward to in your new life?
I’m keen to be successful, whether it be professionally, doing non-profit work or in my personal life. I’m keen to make a contribution in all areas. I’m keen to take on a new challenge. I think it’s better to go two years too early than two minutes late. Everyone has a different clock and some people do stay on too long.

The Little Red Wagon was used to mark the 2000 launch of the Ontario’s Promise program when John Baird was provincial Minister of Children. It brought corporations, organizations, foundations and non-profit agencies together to deliver an agenda for youth development.