Harris v. Trump: When brand gets personal
In this episode of The CMO Show, Mark is joined by Emma Webster, Director at Hawker Britton Group.
There are approximately 100 days to go until the US presidential election and candidates have only just been announced. It’s shaping up to be a widely controversial popularity contest.
So what will cut through, and how might it be done? What types of personalities cut through the media, and how does this smart thinking attract audience attention?
Personal brand is how you want people to see you, and if used well, it can drive reputation - or shoot it down instead.
Emma Webster, Director at Hawker Britton Group, has her own insights into personal branding from the cut-throat world of politics.
"So much of politics is personal brand. When we go to the ballot box and vote, some of us are looking at policy and what different political parties stand for.”
“But, overwhelmingly, and perhaps in conjunction with policy, people are looking at the people, who they are, what they represent.”
Whilst politicians might attempt to keep their personal brand in check, there is still a struggle when it comes to authenticity.
“People are smarter than others give them credit for. If a politician stands up and they’re not authentic, people just know straight away.”
“I think that’s where this disconnect from the public comes from, or why, particularly in Australia, people don’t like politicians. They’re not trusted.”
Emma delves into the ins and outs of how to be a leader aligned with their personal values, and uses the US election as a springboard for lessons on personal brand.
Tune in now.
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Credits
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The CMO Show Production Team
Producer - Pamela Obeid
Audio Engineers – Ed Cheng & Daniel Marr
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Transcript:
Mark Jones
Hello, and welcome to The CMO Show. My name is Mark Jones. It is great to have you with us. The CMO Show is a podcast produced for and by marketing leaders by Impact Institute, and proudly supported by Adobe.
Now, if you look on any social channel, if you look in any source of media, there really is only one global story at the moment, and of course, it's the US elections. And the team and I here at Impact Institute, we were just looking at this incredible news in the past week, in fact, past couple of weeks when we think about what's been going on with the Democrats, and of course, Joe Biden handing over the reign to Kamala Harris. The question for us as marketers and CMOs is what can we learn about this incredible turn of events from the perspective of personal brand? What does it take to be a leader who's aligned with their personal values that can carry that forward and engage people? Joining me to talk about this and to extract some sense and meaning from an incredible set of circumstances is Emma Webster. She's director at Hawker Britton Group, one of Australia's leading government relations, strategic council and communications firm. Part of Emma's claim to fame, she worked as a senior advisor at the highest levels of government, including for Premier Daniel Andrews and former Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
She also led strategic communications for Australia's first legislative treaty process at the First People's Assembly of Victoria. So she's got an incredible set of Australian and global experiences to bring to this conversation. Let's hear from Emma.
Thanks for joining us on the CMO Show. My guest today is Emma Webster, director at Hawker Britton. Thank you for joining us, Emma.
Emma Webster
Absolute pleasure. Looking forward to it.
Mark Jones
Now, I want to jump straight into it. The reason we're having this conversation is, there's one news story that I think above all is capturing our attention in Australia. Of course, it's the U.S. presidential election. And, the team and I got really fascinated by the big news, which is, obviously Biden saying he's going to step down from the nomination and he's going to pass the baton to Kamala Harris. Big, big deal. The question here for marketers, and this is a little bit outside our normal hunting ground, but it really struck us that this is a personal brand story. And, just to get things moving, what's your take on this whole story from a personal brand perspective?
Emma Webster
Well, yeah, so much of politics is personal brand. So, I think when we go to the ballot box and vote, some of us are looking at policy and what different political parties stand for. But, overwhelmingly, and perhaps in conjunction with policy, people are looking at the people, who they are, what they represent. And, with Harris now in the race, it has completely flipped, I guess, the personal branding of who Americans are looking at. So, in politics as well, when it comes to the personal brand, the candidate themselves will look at how they sell themselves, but the opponent will look at how they can take down that brand as well, how they can win points and make themselves look better through that attack. You might not see much of that in terms of traditional marketing and corporate brand, but it's certainly used in politics, right down to attack ads and that sort of thing.
So in terms of what we were working with before, Trump, for example, very much ran on a, "I'm a strong man. By comparison to Biden. Biden can't even walk up a flight of steps. He's too old. He's lost it." Whereas now, Trump is up against a woman. I've seen her fly up and down steps. She's very fit. She's a woman of colour. So, it's going to be really interesting to see the way he goes about attacking her.
Mark Jones
Fascinating. How have you come into this role at Hawker Britton? One of the things I note from your bio is spending time with Julia Gillard and many others in politics. This must be a fascinating time for you.
Emma Webster
It is. So, I've worked in politics most of my career. I grew up with parents who liked to travel the world. So, I was born in Thailand and we lived in lots of different countries, Pakistan, Jordan, Tonga, Samoa. So, I think that gave me a really fascinating insight into the world. And, I attended local schools in all of these places. And so, I think, through that came this real sense of wanting to change things or make the world a better place. I'm not saying that every morning I wake up and get out of bed and say, "Right. How am I going to make the world a better place?" But it certainly helps when you feel like you're in a small way contributing to making things better. And, I still don't know how I ended up in Prime Minister Julie Gillard's office. I feel like a very lucky person to this day.
But, one of the things I have noticed with Kamala being front and centre, and I experienced this as well when Hillary Clinton put her hand up and ran against Trump last time, it was seeing the same old attacks against really competent women. So, I think it was only yesterday a conservative came out and said, "Kamala can't be president, because she hasn't had kids. What could she know about families?" And it was almost word for word the same attacks that were levelled against Prime Minister Gillard. So, it's just as Gillard's speech said, "It's sexism. It's misogyny. It's attacks that would never be levelled at a man who didn't have children." And it's interesting that it's over a decade since Gillard was Prime Minister, but it's the same attacks that women candidates are looking at and facing.
Mark Jones
We would love to think that maybe we've grown up a little bit and moved on. But, those ad hominem attacks really from a public debate point of view never seem to go away. And one of the shocking things I think about politics that those of us in business really struggle with is the degree to which it does get personal. So, as a business leader and our listener is working in corporate land, got a job in a company where we talk a lot about psychological safety, and teams, and leadership, this is an entirely different world when it comes to a personal brand, right? The privilege of Parliament, of course, is that you can get incredibly personal. How do you deal with it? So, what's the lesson here from a personal brand. And, maybe if you're comfortable speaking about Julia Gillard, what was the lessons that you took out from working with her when it comes to that really cutting, hurtful attack?
Emma Webster
Yeah. So, with Gillard, the attacks were not just personal, they were also levelled at her family. I remember when her father passed away, a radio shock Jock said her father had died of shame.
Mark Jones
I remember that.
Emma Webster
Yeah. There was criticism levelled out of her partner at the time. He was a hairdresser. And I remember again, another radio shock jock asked her questions like, "Tim must be gay. He has to be gay, because what man would want to take a back seat to a woman?" And there was this horrific cartoonist whose name I can't recall, I think it may have been Pickering, who whenever he drew her, drew her with male genitalia. And it was like in his mind, he couldn't imagine a woman could govern or lead without having male appendages. Yeah. I'd like to think we're beyond that point. In terms of what you do and how you respond, I think Julia thought, and she's written about this too, that this initial shock of oh, first woman that would filter away, but it never really did.
Mark Jones
You mean for her as a person, meaning the impact it had on her?
Emma Webster
Well, in terms of the way the public viewed her. So yeah, that initial shock of, okay, we've got a woman in the top job. Any criticism about the clothes she's wearing or people will just get used to it, and that won't be a point of attack. But instead of it dissolving and fading away, it actually ramped up. And that led to, with a few other things swirling around, the misogyny speech where she finally did call it out. And there were steps along the way where she set up other people in her cabinet to call it out, other women that she worked for. And then those women were criticised and called the handbag hit squad. So it was like, you can't win here if you call it out, if you don't. It was just this fire of what to do and how to respond.
I think we're probably better than that now, but in terms of Harris and how she responds, I think we're in a much better place. And even just before jumping on this podcast, I was on TikTok and Instagram and there is so much Kamala content, and it's a different world. People are backing her in, and I think it's the younger generation, the more progressive, open-minded people, who are just like, "Yep, let's do it." And see her gender as a real asset.
Mark Jones
I think that's got to be a big difference between the Gillard era and the present age was the speed of response. And I hate to say electorate, because this is a global conversation, right?
Emma Webster
Yep.
Mark Jones
But the degree of feedback, the scale of feedback and the veracity, it's really quite a new thing, isn't it? And I wonder from the perspective of positioning, so thinking about the Harris brand, how she positions herself not just as a woman, a woman of colour, a person with credibility, but her particular brand. I wonder how do you establish and fight for that in the noise and scale that we're seeing?
Emma Webster
So I think it's really interesting that she has come out and she's really drawn the difference. She's not even talking about the fact that she's a woman. You look at her and you can see that. You look at her, you see a woman of colour, that work's done, we know that. But the way she has highlighted that she used to prosecute felons, sex offenders, liars, cheaters, all that sort of thing. Not only is she signalling, "I'm competent, I can do this, but the people I used to put in jail are the same people or the same person that I'm running against now." So she's making the fight intellectual, as opposed to personal. It's not about how well someone can walk, how old they are, it's about the ability to engage on that intellectual level. And it will be really interesting to see what happens when it comes to the debates. I think Trump is hedging his bets at the moment, but if I was Harris, I'd be asking for a debate every week, because I think she'd just clean him up.
Mark Jones
How would you describe her positioning? And the example here I'm thinking about, we've come to understand Trump as the disruptive outsider.
Emma Webster
What I notice immediately is a strength in who she is, an authenticity. She's almost pushing back against all the criticism that has come to her from the Republican movement. So I think she was criticised for laughing too much and giggling too much, and she's almost leaning into that. And it's certainly what you see on social media as well. It makes her look more human and more relatable. And in addition to that, it's also looking at where she's come from prior to politics. So it's Attorney General Harris or General Harris. It's the people she prosecuted. And I think that in combined with who she is when you look at her immediately, is her brand.
Mark Jones
Yeah. So she's a smart human, an authentic I can relate to her as a smart proper person, as opposed to this political archetype. How difficult is it to develop, own and establish that sharp, clear, personal brand? And I'm thinking here about your work in Australia, obviously, a lobbying firm in Canberra and across the country, but working directly in politics, helping leaders to get that clarity. Just how difficult have you found it? For those of us, which is everybody, who is not in the presidential race.
Emma Webster
Yeah. So in terms of work that I've done to help other people find their own brand and position themselves, I think it's a bit of that initial soul-searching, like why are you in the job? What do you want to do? What do you want to achieve? And I think it's really good to almost write down those points and get clarity around that straight away, so that when you do have the tough days, you can look back and just be like, "Right, this is why I'm here." It grounds you and it brings you back to why you're there and why you're taking the knocks on a particularly bad day. I think from there, you've also got to feed in some of what your party represents, the policy work, how that feeds into who you are. And then there's also little things, and it almost sounds too basic, but it's like how do you present every time you step in front of a camera or you do a media interview? So one person I know I said, "Oh, the way you wear your hair middle part tied back has become your thing." And she says, "Yeah, well now when I don't wear my hair like this people almost don't recognise me when my hair's down."
Mark Jones
Useful for when you go shopping.
Emma Webster
Yeah, that's right. No need for the nose and glasses. Similarly, you often see politicians wear Akubras or hats or that sort of thing, and that becomes their thing. So it's visually very easy to see who they are and what they represent. An Akubra, oh, they're from the country. They care about people working on the land or that sort of thing. And then I think it's also what you say in front of the camera in those interviews. So Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister, was very good at three-word slogans and it stuck. It was stop the boats.
Mark Jones
Ditch the witch.
Emma Webster
Yeah, ditch the witch, scrap the carbon tax. I think that's four words. But it was just those really punchy things that even to this day we remember.
Mark Jones
It's very Trumpy.
Emma Webster
Very Trumpy. And again, it's that really simple solution to a big problem, but it was scrapping the carbon tax. That means we didn't have action on climate change for a decade. So it has impact, and that's why it's so important to listen and vote, not just on brand, but on policy.
Mark Jones
And that's what Daniel Kahneman in the behavioural economics space talks a lot about the need to simplify that. And we have this system one, system two thinking, or I just think of it as billboard thinking. Can you get it straight away? What's that clarity of idea? And you're really speaking to that. I know in the corporate world we can really struggle because of the sheer complexity of products and services and all these sorts of things. So it's a really important lesson that clarity. It's like a double-edged sword. If it's a negative message, it's going to work, but probably for all the wrong reasons. So there's a really great takeaway.
I want to talk about audience problems, and the problem that you're solving. Because it seems that people who really nail the personal brand positioning piece, they have a very clear picture of the problem they're solving for their audience.
The listener on our show thinks a lot about audience from the perspective of a customer or a partner or somebody that we are trying to engage with. If you think about it, like head of marketing, a CMO. They pride themselves on understanding the customer and the audience. And that's actually an interesting parallel here with the politician and the personal brand, is around my ability to get a read on the audience. I think what's interesting for all of us as observers is, are these people playing the audience or are they actually being strategically responsive?
Emma Webster
Yeah, no, they absolutely are being strategic. So there'd be a lot of focus groups. There'd be a lot of polling. They would have state by state, city by city breakdowns on who people are and what they're voting for. The challenge with the US, particularly for the Democrats, is just being able to get people out and voting. Voting isn't compulsory. So because of that, it's just trying to get people off their bums and to a polling place on the day.
So what Harris has already done, so I think overnight there was a record amount of donations to the Democratic Party, so what I think she's done is she's sort of energised a lot of people who were almost just going to sort of tap out and sit out this election. The Democrats, and their donors clearly, feel like they're in with a shot again, but it's that sort of 30 to 40% of Americans who didn't like either option, Trump or Biden, who will actually probably go out and vote now. And so that's probably a really big win and not something that every country deals with.
[STING]
Mark Jones
You talk about those polling and the focus groups. We see that when we watch the news and see candidates flying to certain states and counties where they know the voters here really count. They know what's going on. What lessons do you think can be applied in the corporate realm from that and the way they think about really getting granular?
Emma Webster
Yeah. So I think it's just really smart to really know your audience and where you're working. And so in politics, for example, there's the different layers of campaigning. So in Australia, we'd have a local candidate, so the person who's running for a particular seat, say it's a swing seat, Western Sydney or something, and they would be on the ground, they'd be door knocking every day, handing out pamphlets, talking to people at train stations. So there's that sort of very granular level of campaigning.
And then often the prime minister, or the person who wants to be the Prime Minister, knowing it is a swing seat and a seat that they really need to win, will make big announcements there. They'll drag the press pack or the media there, so they're seen there. They seem to be caring about that particular community.
And often the announcement will be related to that community too. So for example, we're investing in hospital infrastructure and we're going to build one right here where we're standing today and it's going to be rolled out in this timeframe. And that's the way they'd sort of campaign around it. And then on top of that, there'd be sort of digital media that can be targeted and geo-targeted on top of that. So a lot of it is very, very strategic, and it's based off that polling, those focus groups. And it's generally not just sort of throwing out your cards and seeing where they land. It is very strategic and organised in that way.
Mark Jones
One of the challenges though that I've seen in corporate and politics is there can be a disconnect between what we know about a person and them standing up and speaking about a topic that you kind of got a gut sense this is not their bag, this is not their area of expertise. So how do you, as a leader, get that right? You've got to get the alignment of who you are, what you believe, what you stand for, and maybe something that is tangential but not quite aligned. And I think in there, there's a lesson for the bridging that has to happen. What's been your experience from the political side? This is a common problem for every politician who picks up a portfolio that they know nothing about.
Emma Webster
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, people are smarter than some people give them credit for, you know? If a politician stands up and they're not authentic, people just know straight away. We can sniff them out. And I think that's almost where this sort of disconnect from the public comes from, or why, particularly in Australia, people don't like politicians. They're not trusted. I think in the list of professions that people trust, politicians are pretty close to the bottom. So it is a really big problem. But when a politician is authentic, that's when you actually get the cut through.
So how do you deal with that? I think when a leader's deciding who gets what portfolio, there's got to be some alignment there. But it's also like it's up to the people to call it out too, in a way. And it comes back to that, as I was saying before, that sort of list of beliefs you have, the list that you can refer to when times get tough. If you are standing up there and saying something that you don't believe in, you're going to get crucified for it.
Mark Jones
Yeah, we can pick it a mile away.
Emma Webster
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Jones
Just in sort of thinking about where to from here, what is the role of having a clear vision, clear goals, and aligning your personal brand with those? From politics, what's your advice on how leaders and marketers can think about developing strategies where you get that piece right?
Emma Webster
Yeah, so I think before anyone communicates or markets, be it a politician or a brand or anything like that, you've got to get really clear on your strategy, who you are, what you believe in, what's the problem you're going to solve. And it's really important to do that work and bed that down before you go out there and start talking because you're going to keep coming back to it. It's going to be the filter for which you do everything going forward. It's going to be the filter for what you post on your Instagram. It's going to be the filter behind what policies you really back in.
So I think it's getting really clear on that strategy and that framework of who you are, what you represent, what you believe in. And then as you go on, you can't just sort of keep that there. You've also got to sort of refine it, as well as things update and change. And I think that's probably one of the most crucial things you can do. I think also from a political perspective in terms of lessons I've learned, in politics, you might be lucky to be at the top one day, but I think you've got to have your values and your narrative consistent all the way up to the top. Because on the way down, that's the sort of stuff that's going to hold you in good stead and help you on your career, on your next steps, and with the relationships that you have after politics as well.
Mark Jones
I couldn't agree more. Emma Webster, thank you so much for joining us. Emma Webster, director of Hawker Britton in one of Australia's leading government relations, strategic council and communications firm. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thanks for sharing your insights and help give us a bit of clarity through the personal brand lens to try and understand what's going on in the world at the moment.
Emma Webster
Thanks, Mark, and look forward to seeing what happens in the US.
Mark Jones
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Emma. The interesting thing about personal brand is this idea of congruence, the idea that we are who we are, we have a clear sense of personal brand, our values, what we stand for, and how we communicate that in public. And we're seeing a lot of tension in the US presidential cycle around this. And one of the lessons for us as leaders, as CMOs, as heads of marketing is, what is our personal brand? Do we have a clear sense of our personal values, and how well are they aligned with our organisation and that of our target audience? Is it all in sync, or is it just a little bit out of sync? And if it's the latter, then clearly that's an opportunity to go digging to do some more work so that you can build this sense of traction, momentum in the political world, win the election, maybe in the business world, hit those targets and milestones that you are searching for.
I hope you took a lot out of my conversation with Emma Webster. You've been listening to The CMO Show. I'm your host, Mark Jones. Look forward to seeing you next time.