COURTESY / BROADREACH PUBLIC RELATIONS
Jason Sulham, who has over 20 years of experience in political advocacy and crisis communications, is vice president and director of strategy at Broadreach Public Relations in Portland.
October 16, 2020
How to leverage the election to raise brand visibility
By Jason Sulham
The running joke is that Maine has three seasons — winter, mud and construction.
However, Maine does in fact have a fourth season — election season. It is probably not mentioned because for most people it is the least desirable of the four, and I’m being generous. Nonetheless, election season offers brands numerous ways to raise their visibility.
Your internal monologue is likely screaming, “That sounds like the worst idea ever!” I understand that having a politically engaged brand is a scary prospect, but you don’t have to be partisan to leverage an election for brand visibility. Opportunities exist for every comfort level.
Before you engage your brand in politics, and regardless of where you fall on the comfort spectrum, you must first perform the following assessment:
- What are our brand values and does our team know them?
- What do our primary audiences expect of our brand?
- How do we best honor both?
With honest answers to these questions you can confidently determine your level of comfort and subsequently identify appropriate tactics to leverage election season for brand visibility. Let’s look at what some of those tactics might be at different comfort levels.
Level 1: Highly skeptical.
- Using your digital platforms, and without espousing viewpoints, simply encourage your team and audiences to vote as a civic duty
- Share information on how to register to vote or request a mail-in ballot
- Be a reprieve for your audiences from the political noise and deliberately establish your platforms as "politics free" zones.
Level 2: We have a specific value or issue we feel passionate about and are recognized for, but we are otherwise apolitical.
- Inform your audiences about the importance of that value or issue in the upcoming election and be a source of factual information
- Write an op-ed advocating for specific solutions and articulate the urgency of the issue
- Enlist your team and audiences to sign on to a petition in support of a policy position
- Ask candidates for their positions on this issue and be a source of policy ideas
- Be a subject matter expert that the media can call upon for insight
Level 3: I’ve already ordered bumper stickers. Do everything in Level 2, plus…
- Offer your employees paid time off to volunteer for a specific campaign or effort
- Invite a candidate to tour your business and post pictures to social media
- Be active in your trade association’s political advocacy
- Look for thought leadership opportunities
- Publicly endorse a candidate
This is just a sampling of possibilities to demonstrate the potential that exists to raise your brand visibility during election season no matter your level of comfort.
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