I’m still not sure what “branding” is, but I do know that it matters. According to The Oregonian, my campaign for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Oregon—although ultimately unsuccessful—was good at it. In its profile piece on me, the paper said:

“Win or lose, Novick has created a political brand for himself. His political ads have gone viral on the Internet and you can’t go to a Democratic event without seeing people wearing ‘votehook.com’ buttons.”

Now, again, we lost, so apparently branding isn’t everything. But I think it’s fair to say that we did better than expected. As a first-time candidate running against the speaker of the State House, I was outspent by roughly 2-to-1, and lost 45 percent to 42 percent. Compared to other recent “progressive underdog vs. moneyed establishment candidate” Northwest races, that’s not bad. In 2000, Maria Cantwell outspent progressive underdog Deborah Senn in Washington’s Senate primary by about 2-to-1—and won the race by an even larger margin.

What kind of brand did we create, and how did it relate to my substantive positions? Well, like thousands of other candidates before me, I ran as a “different kind of politician” who wasn’t going to play “politics as usual.” My version of being “different” and “unusual” consisted of being a plainspoken, truth-telling progressive sort who wasn’t going to pretend we can have everything for nothing.

We also had four ads—“To tell the truth,” “Beer with Steve,” “Pull the plug” and an endorsement ad—the first two emphasizing the “different” angle by playing on my physical uniqueness: I’m 4 feet 9 inches tall with a left hand made of stainless steel.

“To tell the truth” followed the form of an old TV show, with three guys reciting biographical details (Steve fighting polluters, etc.) and pretending to be me, followed by me in person (in a shot that emphasized my shortness) saying, “I don’t look like a typical politician, but I won’t act like one either. I will fight for the little guy.”

We ran $60,000 worth of that ad—a pittance in a statewide race—in January, four months before the vote (way before most campaigns would start advertising). It served our purpose of jump-starting the campaign, generating a pile of earned media coverage (including a front-page story in The Oregonian) and establishing the brand. And it won us the early lead in the polls—although, with both candidates largely unknown, the vast majority was still undecided.

These ads emphasized my “brand” as a different kind of politician. And on the campaign trail, I talked about the rich people I’d met who were willing to pay Social Security taxes on all their income, the doctors who were willing to make less money. I talked about the power company that successfully encouraged conservation by putting smiley faces on the electric bills of households that used less electricity than average.

We have good reason to think that we did best among the people who paid the closest attention to the race. For example, we won most of the newspaper endorsements—unusual for the nonestablishment candidate against a legislative leader.

But of course, a large number of voters don’t obsessively read or watch political news: They learn about candidates through advertising. So we had to convey the guts of what I was saying in 30-second ads.

So, in the end, what worked and what didn’t? Well, we won in Portland. We won in Benton County, which is largely Corvallis, a relatively affluent college town. We won a notably liberal coastal county. We lost everywhere else.

Clearly a huge financial advantage is hard to overcome. We had to focus most of our resources on the Portland market, which is the biggest and most expensive. We didn’t have much left over for the Eugene market—and we got killed there, even though Eugene’s a liberal place and I grew up in that county. Nor did we put much into the Medford/Ashland market. As a result, we lost Ashland, even though ideologically and temperamentally that liberal enclave should have been ours.

But we successfully identified me as a “different” candidate. I wasn’t just a generic Democrat against another generic Democrat. I was the little guy with a left hook who promised to be different. We did better than you’d normally expect if you were outspent 2-to-1. Normally, if you’re drowned in money, you’re drowned in votes, too.

We ran a campaign that did about as well as it could among newspaper readers and people who were just really ready for something different. What we failed to do was let issue-oriented (rather than personality-oriented) voters who DON’T read the paper all the time know how much I cared about the issues that matter to them.
So the bottom line is: Branding matters. Humor helps. Not every consumer responds to the same message.

And money matters too.

A little collaboration goes a long way. And when you’re an organization with limited funds, teamwork is priceless.

Of course, everybody wants the dream project that gets dream results. But how do you get it? With so many different tastes and constraints affecting every project, how does one actually make it happen?

On the Boards (OtB) aced it in the branding and messaging work they completed with Pyramid last April. In their approach and their diligence, the OtB staff really put our consulting time to work for their mid-sized organization—and ended up leaving some mighty lessons in their wake.

LESSON 1: The Baseline
Enough cannot be said about starting a project with everyone on the same page. When we asked OtB to provide us with some of their old materials and language, they came back with a huge, meticulously organized binder full of everything from flyers to brochures, office forms to programs. Before their project even got started, they put in the work to prepare for it. This effort was enormously helpful in letting their Pyramid team know where they were, what they liked and what they wanted to accomplish. That binder was used constantly throughout six months of work—and here in the office we’re considering having it bronzed.

LESSON 2: The Dialogue
Figuring out who you are as an organization and how you’re going to express that requires dialogue, a bit of back and forth to hone in on the very essence of what you do and why it matters. The folks from OtB understood this kind of exchange on a very fundamental level, which made it possible for them to provide productive direction and feedback with each new draft or design concept we showed them. They were not only able to identify specifically what they wanted from each deliverable, they also fueled the creative fire by contributing ideas, not just their likes and dislikes. Meanwhile, they trusted that their Pyramid team was working to understand their organization (and trying to help them understand it too) through the revision and review process. As a result, the whole team functioned optimally—and with contagious enthusiasm.

LESSON 3: The Flexibility
When doing creative work, an open mind is essential. OtB came in thinking anything was possible. Over the course of their work with Pyramid, they sorted through their preferences, individually and as an organization, all the while welcoming new suggestions and ideas. This approach led to a very generative environment full of possibilities, and ultimately yielded a vibrant new brand, precise messaging and a very detailed style guide that even superhero consultants could not produce alone. By engaging deeply and candidly, OtB got more bang for their buck than they could have imagined.