The secret of marketing. How the Democrats again will blow a 20-point lead with only 1 second remaining

The Democrats have become inadept at two things: Learning and winning. Hillary Clinton’s outrageous, last-second loss to the most inferior challenger possible, should have been a learning moment, but I suspect it has taught them nothing.

Today, the Democrats are heavily favored to do well in the November elections — possibly take over the House and perhaps even the Senate. There simply is no way they again can blow an election to an unpopular party led by the most dishonest, corrupt, incompetent President in American history — but they will try.

Early in my more than fifty years in business, I learned the secret of marketing: Focus.

Ask a friend what they like or dislike about any person or product, and you most likely will receive a short, one-subject response, for instance: “He is strong.” “She is smart.” “He is experienced.” “She is beautiful.” “It really works.” “It’s expensive.”

People in general, have a narrow focus. So to market a product or person, don’t tell a dozen good stories.

Instead, focus on one great story, and tell it repeatedly, until well after you yourself have become utterly bored with it, at which time the public will just start to discover it.

A million years ago, I was a junior partner in an advertising agency that had one major client. The head of the agency was asked whether he was concerned about keeping all his eggs in one basket.

His response: “Put all your eggs in one basket and take care of the basket.” He became rich that way.

Focus.

Our client was the Wrigley Company, the chewing gum people. They manufactured and sold a product named “Doublemint gum, ” for which our agency had written a radio and TV campaign which featured twins and a song with the tagline, “Double your pleasure.”

Within each 30 second commercial, the song repeated the word “double” at least fourteen times.

So there were twins, the repeated word “double,” and high-frequency advertising on TV and radio. Doublemint became the best selling gum in the world.

Today, though that commercial hasn’t aired for many years, millions of people still remember the tagline, “Double your pleasure.”

Focus.

Later in life, I began a career saving moribund companies. Each company had a similar problem: Multiple products and multiple stories had diluted their marketing message.

To bring the companies back to life, I merely shed the weaker products, focused on the one or two strongest and took each company from a struggling, general-purpose also-ran to the profitable leader in a narrow niche — a powerful and lucrative marketing position.

Focus.

The Democrats seem not yet to have learned the secret of marketing. Unless they do, I predict one will promote his Job Guarantee plan, and another will promote his Universal Basic Income plan.

Then there will be those who discuss taxes, marijuana, gay marriage, and incarceration.

Yet others will discuss a method to save Obamacare, or Social Security, or Medicare, or food stamps or the environment, or the Veteran’s Administration.

Democrats will offer education plans, immigration plans, Middle-east plans, gun-control plan, abortion plans, military plans, plans to help farmers, energy plans — the list will be endless — and not just the Democratic National Committee, but each politician, will discuss multiple ideas.

And then, the Democrats further will complicate the stew, and dispute each ingredient, until there are so many messages floating about, the public will not remember who favors what and why anyone should care.

I suggest that the Democrats focus on one marketing message, and that message should be broadcast repeatedly, unrelentingly, morning and night, day after week after month, until everyone in America — everyone on earth — knows the message.

And that message is Donald Trump.

He is the tar baby of American politics. Anyone who touches him becomes disgraced, stuck to Trump’s incompetence and dishonesty, the damage he has caused to America and to the world.

The message should be Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, like the ominous, stomping footsteps of doom for each Republican candidate.

Surely, there is no dearth of examples: His crooked Trump University, cheating employees, ongoing infidelities, incredible number of lies,  Putin, Qatar, nepotism, stocking the swamp with millionaire bankers, weakening America in the eyes of the world, draft dodger, hate-mongering, bullying, phony medical reports, anti-science.

Pick the few best (worst?) and keep pounding them, every day in every way.  Associate every Republican candidate’s relationship with this pariah via their votes and their supportive statements.

Force every GOP candidate to admit or deny he/she has been a Trump supporter. Either way, they lose.

Meanwhile, Mueller, the media and surprise outsiders like Stormy Daniels and her team, will continue to provide you with new Trump outrages, while Trump further aids you with his compulsive tweeting.

Diffuse on myriad issues, no matter how meaningful, and you will lose. Focus on Trump and you will win.

That’s called “marketing.”  That also is called “winning.”