Has Dutton totally fluffed his messaging?

As a fresher in my first year of university, I was dragged into student politics.

I remember little of being the University of Queensland Student Union Ag ‘Rep’ (I was studying agricultural economics).

But I recall one moment from the election campaign distinctly.

I approached a group of undergraduates seated in a circle on the grass of the university’s Great Court. I asked if they were interested in the student union election.

They turned, almost as one, and stared at me blankly.

It wasn’t hostile. They were just barely aware that a student union even existed, let alone that an election was being held. What on earth did this have to do with them?

At that moment, I realised the cavernous challenge politicians faced when campaigning to an ambivalent electorate.

But the main lesson I learned was the need for a razor-sharp message that cuts through and motivates people to act. A simple message that sparks people’s immediate attention and speaks directly to their interests.

The magic of messaging

Messaging is vital for all communication because we operate in a congested space. So many people are competing for our audience’s attention.

Great messaging allows you to cut through and stand out. 

Messages have been likened to an archer (communicator) firing an arrow (message) at a target (the defined audience).

The best summary of marketing and communication messaging I’ve come across is marketing professor Mark Ritson’s:

“If I have three brain cells in my target customer’s mind, what do I want these brain cells to contain in terms of an association or attribute?”

That’s it. You only have the chance to implant three – at the very most – associations at any one time in your target audience’s minds.

This principle applies to marketing positioning, communications, and campaigns.

Dutton’s messaging struggles

The importance of messaging is playing out in the federal election battle.

Peter Dutton, particularly, has struggled with messaging. Off the top of my head, I can think of many things I associate with Dutton:

· Scrap work from home, develop nuclear, temporarily cut fuel tax, abolish EV tax break … or not? increase defence spending (but up taxes to pay?), wind back Welcome to Country …

Not only is there is there too much, they are information and policies … and not clear messages.

Effective messages would be something like:

· Albanese is weak on national security, you are poorer under Labor, wind back woke.

Albanese’s messages have been clearer:

· Steady/not risky, Dutton = Trump, Dutton will cut (Medicare, etc)

And judging by the polls, it’s working for Albanese and Labor. (Though experience tells me anything can still happen.)

Where Dutton went wrong

There are several ways that messaging can go wrong. You can lack discipline to stay on message or lack the communication skills to deliver the message.

But most problems come from a poor strategy.

Great messages emerge from great strategy … and great strategy clarifies three things:

· You (who you are and what you stand for),

· Your target audience (their lives, aspirations and emotions), and

· Your clearly defined objectives: What do you want your audience to think, feel and do as a result of your communication?

I suspect Dutton’s campaign has overly focused on the audience, which has created a more nuanced, softer approach.

But by doing that, they have lost the essence of who Dutton is – a strong, conviction leader. 

As a result, they’re firing too many arrows, and most are limply falling short of the target.

To be fair to Dutton, his situation has been complicated by the Trump factor. Being instinctively authentic – as his advisors are no doubt reminding him – carries big risks because it can alienate some voters.

I’d argue, however, he doesn’t have a choice. Without conviction, Dutton is nothing.

Dutton’s performance has improved in the past two weeks by being more himself, which has sharpened his messaging around defence and culture wars.

But was it way too late?

***

Vanity Fair editor’s rule for life

Former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s recently released memoir, ‘When the Going was Good’, is a paean to the great days of magazines; and to the great ascendency of middle-brow American culture, of which Vanity Fair was the bible … a period which, I might add, now looks decidedly high-brow.

At the end, Carter lays out some helpful ‘rules for living’. 

One rule applies to all forms of marketing and communications: “Whatever you do, it has to have a point.”

He notes his first magazine, The Canadian Review “was all over the place” neither liberal nor conservative, part politics, part literary criticism, part sports …

His next magazine, Spy, however, did have a point: “ … satirize the figures and institutions that made up the hoppy New York parade in the mid- and late 1980s.”

As Carter says, “that was its point, and it thrived”.

For most of the election, Peter Dutton lost his point and failed to thrive.

***

Another anecdote in the book, from when Carter was editing Spy, made me nostalgic for a more irreverent time.

An old friend of Carter’s with a mischievous sense of humour suggested Spy try to get rich people to deposit cheques for tiny sums.

The magazine liked the idea, and for the next year, through a fake company, they set about seeing if rich New Yorkers would go to the trouble of signing and (physically) depositing cheques of increasingly small amounts.

The first cheque they sent for $1.11 was deposited by 26 of the 58 wealthy recipients.

They then sent another cheque, a refund of 64 cents. Some 13, including our Rupert Murdoch, deposited them.

They upped the ante and lastly sent a refund cheque of 13 cents.

Two deposited the cheques of 13 cents.

Who?

The notorious arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.

And …

As Carter describes him: “A certain short-fingered vulgarian”!

That’s right, the great leader of the Western World.

Funny.