Money may not buy you love, but when a campaign outspends its rival 25:1 and still falls behind, wasting money certainly will buy you anger and confusion.  No greater example of this can be found than in South Carolina’s recent Democratic Senate primary. Over a week after a stunning upset of Vic Rawl by the previously unknown Alvin Greene, political pundits are still attempting to understand how a man with over 20 years of public service experience lost to a unemployed man living in his father’s basement.  The numbers go against all logic.  Vic Rawl’s campaign had a budget of $250,000 to Alvin Greene’s ballot minimum of $10,400.  Rawl had a campaign team of 12 that employed almost every campaign device in the book.  Greene had himself and zero campaign expenditures outside of the cost of getting himself on the ballot.  Yet considering all of these factors, Greene captured 59% of the vote.  Obviously many have cried foul, hypothesizing conspiracies and deviant schemes.  Someone outside of the race has to be to blame for such an epic campaign failure, right?  Well, maybe not necessarily.  Regardless of the legitimacy of Alvin Greene’s campaign there are some incredibly useful marketing lessons to be learned by his improbable success.

Names Still Matter
An election results theory that was first cast off as a joke now stunningly seems to be gaining validity.  On Monday the first of perhaps many Greene voters publiclyadmitted that she voted for Greene simply because of how closely his name resembled soul singer Al Green.  Perhaps Vic Rawl would have fared better if his first name was Lou (a la jazz singer Lou Rawls) but instead his name appears much closer to “Sick Raw”, far from an appetizing candidate.  All things equal, people are going to make the choice with the most name recognition, relevant to the subject matter or not.  Selecting the right name for your business is a branding fundamental; if your name does not direct leads to a specific narrative they will supply the narrative for you, to your benefit or detriment.  It’s an element so many of us take for granted until events like the South Carolina primary suddenly remind us of their power.

Placement Still Matters
Although Greene was victorious by a massive 18 point margin, studies show that at least 2.3 of those percentage points can be directly attributed to the fact that his name was first on the ballot.  Case studies show that this differential increases when less money is involved with the campaign. It’s an element to the decision making process that seems so juvenile yet holds significant weight- preference goes to whoever the eye sees first.  It’s the very core behind launching an SEO campaign.  If anything the curious case of Alvin Greene shows the importance of aggressive SEO campaigns in very competitive markets.

So What?
Moving forward theories explaining the results of this election are bound to continue, but the marketing lessons to be learned from it are very simple.  When we consider that less than 30% of registered Democrats voted in the South Carolina primary, and the seemingly curious nature of the results, it is easy to see a very basic lack of engagement in the voting process.  In turn this should cause the business owner to ask if their marketing practices are actively engaging their potential customers.  Do we inspire our customers to care about the services we offer?  Are we then sufficiently fulfilling their needs?  Is our brand important enough to customers that they are willing to look for us even if we aren’t at the top of a list?  Are we inspiring our customers to be active consumers of our business, or are they engaged with us passively?  Without cogent and honest answers to these questions it is still very possible to lose, even if you are outspending the competition 25:1.

Looking for more on the mysterious Alvin Greene?  Check out this video