I hate to be too much of a backseat driver but I will admit that I have always hated the Biden slogan “Build Back Better.” It’s just clunky and I think it’s trying to do too much. “We want to build back America (make it great again?) but we want to do it better than they did it in the past!” It’s just … clunky. Even worse, although they’ve tried to attach the name to the big reconciliation bill it really hasn’t stuck. And as much as I don’t like it, it certainly would have been better than the gobbledygook that people are using to describe it.
Anyway, Politico talked to some ad men about this and I thought it was interesting:
Wherever you sit on the political spectrum, and whatever you think of the substantive merits of the multi-trillion dollar bill that Joe Biden has staked his presidency on, you will probably agree that the bill has been terribly named.
Point of comparison: Former President Donald Trump, who certainly knew how to market things, passed the simply named “Tax Cut and Jobs Act,” and Trump reportedly wanted to call it the even simpler “Cut Cut Cut Act.” Yet Biden’s signature bill is sometimes called “the reconciliation bill,” after the legislative procedure Democrats plan to use to pass it.
Perhaps worse, it is sometimes called “the social spending bill,” which reflects its high price tag. Biden himself probably calls it “the Build Back Better Act,” which, it’s fair to say, is a slogan that has not captured the American imagination.
The pundit class thinks the president and his party are floundering. (“President Biden’s agenda is in peril,” Ezra Klein wrote in the New York Times today.) Nightly is scrupulously nonpartisan, but we thought it would be interesting to see if commercial advertising gurus and marketing experts had any better ideas for the Democrats.
So we reached out to a group of experts to get their recommendations for how they would pitch the bill. You know, like Don Draper’s Kodak “Carousel,” but for politics. Here are their edited responses and pitches:
A REBATE
“While the bill itself is full of programs that benefit working class families around the country, the cultural conversation is completely focused on the bill’s price tag and the messages aren’t breaking through. That’s a massive branding fail.
“This bill is about children, schools and keeping our loved ones healthy and safe. All places where, as humans, we have massive reservoirs of emotion. We have memories that take us to places we can almost feel and touch. But for some reason, the language around this bill has gone the opposite direction. Terms like ‘investment,’ or ‘soft infrastructure,’ or ‘social safety net’ feel clinical, abstract and intangible. This is language meant for policy, not for people.
“To sell this plan, I’d immediately do two things. First, cease and desist any language that sounds like it belongs in a white paper, and replace it with something short, memorable and tangible. Make it real, make it simple and make it human. Over and over again. Consistently. Second, embrace the principle of ‘loss aversion.’ Simply put, people absolutely hate the sense that they’re losing out on something that they deserve. In this case, how about reframing the spending bill as a ‘rebate’ to the American people? A return on the prosperity that America’s biggest businesses (and ultra-wealthy) have experienced over the last decade. Universal Pre-K, free community college, lower drug prices — all rebates on corporate America’s windfall. Who would want to miss out on their share of that? Especially if the payoff was for kids, care and climate.” — John Hickman, managing director of TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles
“Most people won’t get past the price point of a multi-trillion-dollar spending package. We should instead focus on its many benefits — taken to the kitchen table level. Here’s a way to illustrate how diverse individuals from different levels of society can benefit, specifically. And we convey how this aid creates positive ripple effects that converge at the national level, addressing greater Democrat and Republican priorities together. The #BetterForUS campaign is designed to be a hashtag-based, constituent-driven approach to provoke thought about how the entire nation stands to gain from the Build Back Better Act — one unique beneficiary at a time.” — The Sensis Agency: Javier San Miguel, group creative director, copy; David Galván, creative director, art; Eduardo Flores, senior art director; and Jairo Llort, senior copywriter
Democrats are always arguing about this sort of thing with consultants, pollsters, strategists and armchair generals like me constantly bickering over “messaging.” Sometimes they come up with something really good (“Hope and change” was simple and elegant) but mostly they just flounder. I don’t know if these Mad Men ideas are any better and it’s almost certainly too late. But BBB is a dud in my book and I wish they’d gone with something different.