Never Ever Take Your Eye off the USP!

In Marketing and Politics: How to Make Things Happen

March 2007 By Denny Hatch

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Last week I wrote about the failed petition drive to get an amendment to the Philadelphia City Charter on the May 5 primary ballot. The premise: no casino could be built within 1,500 feet of any school, home, house of worship, playground, public pool, library, or civic center.

Needed were the valid, notarized signatures of 20,000 registered voters. Of the 27,254 signatures collected, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that fewer than 7,000 were valid.

No one bothered to get ahold of the voter registration list. Do-gooders went forth to round up signatures from anybody and everybody.

Put in direct marketing terms, it was the equivalent of sending a Harley-Davidson motorcycle promotion to nursing homes. You might sell a few to the young health care professionals but not much else.

The Proposition is on the Ballot Anyway
Last week, in an astonishing development, the City Council voted 17-0 to put the amendment on the ballot, thus setting up a deliciously nasty confrontation between the state and the city.

For starters, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has announced it will sue to keep the amendment off the ballot. Why in the world would members of a non-partisan board sue? Is one or more of the commissioners—or a commissioner’s family member—a secret investor? If so, are we not looking at conflict of interests?

The city solicitor has written a memo declaring that the City Council vote cannot be overturned and the proposition will go on the ballot, even though the state courts may nullify the vote after the election.

The next challenge is to get out the vote—persuade Philadelphia voters all over the city—that building casinos on the banks of the Delaware River will result in a catastrophe.

This is not a political challenge.

It is a direct marketing challenge.

MEMO

TO: The Rev. Richard L. Ullman

FROM: Denny Hatch

DATE: March 22, 2007

SUBJECT: Getting Out the Vote—A Direct Marketing Challenge

I spent an hour at the anti-casino meeting that you moderated at St. Peter’s Church on Monday evening and sat through the three major speeches.

The Longshoremen’s Union representative spoke so fast for 15 minutes that I got roughly one-eighth of what he was saying. I gather he was anti-casino, but I am not sure why.

The social services speaker spent 15 minutes describing how gambling causes homelessness and breaks up marriages. A lot of projections, forecasts and estimates based on research papers and news stories from around the country, but not a lot of hard evidence on what will happen in Philly.

The third speaker, a lawyer, said that the referendum was legal and would be on the ballot (confirmed in Tuesday’s Philadelphia Inquirer).

When all the candidates running for City Council—wannabes with no clout—started making political speeches in order to get noticed, we left.

A Direct Marketing Challenge
To make an impact on the state politicians and the courts, this referendum must pass with an overwhelming majority. You cannot repeat the petition drive fiasco—a poorly planned and abysmally executed campaign that resulted (in the words of Bucks County Judge Ward Clark) in “widespread and pervasive fraud.”

This is not mass marketing. You are going out with a rifle, not a shotgun.

The Message to the Voters
In marketing, the seven key copy drivers—emotional hot buttons that make people act—are:

Fear—Greed—Guilt—Anger—Exclusivity—Salvation—Flattery

Two of these are operative in this case: Fear and Anger.

Fear and anger that our lives will be destroyed by the casinos.

For the needed landslide, Casino-Free Philadelphia must make voters mad and, above all, scare them to death. It’s easy to craft a message for the folks in the Philly neighborhoods where the Foxwoods and SugarHouse slots parlors will be built. But this drive only will be successful if every voter in Philadelphia is scared and angry—those in the far west, south and north, even though they are not directly affected.

Seattle-based guru Bob Hacker’s dictum is applicable: “The prospect doesn’t give a damn about you, your product or your company. All that matters is, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

Or as the old marketing adage states: “Always listen to W-I-I FM.”

THE USP
One of the linchpins in marketing is the USP—Unique Selling Proposition. Devised in the 1940s by a Southern advertising genius, Rosser Reeves, the USP turned the tiny Ted Bates agency into a major player in the advertising world. The USP is what instantly differentiates your product or service from others. Two of Rosser Reeves’s USPs for Bates:

“Fast, fast, fast relief!”—Anacin

“Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.”—M&Ms

Casino-Free Philadelphia Needs a USP
Currently, the Casino-Free Philadelphia Web site offers “factoids” on nine major subject areas:

Gambling’s effect on local businesses—Adolescent gambling—Gambling and bankruptcy—Gambling and crime—The Gambling Industry’s Political Clout—Gambling and Political Corruption—Gambling and Suicide—Gambling and the Poor—Gambling and Tourism

Which of these is the USP?

Gambling by adolescents and the poor is unfortunate, but not compelling enough to make a person in Philadelphia’s far north act. Slots in South Philly will not increase crime in the far-west neighborhoods. Suicide, bankruptcy, political corruption—all are tangential. A pitch to voters about any of these subjects will result in a big ho-hum.

“What’s in it for me?”

Only one USP jumps out of the list.

Gambling’s effect on business.
The Casino-Free Philadelphia Web site has a useless white paper quoting scholarly studies on how gambling hurts business and cites case histories of business failures in Atlantic City, N.J., Mississippi and Gilpin County, Minn.—places no one in North Philadelphia gives two hoots about.

Casino-Free Philadelphia must create its own talking points so that canvassers can scare the wits out of voters and make them so angry that they want to throw open a window like Peter Finch in “Network” and yell out, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!” Here is the pitch that will take less than five minutes to deliver:

* The quality of your life—and that of your family—is about to be destroyed.

* Two giant slot parlors will be built on a small road running along the river that is already choked with traffic. Right now it can take an hour to go two miles.

* In that area are some 80 thriving stores—IKEA, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and many more—that draw thousands of shoppers a day. Hence the heavy traffic already there.

* If the casinos are built, it is estimated that 20,000 to 30,000 cars a day will be injected into this narrow corridor.

* The road has a series of one-minute traffic lights, which means all traffic on this road is halted for 30 minutes out of every hour.

* Add into the mix flat tires, overheated engines and road rage and nothing will move. Every day this once vibrant community will be like the Lincoln Financial Field parking lot when the Dallas Cowboys are playing the Eagles.

* Rather than spend hours in their cars, regular customers of these 80 stores will stop shopping there. Gamblers, hot for slots action, are not there to shop.

* With no customers, these stores will be forced to close.

* Then if you want to shop at IKEA, you will have to drive 20 miles to Conshohocken, Pa. The nearest Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and Pier 1 Imports are in New Jersey. Everybody’s life is disrupted.

* Those thousands of displaced shoppers will invade your neighborhood looking for stores, tying up traffic, taking over parking places, causing long lines at cash registers and making shopping at your local stores a miserable nightmare.

* The lives of everyone throughout Philadelphia will be destroyed by the ripple effect of these slot parlors and the influx of 20,000 to 30,000 cars a day.

*Oh, and by the way, all the jobs created by the casinos will be more than negated by the jobs lost from those 80 stores that will be forced to close.

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The 15-Step Wiring Diagram to a Landslide
1. As with direct marketing, the list is everything.

2. Casino-Free Philadelphia must get the list of registered voters in Philadelphia. This was not done for the petition drive and the results were not only catastrophic, but an embarrassment and a huge waste of time.

3. Volunteers must be recruited and assigned to specific neighborhoods.

4. Using the voter registration list, volunteers will ring the doorbells of voters, give the brief pitch about the destruction of lives in neighborhoods all over Philadelphia and ask for the vote.

5. If the canvasser obtains an agreement to vote for the amendment, a “Y” is placed next to the names of the voters in that home.

6. Tell the people that you would like to keep them informed of the latest developments in the casino story and ask for their phone number.

7. Ask if the person needs help or a ride getting to the polls. If so, a note should be made on the registration sheet and a phone number obtained.

8. Be courteous. Be quick. Once you have a commitment, move on.

9. Simply handing out brochures won’t do. People are lazy. One-fifth of the population of the United States is functionally illiterate. Voters must be contacted in person and told the story—quickly and with urgency.

10. All those that are not registered voters are to be ignored.

11. On Election Day, the voter registration lists with the “Ys” should be taken to each polling place by a volunteer. All who come in to vote should be noted on the list.

12. It is imperative that volunteer drivers be standing by with cars and cellphones to transport voters to and from the polling place.

13. Any “Y” person that has not voted by 2:00 p.m. should be called and reminded to vote.

14. Ask if the person needs a ride or help in getting to the polling place.

15. If no answer, keep trying until 25 minutes before the polls close.

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Tell the Casino-Free Philadelphia folks that this is how grown-ups get things done—in politics and in marketing.

Good hunting.