What Does Evan Bayh’s Announcement Tell Us That’s Relevant to Marketing?

As I’m sure you heard, on Presidents Day, February 15, two-term Senator and former governor Evan Bayh, D-Indiana, announced that he would not seek re-election to the Senate this fall.  This was a bombshell in Washington, D.C.  No one saw it coming, Democrat or Republican.  It is unlikely that Democrats can retain Bayh’s Senate seat, something true in North Dakota and Delaware as well.  Republicans are within spitting distance of incumbent Democratic Senators in half a dozen other states, which means that there is a chance that Republicans could win control of the Senate in the mid-term elections.

But the shock of Bayh’s decision and its impact on the balance of power in Washington is not the important part of this story.  In fact, the news is not so great for Republicans either.  The Tea Party movement is rocking the Republican mainstream.  Candidates surfacing from this movement are taking on Republican party standard-bearers in elections all over the country.

What’s going on is not a rejection of one party in favor of another.  Rather, it’s an upswelling rejection of politics in general.  People have had their fill of politics as usual and, in growing numbers, are saying no to the status quo.  Established ways of doing things are falling out of favor.  It’s bad news for politicians, perhaps, but it’s good news for marketers.

Senator Bayh was blunt in his announcement when he said, “I love working for the people of Indiana, I love helping our citizens make the most of their lives, but I do not love Congress.”  Why?  Because the old way of doing things no longer works.  As Senator Bayh said, “For some time, I’ve had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress, too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous national challenge, the people’s business is not getting done.”

Senator Bayh is not alone in this judgment.  It is the judgment of the American electorate, too.  An AP/GfK poll in mid-January found only 32 percent approved of the way Congress is doing its job.  An early February poll for CBS/New York Times found three-quarters disapproving of Congress, a percentage equal to the previous all-time high.  A mere 8 percent think lawmakers should receive another term; 81 percent think not.

People are fed up with business as usual and seem determined to shake up the establishment at the ballot box.  The outpouring of populist outrage uncorked by the 2008 financial crisis is now in the process of moving from last year’s town halls meetings to this year’s election booths.  People are going to send a message.  And that message is one of discontent, frustration and change.  Former governor Sarah Palin mocked President Obama at the Tea Party convention when she asked rhetorically, “How’s that whole hopey-changey thing working for ya’?”  It was a made for YouTube moment but it missed the point.  In point of fact, people remain hopeful about the future and because of that, people are determined to keep trying to change things until somebody gets it right.  In other words, that “hopey-changey thing” is the actual operative dynamic these days.

And not just in politics; in the consumer marketplace, too.  People are looking for hope and change in everything, no less in the consumer marketplace than anywhere else.  What used to motivate people, what used to inspire people, what used to capture attention and interest no longer suffices.  All of the old ambitions have been discredited by the financial crisis.  The ways in which people used to shop, spend, borrow and consume took them and the economy to the brink, so people are determined to change.

A lot of the changes people have made in their shopping and buying have been dismissed, in effect, as nothing but frugality in the face of economic calamity.  Certainly, economizing is necessary these days.  But people are doing more than embracing thrift.  They are redefining value, high and low.  They are re-evaluating what’s worth buying and, in particular, what’s worth paying a premium.  When something is worth it, people will still buy.  The problem for marketers right now is that consumers no longer think much of what they had to have before is worth having anymore.  As a result of being forced to live without, many consumers have learned that they can do without.  This is not frugality; this is a new perception of value.  This is the problem facing Congress – what used to be okay with consumers now has to go.

But this is far from bad news for marketers.  What it means is that there is more opportunity for innovation and invention than ever before.  Consumers don’t want the same old things; they’ve repudiated those.  Consumers want something fresh and new; they’re seeking things that fit their new definition of value.  In turning their back on the past, consumers are looking hopefully toward the future with a determination to change things for the better.  Optimism is the chord to strike.  Change is the path to success.

Senator Bayh’s announcement reminds us that the more the status quo clings to the way things were before, the less the status quo has to offer for the future.  People will vote and buy the same way – for something new and innovative that better fits the lessons learned from the recession and the direction in which the future needs to go.  People are fed up with the old, yet hungry for the new.  That’s what’s relevant for marketers.  Now is the time to take chances not retrench, to do something new not something less, to innovate not pull back.  For consumers, the past is no longer an acceptable guide to the future.  Extrapolation won’t point the way; only invention can take that lead.

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