Presidential Campaign Slogans as Employment Tool
Since political slogans seem to work for or do no harm to the eventual victor’s campaign, why not adopt the same kind of sloganeering when offering or applying for a job?—“Hope and Change”, “Yes We Can” and now the GOP’s (and, to a less visible extent, the Democrat’s) convention poster “Believe!”, for example.
Believers and Beliebers: An Aside
To distinguish the GOP Tampa and DNC Charlotte convention’s “Believe!” from Justin Bieber’s “Believe” album, concert and left forearm “Believe” tattoo, the exclamation point can suffice; however, I’ll use “Belieb!” as the verb preferred by Bieber Believers (if I ever mention it and him or them again).
Interestingly, in getting “Believe” out there first, Bieber may have unwittingly made an unexpected Canadian contribution to American ideological thinking. However, the demographics and aspirations of the Bieber and GOP audiences would have to be closely compared, despite any superficial similarities and overlap, e.g., lots of screaming young blonds, to predict whether the slogan will work as well for the GOP as it seems to have for Bieber.
As for whether the DNC Bieberesque “Believe!” posters will work well for the Democrats, I don’t know what to believe.
“Hope Change”, “Yes I Can!” and “Believe!” Job-Hunt Buttons
A “Yes We Can”, or a more customized “Yes I Can!” lapel button worn to a job interview might make the difference while giving a big boost to a resume, declared career goals, references, community involvement, devotion to family or pro-football team, job experience, etc. It would be a versatile button, since it could be worn by job applicant and recruiter alike. Who knows?—It might even create a bond between them, if each is sporting one.
Then there’s “Hope Change”. In the context of a job interview, it, like most political slogans, would function as vague code for something else—perhaps, in this instance, “I hope I get the job, and promise that I will change (something) before I change jobs again”. That’s actually not a bad reprise of the 2008 election slogan for the upcoming 2012 vote and for anyone campaigning anywhere, anytime.
As for “Believe!” or the GOP’s long-form version of that, “We Believe in America”, that could function in recruiting the same way it does in politics and the way Nike’s “Just Do It!” has worked. Nice and vague, totally inoffensive and a blank canvas onto which voters, job candidates, recruiters, employers, political candidates, Bieber fans and everybody else can project their agendas or the (predictable or manipulated) desires of others.
“Just Don’t Do It!”
“Don’t Believe!” and “Just Don’t Do It!”, as counter(part) negative formulations, just don’t work quite as well. That’s because they have an emotionally negative tone and suggest thinking and feeling about things better banished from consciousness altogether. Remember Grandma’s wisdom: “You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.” (Good advice, despite whatever success Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug “Just Say No!” slogan has achieved.)
To the extent that “Don’t Believe!” focuses on negatives instead of positives, it sours the mood and makes people uneasy—although, apparently this is not as much of a concern in other presidential campaign media efforts, such as mutually blistering “PACttack” ads for both parties.
A rival Adidas or job-applicant “Just Do What?” button would suffer the same limitation as would a Democrat riposte “Don’t Believe!” button (as a complement to the Democratic convention’s own “Believe!” posters). I suspect that a “Just Do What?” button worn by a job applicant would at best create confusion and at worst communicate unwelcome defiance.
So, What Slogans Can Work?
So, what kinds of job-seeker/job-filler buttons can actually work? To answer that, a closer analysis is needed of why political vagueness, platitudes, bromides and generally monosyllabic catchall phrases have such power to move, capture and hold the faith of millions.
As a preliminary to this analytical task, consider the following as a candidate for both political and recruiting purposes : “Faith, Family, Finances”—one that features safe, credible, vague and elastic common denominators.
Not only is it a good summary of the motifs of most Republican, Democrat and Canadian political speeches, it’s a nice wedge into a job interview—with allowance for liberal, er, broad interpretation of “faith”, e.g., as faith in oneself (rather than or in addition to faith in a “higher power”). It could also express faith in the company that’s offering the job—even faith in the recruiter, faith in the job candidates, or faith in the company’s customer base, technology, marketing, etc. Perfect—and perfectly inoffensive (being which is among the key tests of a slogan).
The Magical Umbrella
That kind of broad and vague job-hunter/job-provider slogan also allows utterly conflicting attractive interpretations—another key requirement and feature of effective sloganeering, including that of political campaigns. For example, “Believe!”, despite whatever regimented Orwellian and street-corner prophet overtones it may suggest, invites quite variant, individualistic, personalized and even opposed interpretations (within one political party, as well as between them), since what to believe is not specified, prescribed or proscribed in any detail (within ideological limits).
Importantly, “Believe!” subliminally deconstructs itself in a very positive way, for, despite its conformist Orwellian or blind-faith evangelical tone, by not specifying or dictating exactly what should be believed, it inspires, acknowledges and encourages the kind of rugged individualism and independence of mind that Clint Eastwood, keynote 2012 GOP convention speaker, has always personified—as a rejection of any call to ideological mavericks to be or believe in being anything else.
“Believe what seems right to you!” (as opposed to “Believe what we tell you!”) in not being excluded by the “Believe!” slogan has lots of appeal to those inclined to interpret it this way, who count among their number the very many who take freedom of religious, as well as entrepreneurial belief very seriously. That’s a wonderful three-fer: individualism, party-line conformity and broad freedom of religion.
Ditto for “Change” and “Hope” as a diversity magnet—Change what? Hope for what? All successful ideologies must make room for everyone under their umbrella, while ideally antagonizing no one (except, of course, the declared and sworn “enemy”, or, to put it more gently, the declared “opponent”). “Change Hope” does that. In the same “Change” crowd can be found a university student looking forward to greater protection of civil liberties standing shoulder to shoulder with a mom who just wants her kids to be and feel safer, no matter what it takes, including adjustments to habeas corpus rights and airport wheelchair searches that incrementally redefine and circumscribe those liberties.
Likewise, in the GOP “Believe!” crowd can be found the small business owner who wants more tax breaks for his struggling recession-whacked business standing beside a veteran who wants increased defense spending in the face of real or imagined overseas threats, even if it means higher taxes on his and the other guy’s business.
Applying that technique to the workplace, job-applicant/recruiter buttons, the ideal job-getting/job-selling button will have the same ink-blot vagueness and ambiguity: inoffensive invitation and accommodation of conflicting, projected desires.
However, my “Faith, Family, Finances” is only good, but not great, since, at the political level, it, like all slogans, inhibits consideration of details and other categories: “Foreign Policy”, “FEMA” (Federal Emergency Management Agency and its substantial capabilities), “the Fed and Auditing It”, “ (More) Fighter Planes”, “Fuel Independence”, “Foreign Oil”, “Flora and Fauna Protection”, “Famine Relief”, “Fun”, “Fluoride and Fluorocarbon Controls”, and a million other things.
As a job button, it is equally deficient, since it omits any offer by applicant or recruiter of “Flextime”, “Facebook Access” or “Four-year contracts” (the latter being the standard offer for the Oval Office job, sometimes twice).
A Bad Slogan: Did It Change World History?
Whatever you do, whoever you are, there is one button slogan you shouldn’t consider using: “You Ain’t Seen Nuthin’ Yet”. In 2000, and in an international phone conversation with a headquarters staffer named “Jack”, at Al Gore’s Tennessee campaign center, I voiced my concern about how unfortunate was the then-Vice President’s use of that phrase in one of his debates with then-Governor G.W. Bush, Jr.
Because it had a double meaning, including, “We’ve/I’ve accomplished nothing in the past eight years” (as opposed to “the best is yet to come”—the intended interpretation), I foresaw the disaster for Al Gore that was to unfold shortly thereafter, when CNN broadcast Monty Pythonesque endless crowd chanting from a packed multi-tier stadium Bush rally mocking Gore: “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!…You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!…”
Tell me that didn’t cost the Vice President 500 votes in Florida.