The ConsumHERist - Selling a Candidate

Posted on | August 7, 2008 |

By, Delia Passi

When I set this blog’s title in stone last week, I kind of figured that it wasn’t going to be much of a challenge to write. I figured I’d check out a speech by each of the presidential candidates, cite how they did or didn’t appeal to women through the use of emotional words and the blog would practically write itself. Doh!

For Barack Obama, I listened to the whole 24 minutes of his speech in Berlin, Germany. I have to admit that it was a terrific speech. The man has a gift for it. Regardless of how he might be as a leader, the State of the Union address would always be worthy of skipping the pay-per-view selections that night.

But I was disappointed when I listened to each and every word figuring he was bound to be using lots of emotion words, words like caring, feeling, praying and motherhood. He did go lightly on hope and sacrifice, but those are not ten dollar emotion words. Five dollars, tops.

John McCain on the other hand did not have a wide selection of recent speeches of any length to choose from on YouTube. I settled for listening to a 10 minute speech given when he locked up the party nomination. It was okay, good even if you consider that he is far from talented as a speaker.

He managed to squeeze in phrases like “support and love” and “family’s security” but it would be stretching it to say he peppered his speeches with emotion words any more than Obama.

Obama’s gift for speaking will be a big help in appealing to women who care that a man, and certainly a president, can carry a conversation. If I were on his speechwriting staff, or McCain’s, I would insist that his speeches make good use of emotion words. Picking a president, so often a choice of the lesser of two evils, can easily become a situation where the one that gets the most votes is the one that appeals to the emotions. If these guys want to move the needle with women voters, they should pay more attention to speaking to her emotions.

Then when they get into office they can do what they want, which is what usually happens.

Delia Passi, Founder of WomenCertified® and author of Winning the Toughest Customer: The Essential Guide to Selling to Women is a regular columnist on eBrandMarketing. Want my take? Email me and visit my sites www.medelia.com, www.womencertified.com

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