You’ll Hate This (Then You’ll Love It)

The right story can change your mind about almost anything.

A few years ago, my very fashionable daughter took one look at my Birkenstocks and asked why I was wearing “man-dals.” She noted that they had no style and made my feet look big (she doesn’t filter her opinions and I’m OK with that). I wore them less. Time passed and one day I noticed this same daughter is now wearing Birkenstocks, and plastic ones at that. I didn’t bother to ask why. I knew they had been made fashionable. So I bought another pair.

Birkenstock’s rise can be credited to repositioning. Repositioning changes how a product, entity, or policy is perceived by customers or constituents. The fundamentals remain unchanged, but they are presented in a different way. Marketers use this technique when their product is under-appreciated, wants to expand to new markets, or when the culture shifts to create new opportunities.

Good repositioning can get us to buy ugly sandals, eat bitter vegetables, or support a previously disfavored policy or party simply by revising their story. When done well, it’s powerful enough to change our opinions on almost anything.

Invisible Adjustments

Even though repositioning is a popular maneuver, we rarely notice it happening because the changes are typically subtle or unseen. You probably didn’t eat kale as a child. It was considered a garnish at best because it was thought to be tough, bitter, and a poor man’s substitute for spinach or lettuce. But when the culture shifted to valuing nutrient dense foods, kale started getting attention. It was reintroduced as a “super food,” and made more palatable by partnering it with familiar ingredients like carrots and seeds in salad mixes with sweet dressing included.

The repositioning didn’t change its name, its look, or its taste. It simply asked us to see it differently, to buy into a new story that highlights its nutrients and masks its taste.

Old Spice similarly repositioned its ancient brand for a new audience by humorously aligning it with a young, studly spokesperson who challenged potential customers to “smell like a man.” La Croix repositioned itself from a midwest budget water brand to a premium choice through influencer and social media marketing. Patagonia repositioned and distinguished its brand in a crowded field by highlighting their environmental activism as a key feature.

Repositioning doesn’t always work. JC Penney couldn’t be re-envisioned as a modern retailer. New Coke couldn’t beat its dominant heritage. Kamala Harris struggled to go from “top cop” to progressive leader.

To be accepted, repositioning must have perfect timing. It needs to match the emotional logic of its intended audience. It needs to be perceived as wholly authentic, and it needs to be supported by world class creativity based on excellent user research.

Fixing What’s Broken

If repositioning can turn inedible greens into a salad bar staple, imagine what it can do with public policies or polarizing personalities.

We’re watching many big brands deteriorate rapidly so this is a perfect opportunity to explore how this might work. To do that, let’s pretend we’ve been hired to reposition some of the country’s politically-aligned brands that have been struggling for better acceptance, starting with vaccines.

Our research would identify that the problem with vaccines is they’ve lost credibility with key groups of people who believe they are dangerously complex and more harmful than helpful. These folks associate vaccines with the ominous mystery of advanced technology and fear invisible hazards.

To address this resistance, we would pitch our client, the US government, to make vaccines more popular by repositioning them with the help of Robert Downey Jr., (aka Tony Stark, aka Iron Man), through a massive PR campaign targeted at people under 25. Since Iron Man is technically dead, he’d appear as a hologram to explain how injecting his body with technology gave him superpowers. He would explain that vaccines offer the same benefit and encourage young people to demand they get theirs.

This approach strips the fear from vaccines by associating them with a highly popular iconic figure and shifts the decision making power from gatekeeping parents to demanding children. This may sound light-hearted and in jest, but cereal makers have thrived on it for decades.

Since Tony Stark is peripherally associated with Elon Musk, our firm would likely next hear from Tesla. Research would again lead the way, showing that their brand is tanking globally because their CEO is an erratic megalomaniac with declining public trust, but we’d reassure them that repositioning has worked on even bigger challenges.

We would suggest recasting Musk as a rogue innovator fighting for survival in a crumbling world and building machines for the end times. He’s flawed but obsessed with saving civilization through technology and brute force. The vehicles would be pushed as futuristic; not in a green energy, sustainable way but in a “survive the chaos” positioning that appeals to a younger and maybe even conservative consumer. Elon would probably want to introduce a rugged, minimalist ATV and start adding graffiti graphics to his cybertrucks.

You’ll note that with this repositioning we’re not fighting Musk’s mayhem. Instead we’re channeling it. He’s already halfway there, we’re just giving the audience a way of categorizing him so he seems a bit more predictable and maybe even likable.

The Biggest Story

Eventually our reputation would attract the democratic leadership, preferably the younger ones. They would want to know how to rise from their 2024 election defeat and reclaim a positive, forward-looking mantle supported by a majority of Americans. Our research would note that they’re perceived to be elitist or overly intellectual. Their stance is fragmented and reactive. While they are good at policy and procedures, they are bad at emotional connection and they try to please too many by offering too much. In the kindest way possible, we’d explain they are like the original kale: unappreciated for their true value and serving as a contrasting garnish to right-wing salad.

Our recommended repositioning would follow the lead recently set by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their book, Abundance, declaring that Democrats should not be about protecting the status quo, but about building the future. We’d advise them to unite key objectives—bold climate goals, modern healthcare systems, and schools that actually work for today’s kids—under a story detailing how the Democratic party is rebuilding from the bottom up, with local communities networking to form a powerful yet flexible movement that grows through a commitment to shared goals.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

We’d tell them to stop showing up with 300-page plans, and to instead bring clearly visualized, viable goals complete with deadlines and budgets. We’d help them host farewell dinners for politicos over 80, and shine a bright light on AOC, Fetterman, Buttigieg, Warnock, Shapiro, Whitman, et al. We’d present potential taglines like “Not Left. Not Right. Just Forward.” or “Less Outrage. More Outcomes.” We’d even suggest a new visual palette to replace the outdated 150-year-old donkey, showcasing a range of images that reflects not where they’ve been, but where they’re going.

Or maybe we’d suggest something all together different.

I say this because the research I reference above is fictional and may be wrong. It could be that Democrats need the opposite of what is proposed above. The only way to know that is by conducting carefully designed and professionally fielded research that finds the opportunities for a new story. That takes time, but I hope it’s what they are doing now.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can speculate on what that new story should say. Here’s some questions that might give us a start:

1. What one word best describes today’s Democratic party in your mind? Why that word?

2. What one word best describes today’s Republican party in your mind? Why that word?

3. If you could make one change in how the Democratic party behaves, what would that change be?

4. What values do Democrats currently project that you connect with? What values do they project that you reject?

5. What groups or communities do you feel the Democratic party currently neglects or misunderstands?

6. Can you name 3-4 democratic leaders you think represent the future of the Democratic party? What characteristics do they share?

7. If in 10 years, the Democratic party has reinvigorated the US and is wildly popular among voters at all levels, what will they have done?

Your Turn

I’d love to hear your answers to these questions. There’s no right or wrong response, only what you honestly believe. Choose one or more and add your reply by hitting the Comments button below.

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If you’re new here, one of those algorithms probably guided you. In that case, I recommend you confirm who I am, where my expertise lies, and what biases I may bring to my posts. If you want to read more, my foundational post, The Hidden Influence of Branding in American Politics is a good starting point.