Akufo-Addo vs Alan Cash

Akufo-Addo: "I'm most popular"
Alan: "But I'm most marketable"

A political sketch by b Asare Otchere-Darko , 26/09/2007

Competitive politics is all about formulas. Marketing the substance and image of the candidate and the political message leads to popularity. Popularity of the candidate is often based on the substance behind political messages and leads to votes.

However, marketing is often viewed as necessary to maintain popularity of a candidate throughout the political races. And, popularity is necessary for a high level candidate to even enter politics in the first place. So, which is more important: marketing or popularity?

The race for the NPP presidential candidate is an internal contest. How does marketing and popularity function differently in an internal as opposed to national contest?

Surely internal candidates vying for their party's endorsement must be a bit more circumspect with criticism than in the nationals. All-out mudslinging is a faux pas in a race whose outcome could damage party unity.

Nevertheless, cases for candidacy must be made, and often at the expense of others. Take for example, the campaigns of the two NPP front-runners: Nana Akufo-Addo and Alan Kyerematen.

Alan countered with the preeminence of marketing to a successful campaign: "I'm the most marketable candidate. You may be popular yet not marketable. You may be popular for the wrong reasons." Here is where we may get an answer to our question of marketing or popularity. For one, how would popularity "for the wrong reasons" garner votes in the election? If the candidate is not well-liked—or popular for the '"right" reasons— then marketing probably won’t make much of a difference.

The popularity of politicians like Nana Akufo-Addo, Yaw Osafo-Maafo and, dare I say, John Evans Atta Mills is owed to the vividly positive personal contributions they have made and continue to make to Ghana’s politics.

As Prof Mills found out at his electoral peril in 2000, political popularity in substance cannot be achieved by a short, sharp, packed marketing blitz - it is earned by the gradual building of a reputation for selfless service for the common good. You can’t deny him that now, after three attempts at being elected and countless campaign tours across the land.

Alan’s strategy, it appears, is to overturn the basic philosophy of marketing. Guinness’ popularity is not because one or two bottles may have a foreign material in them (that would be popularity "for the wrong reasons"). Guinness is popular because it is liked, bought and consumed by a lot of people (popularity "for the right reasons").

A product may be marketable, but not popular, and vice-versa. Yet, that marketability only proves useful after the product (or candidate) has become popular—and sales reaps the rewards.

So if the choice is between a person who is marketable and one who is popular, I believe the easier task for the political sales executives will be to market the product that is already popular, rather than to popularize something in the course of its marketing.

Indeed, this debate can be likened to the choice of form or substance, where popularity is the substance and marketing is the form. In the end, substance always wins.

Perhaps it appears cynical to analyze the positions of political candidates in this fashion, but Ghanaian politics, particularly intra-party politics, is now experiencing the phenomenon of commoditisation of candidates.

Better to embrace it than deny it exists, and better to use any applicable principles to our advantage to be certain NPP selects the strongest candidate to face Professor Mills in the presidential race.

Money, which Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens called "Thou common whore of mankind" and Marx described as the "bond of all bonds, the universal agent of separation" is somewhat more necessary in trying to popularise a commodity that might be very marketable, than in trying to market a commodity that is already very popular.

What might that tell us about the chances of the candidates who must cling to their marketability rather than the candidates who can embrace and work with their popularity?

It would seem that in the internal race between the substance of popularity and the form of marketing, it is a popularity contest—so to speak.