The Product Placement Candidate

Following the Democratic debate the other night a lot has been made of Sen. Clinton’s “Change you can Xerox” retort: It was a lead balloon, it was too rehearsed, is this really the only line of attack she’s got? And so on.

It seems perfectly clear to me what the true significance of the statement was though. When you combine marketing folks incessant quest to fill every aspect of a consumer’s day with increasing ‘brand-awareness” with the recent news that Sen. Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million of her own money and it becomes almost self-evident. The Clinton’s have never turned down a chance to make a quick buck, and advertising has pretty well invaded just about everything we do in America, you can’t even go to a public restroom without see some brand-awareness promotion while you do your business. So why not extend brand promotion to the people’s business?

You couple increasing participation of the coveted 18-40 demographic with the disproportional participation of upper-income voters that’s been noted in most of these contests and what do you get?

Cha-Ching!

Really I think the Xerox comment was just the beginning, to help promote my idea I’ve taken the Libertymutual™ of rewriting just a few of Senator Clinton’s recent statements from her Feb. 19th speech to supporters following the Wisconsin primary to show their missed “brand potential”:

“Well, hello, Youngstown. How are you ‘Tonight [Show with Jay Leno]’?”

“You know, when I think about what we're really comparing in this election, you know, we can't just have speeches. We've got to have [Bausch and Lomb ReNu multiplus ™ contact] solutions.”

“But this election is not about me or my opponent. It is about you. It's about your lives and your dreams and your future. And I can't do this without all of you here in Youngstown and across Ohio. It is going to take an effort from all of US [Weekly ™]”

People [Magazine ™] are struggling. They're working the day shift, the night shift. They're trying to get by without health care. They're just one Paycheck [starring Mel Gibson, on sale now at your local Bestbuy™] away from losing their homes. They cannot afford four more years of a president who just doesn't see or hear them at all. [We need a president that can hear so clearly he can hear a pin-drop, like if he were using Sprint ™ long-distance.]”

“I don't want to leave anyone out. I am not running to put Band-Aids ™ on our problems; I'm running to solve our problems.”
Wait, that last one didn’t need an insertion, oh she’s good.

The beauty is this doesn’t have to be a one-way street. Just about any celebrity no matter how minor has some kind of endorsement deal these days, why shouldn’t one of the most well-known figures of American life have some?

I can see the commercials now:

“Hillary runs on Dunkin”

“Despite losing ten states by an average of 33 points, something that would have people calling for any other candidate to drop out of the race…Hillary keeps going, and going and going…Energizer ™”

“I’m Hillary Clinton; I shake thousands of hands a day. I don’t worry though, because I use Purell ™, it kills 99.99 of germs that make you sick without water or towels.”

I mean these really just write themselves.

And why stop with just the campaign. If she were to get elected we could get sponsorship deals for public events and holidays.

The State of the Union, brought to you by WesternUnion ™

Perhaps, or even:

Independence Day brought to you by Independence Bank ™

These are just a couple of possibilities, there are endless others that could represent a new revenue stream not just for campaigns but for our government as well. I mean unless anyone can come up with a reason why corporate sponsorship of the government is a problem.