Kamala the Veep wasn’t exactly a runaway success. Prior to Biden’s withdrawal from the race for the White House, the last Real Clear Politics average showed that just 39% of Americans approved of the job she has been doing as Vice-President. (FT)
But the tides may be turning, as, over the last week, Kamala the Veep has morphed into Kamala the would-be President.
Her repositioning strategy started out unassumingly: her campaign team opted for an official logo (above) that favoured consistency with the existing Biden-Harris one. As with many of the best logos, the messaging was clear – if you were already voting Biden, you’ll get continuity with Kamala.
Landor’s typography specialist, Gianluca Ciancaglini, comments: “Safe to assume the brand mark was both a time-driven and strategic choice, shaped by a need to communicate continuity, fast. A new name, but a familiar, secure logo.”
With the core base shored up, Team Harris stepped things up a gear.
When the race has been a run-off between two old, white men, both of whom had already served a term in the top job, identity and pop culture were quite simply non-issues. The candidates had too much in common and too little relevance respectively to fight on these points. The Trump-Biden war was instead waged on ideology, competence and track record.
But, like any great brand, Kamala has begun to lean into the difference that will define her relevance.
Decades younger than Trump, youth (rather than old age) has now entered the chat as a meaningful differentiator. And should she win, she would be the first woman, the first Black woman, and the first Asian woman to occupy the White House – potentially pivotal, in a race where Biden was seeing support from Black and Latino voters wane.
Positioning Kamala as the candidate for a youthful, multi-racial America would carve out a unique space.
To this end, Kamala’s team has been quick to jump onto the memetic power of brat –making the pitch that she is Gen Z’s President-in-waiting (her ‘brat summer’ branding certainly struck a chord). Meanwhile, she has aligned herself with progressive powerhouse Beyoncé, borrowing the singer’s 2016 track “Freedom” to underscore her campaign, reinforcing the messaging that she will stand as a protector of rights and liberties.
We should not underestimate the memetic power these moves with Gen Z, says Matt Kissane, Landor Global Executive Director. “This generation of 2.2bn are – by virtue of growing up in a social media world – blessed with the abilities to function as brand and social media managers. Give them the right set of brand assets and access to the biggest social media platforms, and they become the world’s biggest outsourced marketing department”.
Harris is also deploying the Barbie strategy of turning vulnerability into strength. Whereas Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 Presidential campaign played an overly defensive, sometimes apologetic game in the face of relentless attacks, Team Harris has been quick to subvert jibes directed at her, reclaiming them as positives. So ‘Laughing Kamala’ becomes a positive – a joyful, authentic person with an infectious love for her work.
It’s a strategy that seems to be working for now. The Financial Times reported that #kamalaharris mentions on TikTok have leapt 455% in the past 30 days. Meanwhile, over 100,000 people signed up to volunteer for Harris’s campaign, of which more than 2,000 applied for campaign jobs, indicating significant grassroots enthusiasm.
And most importantly, a New York Times/Siena College poll out on Thursday showed Harris trailing Trump by just one point, 48-47, among likely voters — a virtual tie.
But beyond memes, more substantive repositioning work seems to be underway.
Over the weekend, Team Harris dispatched powerful surrogates like Pete Buttigieg to carry her message about reproductive rights, designed to keep focus on the issues she wants to fight on. Strong messaging discipline will be critical.
Memetic messaging has traditionally been an area of strength for Trump – his simplistic phrases and memorable nicknames for opponents have been deployed again and again, lodging themselves into the minds of even his most vocal detractors. If Team Harris have gained an upper hand in social, they now need to spend the next three months hammering on-brand messaging to their advantage.
This will be critical, because – while Trump’s brand (visual, verbal, sonic and more) is comprehensively fleshed out – there’s a need to fill Harris’s brand with more substance.
In some ways, her relatively muted tenure as Veep has also worked in her favour. HBO commentator and comedian Bill Maher recently joked that her stint in office had been “quieter than an electric car”. This gives her a reasonably blank slate to build from.
But there’s only so far that borrowing brand equity from Biden, Beyoncé and Charli xcx will go. Now is the moment for Kamala to step out of their shadows and build a powerful brand all of her own.