Wolff: What Trump will win even if he loses
Imagine you’re a national brand holding 35% to 40% of your market vs. the other large brand in the category, which has, say, 53% to 55%. Coke, to establish a mega-brand baseline, holds 42% of the carbonated soft drink market vs. Pepsi’s 30%. Clearly, No. 2 in an essentially two-product national field is still an extraordinary position. Imagine further, in the marketing sweepstakes, that the brand loyalty for No. 2 is greater than for No. 1 (Apple vs. Microsoft, for instance).
Politics is popularly judged solely on the basis of winning or losing, not by market share and customer loyalty. Or at least the politician, if not the party, is judged that way. Indeed, a politician has many attributes of a brand spokesman. That’s why much of the elite of the Republican Party — its brand managers — are girding themselves to the reality that, with Donald Trump as the party’s standard bearer, the Republicans are Hertz and O.J. Simpson is their spokesperson.
Clearly not a good situation, but you do what you have to do and move on. O.J. is in jail, but Hertz is still No. 1 at renting cars. Indeed, political parties customarily and coldly jettison those who lose or who are otherwise disgraced. That's what the Republicans are getting ready to do to Donald Trump, who has deeply embarrassed them and will probably cost them 5 to 10 points in national market share on Election Day.
Wolff: Why we embrace Trump as a 'businessman'
Except that in a marketing anomaly, Trump has become more their competitor than their representative. Despite his recent disgraces and the general bad odor he gives the Republican brand, a sizable part of the market yet rallies around him. Given his vivid, sui generis and, in conventional terms, negative nature, there can hardly be any doubt about the meaning here: This even-larger-than-Pepsi part of the market has consciously chosen him.
This will probably cause a split in the market, which is already in full fissure. The traditional side will argue that Trump is a loser in a world where getting elected is everything. Still, though he may fail in the ultimate sense and seem in political terms to be out of business, he actually may have solidified his value and appeal to his vast market segment. This large group may have totally turned against traditional political products in favor of this newfangled sort.
It is even possible that the very nature and purpose of politics has changed: not to win but to oppose — or lambaste or mock and, in that fashion, entertain. Trump, at least for himself, may have reinvented the nature of the game — running for office is not about being a successful politician but about being a bigger celebrity.
Wolff: The media tries to walk back Trump
Trump will probably emerge from the race with something on the order of 30 million supporters or, as it were, fans. At the very least, this is a vast tchotchke market — hats, T-shirts, baubles. In media terms, it’s certainly an extraordinarily large and homogeneous audience — Trump may henceforth be the most efficient route to the white male demographic. This may also be one of the largest outsider and protest political movements in U.S. history.
Messrs. Rubio, Ryan and Cruz, et al. certainly seem to believe, in their reluctance to loudly disavow Trump, that at some point, they will have to account for their behavior toward him. They clearly hope that given the 70-year-old’s age and short attention span, they might in the near future claw back support from his loyal base.
Their gambit is that the market forces will remain, even in their turmoil, largely constant. The Trump example, on the other hand, might more clearly indicate that market behavior has shifted away from a structured political approach toward a new anti-political behavior. It’s not just running against Washington or running as an outsider but running as some hyperbolic and self-dramatizing figure who, quite purposefully, can never win. Though there is obviously no point in doing that for Rubio, Ryan, Cruz or anybody else whose career and identity depend on being elected, there may be a clear benefit for Donald Trump.
It’s quite the opportunity of an entrepreneur’s lifetime to have the attention of a third of the American voting public, to be a kind of Pied Piper to it and to be, practically speaking, the only political figure, by dint of his lack of need to win, who can sustain this role.
Sarah Palin tried this role and failed to maintain it, though she came quite far. Trump is not just a better version but a far bigger and far richer one — she was merely the beta model. Many traditional politicians and much of the traditional political analysis say he will shrink to a pathetic size in the face of the likely Democratic landslide. But it's just as possible that his defeat, or the victory stolen from him, will stoke brand vehemence and loyalty.
Rieder: Trump, reality TV overwhelm the campaign
The civic danger is that Trump has gathered a nationalist, xenophobic and bigoted demographic around him. But that’s a description that comes from his opponents — it’s a conventional analysis. The truth is, nobody, at least from the outside, can conceive why Trump should be so attractive. After 18 months of non-stop analysis, he and his market continue to defy understanding. Trump is a product for which no conventional marketer could have conceived the demand.
It is clear only that this vast market segment has rejected the standard offerings, and even the basic functionality, of all the other products. In this vacuum, it is perhaps no coincidence that it has chosen this instinctual brand genius and marketing savant to lead it. To where? We of lesser instincts do not yet know.