The Democratic nominee has not even been chosen yet, but Alpha learning can tell you a lot about the coming Presidential election. Alpha learning would predict that Barack Obama could win the 2008 Presidential election over Republican nominee Senator John McCain by one of the largest margins of any election in recent history. It’s also not hard to predict that, if Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, it will be a close race, although Senator Clinton would probably win that one, too.
This has nothing to do with political preference or ideology. It has everything to do with what the candidates are saying and how they are being perceived by the public based upon the Alpha Model.
For anyone who has not yet read The Alpha Factor, it is based upon more than a decade of intense research plus more years of real-world testing (not just ”test markets”) to understand what customers really want and why marketers who use these principles generate greater, more profitable success, while other companies struggle even though they are doing things that seem to emulate those successful companies.
The secret is fairly simple in principle, but extremely difficult in application - not because it’s all that hard, but rather because the “normal” model for trying to influence people is so wrong and so counter-productive.
By using the needs satisfaction pyramid (also called the Hierarchy of Purchase Drivers on page 63 of the book), it is fairly easy to see the difference between these candidates and predict how they would fair in a general election today. The issue that was discovered in our research that undermines success is that, when trying to influence decisions, most companies and people focus upon “function,” meaning they try to show that they are better by describing how what they have ”works.” That approach can work, but it costs more and takes more time to convince people with no guarantee of success. However, if you focus upon fulfilling a person’s need for personal significance and self-satisfaction (the two ways we perceive ourselves), you can generate passionate loyalty faster with less investment and with far greater impact.
Now, look at the candidates. Who has taken this learning to heart?
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