Catastrophe brings opportunity … for those who look!
I’m not downplaying the covid tragedy because too many have already died.
It is time however to take a fresh breath and clear your mind of negativity.
I’m also not
talking about capitalizing on sparse supplies like PPE and toilet paper.
I’m not even talking about the clichéd “silver lining”.
I’m talking about what happens when the furor dies down and we venture out into deep water.
Part of the problem with fisheries and the seafood industry is that we’ve been operating on borrowed time for quite a while, à la “Dead Fish Walking.” We all know it, but most still refuse to acknowledge that WE ALL helped contribute to seafood challenges – including consumers.
Overfishing isn’t a myth, although WHO is doing it … is.
In a former career I produced shows in many of the main rooms in Vegas, at venues like Caesar’s Palace and Harrah’s. Each time a recession hit, many casinos scrambled to rebuild. Quite literally, sometimes, they would blow up old casinos and build brand new. Mostly though, they simply rebuilt the gaming areas.
When you have no customers for reasons beyond your control, leverage the downtime and rebuild!
One of the most popular restaurants in White Rock, BC, Charlie Don’t Surf is renovating and will be ready for post-covid crowds.
It was always easy to spot the casinos who were struggling. They were the companies doing nothing except waiting for the crowds to return. The real heavy hitters shifted gears quickly and prepared for the return of crowds.
When Covid arrived in week one, I immediately began rebranding my offering and rebuilding my web presence.
Like everyone, I naively thought, and hoped Covid-19 would only impact us for a couple of weeks, but it quickly became apparent after watching Italy that we were in for a long haul. It spurred me on to reinvent everything I knew about fisheries and seafood.
I was disappointed like everyone because I was in the middle of a new fisheries project that had already absorbed all of my time for several months, and I was concerned it would stall. Then, I realized; EVERYONE is in the same boat and the tide was dropping rapidly.
I also
realized that no one, not even the most in-tune c-suite executives knew what
was about to happen, although some did recognize it was time to rebuild.
My specialty is rebuilding struggling companies and organizations, so maybe I was looking harder, but by now, if you haven’t figured this out too, you really need to step back and rethink the challenge for a moment.
There are so many things that need FIXING in FISHERIES that it’s a bit hard to even know where to start. My advice in this respect is to change what you have control over, and leave the big stuff to the collective, and to governments.
Ask yourself what YOU can do TODAY to improve the elements of fisheries and seafood where you’re the most involved and invested. Be the change the world needs and take advantage of this temporary downtime to reinvent yourself.
In several
months we’ll be able to see who was proactive, and who sat around moaning and
playing solitaire. Personally, I’m so busy in this downturn I can’t even find
time to sleep.
By the time
we were one month into the slowdown my head was spinning so fast with new ideas
I couldn’t keep up.
In retrospect, seven weeks of slowdown in my region has clarified the water and helped me see what needs to be done and what is feasible. We have a special challenge with Covid because it’s kept us apart, at least physically, but our phones, Zoom, and Skype still work and allow us to meet virtually to plan, and in some cases also execute.
Everyone now knows that how the world markets food, especially the western world, will change dramatically.
Supply chains are being turned inside out.
How will it affect you?
Are you prepared?
We’re already seeing very serious deviations in other industries, like the movie business for example. Feature films like Trolls World Tour and Planet of the Humans are bypassing movie theaters and going straight to digital, and it’s causing huge concern with movie theater owners. The reality though, is that like fishers, processors, and distributors, there isn’t much theater owners can do except change how they do business. Once a customer takes a leap into a new style of product delivery it’s incredibly hard to draw them back to their old ways. Movie theaters won’t become obsolete overnight, but they are going to have to work even harder to keep an even smaller crowd interested. The same will happen with seafood.
Covid has ramped up online ordering in the supply chain, and it’s eating away at brick and mortar rapidly. Online marketing has been simmering in the background for years with many companies waiting until critical mass signaled a time to move. The time is now.
Six weeks ago we began daydreaming of a time when we could return to normal. Four weeks ago we realized there would never be a normal, and we called it the “NEW NORMAL.”
Today, take NORMAL off your radar.
Relations with China and the world are deteriorating with citizens in almost every western country demanding to cut ties and focus more energy on forging relationships with countries that reflect similar cultural and political views. The overarching goal for many is to produce goods domestically in their respective countries. It’s a nice thought, but it could easily take a decade to develop and build new manufacturing networks.
If you do business in China, get ready for a sea change.
If you thought it was challenging yesterday, tomorrow will be exponentially complex and frustrating.
Some
companies are in PREDATORY MODE and buying up shares of struggling companies. Live
Nation and Carnival Cruises recently
saw massive investments from Saudi Arabia, but there will be more, many more.
The moral
here is that change drives change, and if you’re not flexible, you’ll be in
trouble!
Survival of the fittest does not mean what people often think. The adage is often mistakenly attributed to Darwin, and in part he was the catalyst, but he was referring to single cell creatures and how they constantly adapt to their surroundings – similar to the novel corona virus.
It is not the strongest, or the most intelligent that survive. It is the one most adaptable to change.
Words to live by … literally.
Maurice Cardinal has been a fisheries marketing and communications advisor and writer in British Columbia for almost a decade and has worked with leading organisations, NGOs, and governments in Canada and abroad.
I worked with President Donald Trump and his team back in the 80’s when he was building his infamous empire in Atlantic City. Considering all the bribery and extortion charges surrounding his political friends at the time, includingtwo Atlantic City mayors jailed for corruption, and since he’s became president, I haven’t talked much about my old business relationship with the U.S. president.
In light of Covid-19 however, It’s time to share what I know about the type of NEGOTIATOR Donald Trump was, and it seems still is. Just for clarity, my team played a pivotal role in helping bring large casinos to Atlantic City. It gave us ringside seats to The Greatest Show on Earth!
I wrote this article to share insight into why and how Trump does what he does. The more you know about him, the better you’ll be able to predict what he’s going to do. It’ll be easier for you and your business to stay ahead of his game whether it is fisheries related or otherwise.
For starters, contrary to what Trump tirelessly promotes, I’ve always thought the U.S. is great, so I didn’t agree with Trump’s spin. In marketing speak, Making America Great Again is a fear-based slogan designed to keep Americans off balance. You folks south of the 49 are as fine as you’ve ever been, so relax and don’t let Trump undermine your confidence just so he can appear superior. America is going to need all the juice you can muster to fight off Covid-19 over the next few months, so don’t squander your energy.
From 1978 to 1994 I co-managed live operations and promotions for superstar recording artist – Anne Murray. Our Canadian team helped Trump establish Vegas-style main room entertainment on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. During the initial phase of our project, we weren’t exactly sure what Trump was doing, but rumours were rife that he had already orchestrated a number of dubious deals in Atlantic City regarding licensing.
Knowing Trump the way I do, I’m pretty sure he’d characterize it as creative, at best though, personally, I’d give it a “wtf” rating. Years later in a book by Wayne Barrett called “TRUMP: The Greatest Show on Earth” the author alleges that some of what Trump was involved in was illegal, and that the mob was implicated – east coast Old Money. If you haven’t read Barrett’s book, do so whether you are a friend or foe of The Donald. You’ll learn a lot about the man and the myth. You’ll also learn how to set up a mayor with a sex worker so you can take clandestine pictures and use them for leverage. Blackmail is not original, and it’s not creative, but it is resourceful. The moral to the story is that when you can’t secure casino licensing, one solution is to replace the current political players with those who are more cooperative. Again, read the book and decide for yourself. Trump surrounded himself and made friends with local politicians and civic leaders who were convicted and imprisoned for bribery and extortion.
You’re probably wondering; How the heck did a kid from Canada end up managing high visibility shows in Atlantic City? Well, it was in the 80s, and I arrived in AC via Las Vegas where I co-managed shows in many of the big main showrooms at casinos like the Riviera, Caesars Palace, Ballys, the Hyatt International, Harrah’s many more. I was one of a team of three managers for Canada’s first superstar crooner. By the time I was thirty I had considerable experience managing high end shows with the most creative promoters in the world at venues like Radio City Music Hall, the 65,000 seat Houston Astrodome, and the Greek Theater in LA, plus every major city in United States, Canada and around the world. I managed shows with promoters like the late great Bill Graham from San Francisco, who was legendary at generating live performance profit. He was also a genuinely nice, ethical guy, and highly professional especially compared to greenhorn promoters like Trump. I also worked daily alongside razor sharp Hollywood and NYC entertainment agents – guys that shoved players like our man D through the pipe at breakneck speed. Trump proved to be an easy mark over the years for these aggressive negotiators. One of the reasons Trump failed in Atlantic City was because he was outgunned by people much smarter. Everyone recognized Trump’s trademark bluff and bluster, and some let him hang himself when it served their purpose, including us.
Trump desperately wanted to work with our act because we knew how to make money better than most other performers, and we did it consistently for many years. We were the number one act in Vegas for several years. When other entertainers sold $20 concert tickets (yeah amazing right), we developed a marketing strategy to sell out shows at $100 a seat! We were middle-of-the-road safe, and highly respected by everyone in the industry. Hanging out with us improved Trump’s reputation, but at the time we didn’t really get why it was so important for him – we now know.
In a round-about way, we taught Trump how to negotiate entertainment deals. Well, we didn’t exactly teach him, but he eventually learned from mistakes he consistently made with us. We had ten years of entertainment success under our belt, a decade more than Trump, and it showed. Even if you didn’t like Trump personally, it was hard to not love his money. Key members of his team had considerable industry experience, although most were pushed very hard to follow what he preached. As you’ve seen, it’s Trump’s way or the highway – You’re Fired! His team constantly looked for angles and loopholes, even sometimes to the inadvertent detriment of his bottom line. Many on his staff quietly took from him too, just like he took from others.
In the very beginning, we thought Trump was fascinating. We changed our minds quickly when we put the pieces together regarding his associates. Trump didn’t treat them, or anyone with respect, especially his in-house Atlantic City team. It was the small stuff that gave him away. For example, we’d produced shows for Trump for a year or so, and during one run, a key member of his entertainment team had a birthday. Trump doesn’t acknowledge stuff like that because it distracts from making money – no kidding. We on the other hand, valued this woman’s extra effort so we threw her a party that even the star of our show attended, which is a big deal when the star is an international celebrity. We had partnered successfully with promoters all over the world, and Trump was the most out-of-touch promoter we had ever encountered.
One of the first quirks we learned about Trump was that he overpaid for almost everything, and it was mostly because he rarely did his homework. He’s not detail oriented. Plus, he wasn’t well-liked by his staff, which meant they let a lot of things slide in a passive-aggressive way that he would never know about – I’m sure you’ve had similar bosses. I’ve worked with a few people like this over the years, and in my experience, micromanaging rarely works. In comparison, I also managed high profile projects where two other U.S. presidents were involved, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Politics aside, based on my personal experience, I consider these presidents and their teams head-and-shoulders above Trump. Again, it’s the little things that stick out; Bush for example sent me a warm thank you letter after we met, and surprisingly, White House Christmas tree ornaments for a couple of years.
Trump on the flipside, couldn’t even get our airport transportation right, and left our entourage stranded in Philly one afternoon. The incompetent driver who eventually showed up was very nearly shot dead in front of us. Airport police wanted to arrest Trump’s driver for causing a peace officer bodily injury with a vehicle – bruised wrist when the mirror hit him as he was trying to stop our vehicle. It took intense negotiating and bribes with a fistful of show tickets for me to smooth things over.
Regardless of challenges like this, we looked forward to producing Atlantic City shows for Trump because it was so lucrative. You could however, always count on a Trump project to be incredibly chaotic and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. I suspect that some members of his team heightened the chaos purposely as a distraction so they could covertly work other streams under Trump’s radar.
When everything was taken into account, Trump not only paid out almost double what we would command at other venues, he also paid for supplemental expenses that no other promoters in the world would normally consider. At first we thought it was a pissing match with the mob in Las Vegas, and maybe it was in part, but we soon realized it was also a byproduct of his ego and of not wanting to reveal he didn’t know what he was doing as an entertainment promoter. Thankfully, he had a few key people who took personal pride in making sure contracts rolled out as planned, which was both good and bad. If it wasn’t explained precisely in our contract, Trump wouldn’t budge. He constantly scoured everything for loopholes. For example, if you didn’t clearly state that you required a professional driver for the star limo, he’d send a limo driven by anyone available from his casino, kitchen staff or whomever – no kidding. We had to expressly state in future riders that we wanted professional, trained limousine drivers with new, safe cars that were properly insured and clean.
When someone on Trump’s team dropped the ball though, and we were under a deadline, it was interesting to watch him throw money around so voluminously. Trump’s slush fund depth was impressive. I’d never met anyone like Trump who fixed all his bad decisions with injections of more money. It was like watching Edgar the Bug, the alien cockroach in Men In Black squeezing into human skin – terrifying and hypnotic at the same time.
In the beginning, we gave Trump a number of opportunities to redeem himself and strike better deals because our name was on the project too so we wanted to see his Atlantic City casino succeed, but he never walked through our open door. After we saw the type of a person he was though, our agents went for the jugular each time without hesitation or guilt. Our motto of “Never let your short term greed get in the way of your long term greed” was temporarily shelved because it was difficult to envision or maintain anything long term with Trump.
It was more like smash and grab.
In my opinion, and considering my entertainment history, an easy way to understand Trump is to think of him as a BOXING PROMOTER, not a traditional business person, or a politician, or president.
Today, in 2020 it would be a mistake to let political myth
cloud your judgment.
Trump boasts repeatedly that he operates on intuition. From a negotiating perspective, it indicates he’ll react emotionally. When you identify a psychological weak spot that is this pronounced, you can influence someone who is as reactive as Trump in a way that causes them to bounce wildly from one emotion to the next.
We see still it with Trump every day regarding Covid-19.
Trump’s ad hominem attacks have now become the answer to the question – regardless of the question.
During the same period that we worked projects with Trump he was also pals and doing business with wild-man boxing promoter Don King, the infamous impresario who went to prison for manslaughter. King promoted Mike Tyson fights that were held in Atlantic City, right next door to Trump properties and his casinos. Trump sponsored and co-promoted the fights.
When President Trump gets excited his promoter’s persona kicks in and he automatically goes into Ring Announcer mode. As long as the message isn’t too serious, it can be fun to watch his performance and envision him standing in the middle of a boxing ring hyping the next great thing – in the red corner, weighing in at …
Trump and King have very similar communication styles that always begin with bluster.
The louder the better because it’s intimidating for the
inexperienced on the receiving end.
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” – Mike Tyson
Trump and Tyson are both streetwise, KNOCK OUT Promoters who spar and play off of each other for their respective audiences.
As a result of hanging out with his bud Mike, Trump developed a series of linguistic traits that have become his hallmark. Intimidation is at the top of the list – you’ve seen it many times. Trump also often pretends he knows what he’s talking about, and when he knows he’s pushing the envelope, he repeats his words. He is repetitious in part because he’s an experienced pitchman and he wants to make sure you heard it, but that’s not the full MO of someone who stretches the line of reality like this president. People who boast and bluff have very specific speaking patterns, and Trump hits all the markers. Repeating is also a stall, and gives Trump time to make up a narrative,and by “make up,” I mean create a storyline. When he slips into repeat mode, he also often looks for someone to back up his claim – Am I right? Of course I’m right, and if you don’t agree who cares. You’re a nobody. Am I right?
Rapid fire verbal intimidation works the same way a boxer delivers a flurry of hits – it throws you off balance.
Canada has only 600 deaths in the same period, which means that PER CAPITA, USA has well over 3X more deaths than their neighbors. It’s tragic.
I’m sure I don’t have to repeat myself for it to sink in.
Trump’s pattern is ominous.
Trump has a finely-honed penchant for painting a worst case scenario, because then, when it doesn’t occur, he can claim he saved the day. It’s a kid’s game of tripping your friend, and before he falls you grab him and yell, I saved your life, you own me a quarter.
It’s not just the number that is alarming, it’s how Trump delivers and wraps information like this in fear. It’s just data modelling, but Trump makes it sound like it’s a foregone conclusion unless he, the dragon-slayer, saves the day.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in comparison presents info like this in a way that inspires and makes it clear that each person in our entire country has personal responsibility to pull their weight to suppress Covid-19.
Bill Gates, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is contributing up to $100 million to fight Covid-19 disagrees with Trump. Gates said the number of U.S. citizens who could die will be much lower as long as Americans work together. I agree, but it’s also possible that Trump is already so far over his head that no amount of money thrown at it at this late date will do any good. It’s a fact we all know after watching other countries like Italy and Spain.
Teamwork is key to managing Covid-19.
Responsible Americans will find this next part about teams, and whom you pick as friends and colleagues, sobering …
Don King is an even more flamboyant promoter than Trump. I’m betting King was Trump’s mentor when they hung out. Both of their speech patterns and tone are inflected with the same promoter razzle dazzle.
Trump, King, and Tyson are the trifecta of bad actors.
These 3 Musketeers were inseparable and fed off of, and on each other.
Another time while we were doing a show in Atlantic City, Tyson was preparing to fight next door at the AC convention center. We were all staying in the same Trump hotel and I thought it would be interesting to meet Tyson, the man and the emerging myth – before his rape charges of course. The star of our show did too, so I called Trump’s handler and asked him to set it up. He came back a couple of days later and said that Donald didn’t think it would be a good idea. I asked why, and he said Tyson was too volatile, and that they couldn’t guarantee what he might do to our star – Anne Murray. We all laughed and I asked him to try again. A couple of days later he returned and said Donald still thought it was a “very bad idea”, but if we insisted he would set it up with one stipulation; We would have to sign a waiver stating that if Tyson hurt our star, Trump wouldn’t be responsible.
We took a pass nad played tennis instead.
In retrospect, how stupid was it for Trump to have us sign a waiver? If Anne gets hurt, Trump’s casino show tanks. He got his point across about how dangerous Tyson was, but went about it in a crazy way. We’re all adults, so just lay the facts out clearly.
Tyson’s rap sheet today is longer than his arm and includes battery and threatening of more than one woman, including the rape of his wife. Who knew? Trump apparently.
Let’s get back to HOW Trump, the PROMOTER, is selling Covid-19 to Americans.
I suspect that the reason Trump is proclaiming such a high death rate is because when it does NOT happen, and the odds are very high it won’t, he’ll jump up and claim he saved America.
He has nothing to lose because if it turns out he really is that bad of a leader, and the death toll does reach his knockout prediction of 240,000, he’ll simply blame someone else – most likely China. A blind mole will see that punch coming. UPDATE: As it tragically turned out, 1.2 million Americans died of covid under Trump’s watch, the highest reported COVID-19 death toll of any country in the world. 65,165 Canadians died, and when you calculate it per capita against the U.S., America suffered through twice as many people dying.
Trump’s modus operandi is to leverage fear to make himself look good. We’ve all seen it numerous times.
Maurice Cardinal has been a fisheries marketing and communications advisor and writer in British Columbia for almost a decade and has worked with leading organisations, NGOs, and governments in Canada and abroad.
The fisheries industry in Canada imploded in large part when China shut its borders – very little is going in or out. China purchases more Canadian seafood than any country in the world. Consequently, when Asia struggles for breath, Canadian seafood producers also gasp for air.
Minister Jordan and her team have been scrambling since the pandemic took hold. You can see the results of some of their work in the links at the bottom of this article. The information applies to almost all businesses, including fisheries that require special considerations.
The Covid-19 common sense rule of thumb is to FIRST take care of yourself and your family, and then your business. Our goal as Canadians is to get through this together. If you’ve never trusted the government in the past, you might want to relax your bias a bit and clear your mind so you can focus on the task at hand. One step at a time is good advice for everyone in these perilous times.
The blame game is incredibly dangerous today because it distracts you from doing the right things to protect yourself and your company.
Relaying critical information and keeping people calm is a leadership skill that can be learned. It helps if you also possess a natural affinity for empathy, or … if it at least looks like you care.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Donald Trump are polar opposites in this regard. Trudeau cultivates calm while Trump plants panic – both leadership strategies can be effective, but the latter has serious long term ramifications.
Our Canadian prime minister injects valuable and compassionate health science information into his democratic messages, while the U.S. commander in chief, who self-named his position, “wartime president” … plays off of patriotism and capitalism.
The USA is fully immersed in a 2020 social experiment the world is watching closely, especially Canadians who share a very long border with the US – 8,891k/5,525m. We’ve heard for decades that when the U.S. sneezes, Canada gets a cold. Historically, the aphorism is reflective of the economic relationship between our two countries, today however, Canadians are also taking it literally. Many Canadians believe it’s in our best interest to protect ourselves from a neighbor that had not taken the globally coronavirus pandemic as seriously as we have in Canada. From a world perspective, news reports claim Trump reacted slowly in highly critical areas, many say recklessly. It’s too soon though, to tell in the absolute, if he’s a mad genius, or just mad.
Hopefully, for the sake of Canadians, and Americans of course, Trump is an exception.
I hesitate to refer to Covid-19 statistics because EVERYONE
has their own accounting system. At this stage, the numbers are incredibly
chaotic. When you’re talking about profit margins, fudging the numbers is not a really big deal. Morally however, when
lives are at risk, misrepresentation is criminal, although you would never know
it by today’s crisis reporting standards.
Trudeau and Trump use very different psychological
strategies to manage their audiences.
One is calming and informative, and the other manipulative and coarse.
Both hide more than they know in order to prevent widespread panic, which is a responsible position taken by many political leaders. People are already scared and need to be assured that those in charge have a plan and that life will soon return to relative normal.
Psychological crowd persuasion has been an intellectual artform since time immemorial. Unless you’re a dictator, there is usually little benefit to heightening fear.
Politicians often mistakenly believe that they are the masters of the mediacom universe, but the reality is that musicians take the top spot by a very large margin. Music entertainers manage crowd consciousness better than any group. John Mayer’s Drone Shot from My Yacht is a good example –950,000+ views on day one. U.S. presidents leverage the popularity of entertainers because it’s the fastest and most cost-effective way to build/buy an audience.
In an early career I ran point on operations and promotions for a global star who sold tens of millions of albums and concert tickets worldwide. The act I co-managed dominated the top ten Billboard position for over a decade on both the pop and country charts. A series of cross-over hits quickly pushed us to “superstar” status. Our crowd consciousness strategies were carefully designed to hook Hollywood talk show producers. We worked projects with two U.S. presidents as well as Fortune 100 companies, and learned from them all, as they did from us. We sold out Radio City Music Hall in NYC countless times, plus the 65,000 seat Houston Astrodome and every major city and whistle-stop across Canada, the U.S., and around the globe. Success like that is all about managing the message effectively.
Landing a hit song is literally about having everyone in the world, industry and fans, sing your new song all at the same time. You do it by appealing to and managing the target audience’s emotions. The challenge is to draw everyone into YOUR world and convince them into believing that you not only have the best song, but that you are the best act to deliver it. There are many one-hit-wonders who luck into it, and fall out just as quickly. We “made” our luck, and nailed hit after hit for almost two decades. They all weren’t #1, but they were top ten, which means we were audience top of mind in a pool of very exclusive entertainers. Unlike Trump’s grandiose self-proclamations, we didn’t refer to ourselves as superstars, but we did wear the accolade with pride. Humility, ironically, is one reason we had hit after hit, year upon year. Unlike many of our peers, we focused on long-term goals. “Never let your short term greed get in the way of your long term greed.” anonymous
I know from first hand experience over many decades that when you’re top of mind it means you’re trusted, and when you’re trusted you can say almost anything and your core fans will happily go along for the ride. Leaders like Trudeau and Trump know this clearly. One of my tasks as an entertainment manager was to help formulate a message and disseminate it to the world. We got pretty good at it after issuing thousands of media releases resulting in thousands of interviews. We learned from America’s best Hollywood and NYC agents. We also knew how to obscure information, and how to manipulate a message using news media in a way that brought us closer to our diversified audience.
In a later second career, I wrote and produced business newsletters about strategies to manage news reporters during a media crisis. The newsletters were read by thousands of c-level executives and high ranking politicians, including a dozen U.S. senators, plus MBA students at Harvard Law School. When our clients got into PR trouble, through no fault of their own or due to an innocent mistake, we taught spokespeople how to manage the message to ensure that their side of the story was fairly represented. I wrote this newsletter for almost twenty years and can attest that Trudeau is a master at delivering messages and gets critical information across so his audience feels heard and respected. Does he hit the bullseye every time. No, but who does? Whether the information is accurate is for you to decide. The point is that Trudeau delivers information in a manner that helps Canadians understand as much as he and his team need the public to know at the time.
The secret to managing a wide-cross-section crowd, which is what Covid-19 represents – old and young of all persuasions, is to not alienate your followers. Quite literally, “don’t piss anyone off” was our motto. Relatively speaking, in the world of music, it’s often less complicated to land the first hit because it’s a formula. The challenge however is duplicating your success, and that’s where the not pissing someone off edict comes into play. Once you have a fan in your corner, your main job is to keep them, and to grow your crowd on top of this base. Growing a crowd is rooted in a cumulative algorithm. Trudeau and Trump both get this in their own unique ways. Trudeau designs his message for all intellectual aptitudes, while Trump primarily targets the lowest common denominator.
It’s critical to conscript your early fans, the real diehards, to sing your praises, and the best way to do it is through trust and consistency. Early first fans, trust that along the way you will keep delivering the same message, but different, but not too different. The different part is important because humans get bored easily. It’s one reason the news cycle lasts about four weeks for big events. Usually, it’s one week though before news companies shift to the next crisis. Politicians in trouble often jump on the next crisis in the breech … or they create one. Like magicians, they are masters at misdirection.
It’s important to conscript your early followers to evangelize your message. Both Trudeau and Trump do this exceedingly well. Trudeau’s style is to bring people together through a common message, while Trump polarizes and bullies people into following his lead. Both styles work in a relatively normal environment, but considering the pandemic panic permeating the world today, it will be interesting to see which strategy will contribute to saving the most lives.
Incredulously, Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick thinks that American seniors should be willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of the economy, and Trump seems to be mimicking the sentiment, although he hasn’t said it in so many words. He does maintain however that the cure should not be harsher than the disease – and by cure he means economic cure, not health. It’s a platitude many support, but is America really ready to let grandma slip quietly into the night so the U.S. can be Great Again!?
Patrick said “I’m all in.”
For the record, “I’m all out.” (Full disclosure, I’m a grandparent and would die for my grandkids or kids, and maybe even you depending on the circumstances, but never for the economy. I’m selfish that way.)
Trump, half-surprisingly, is not at all arguing against Patrick’s ludicrous musing that seniors wouldn’t mind volunteering to sacrifice their lives for the economy. Patrick argues that because seniors no longer directly contribute to the economy and are ostensibly a pandemic liability, that they should step aside, graciously of course. Of course.
Kids, at least for the moment in America are still safe, but it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that a child’s contribution to the American economy will also soon be re-evaluated.
Considering that Trump proclaims himself a wartime president, he obviously believes he’s at war. And as we all know, all is fair in love and war, which is code for justifying the dismantling of morality.
Many Americans believe Trump is acting rationally.
Some argue that Patrick was just ruminating out loud and that he doesn’t actually hold true to his statement. In my humble opinion, based on my decades of influencing the emotions of enormous global audiences; What Patrick injected into the conversation was more than a brain fart. He planted a seed that draws on the same obscure communications tactics that public relations specialists have used for decades – the hard part in any promotional campaign is introducing a new subject into the lexicon. Dropping a bomb like that was old school military.
Usually, the more controversial an idea, the better it is to introduce it in a passive aggressive way. It’s easy to back away saying, “I didn’t mean it literally and in ‘that’ context.”
Maurice Cardinal has been a fisheries marketing and communications advisor and writer in British Columbia for almost a decade and has worked with leading organisations, NGOs, and governments in Canada and abroad.
