All Campaigns are Image Campaigns

This post as well as the previous one are more focused on hot topics in the news today rather than local non-profits.  However, both aim to highlight weak public relations efforts and how to address negative attention properly, and this can be applied to any and all sectors. 

No matter if you're organizing a fundraising campaign for a non-profit or a presidential campaign, image is of the utmost importance.  For the non-profit campaign, if the organization is not transparent in terms of how it spends its donations or if there has been a recent crisis of some sort it can pretty much be assumed that the fundraising goal will not be reached.  With a presidential campaign, the ultimate goal is to make people believe in and support a certain candidate.  If the candidate's reputation is in decline or if he has a significantly embarrassing interview, or set of interviews, his poll ratings will undoubtedly suffer.   It's not rocket science, it's just common sense. 

Now, a current campaign that may soon be known as short-lived has grabbed a lot of America's attention is that of Herman Cain, potential republican presidential candidate.  The below video recaps some of the major turning points in his campaign thus far:

Since this is not a political blog, I will attempt to only analyze the Cain campaign in terms of how it has dealt with the media.  As the CNN video explains, Cain seemed to be gaining support for a little until faced with his first set of major crises.  Probably most detrimental to the campaign, Cain was hit with several allegations of sexual harassment during his time at the National Restaurant Association.  Sexual allegations are arguably the most difficult to deal with, and to recover from.  In the public relations field, reactionary measures are typically taken as opposed to proactive measures.  In my opinion, Cain handled the situation poorly because he did not seem to take the allegations seriously. Matters were only made worse when Ginger White recently came forward saying that she and Cain had a 13-year affair.  

Since the public does not know for sure if the allegations are true or not, the Cain campaign needed to be careful with how it responded.  As of now, Cain has simply denied everything and continues to state that the accusations are part of a character assassination against him.  Pointing the fingers is never the best method, especially if the allegations turn out to be true.  Cain's image has been significantly damaged throughout all of this and now his potential presidential candidacy is at risk as a result.  As a matter of fact,  it was reported today that Cain is "reassessing" his presidential campaign, which does makes it seem like he is trying to hide from all of the negative attention. 

All in all, it is almost impossible to avoid image attacks during a campaign but what is important is how they are dealt with.  My advice is to first be proactive when possible.  When a crises comes up and reactionary measures must be taken, I suggest that a campaign does not make it seem like it's trying to hide anything.  People are not dumb.  The public can tell when the fully story isn't be told or when things are getting pushed under the rug.  Obviously it isn't always possible to divulge all information, but it is better to admit one's wrongs than to lie.  In today's world with 24/7 media outlets, the truth almost always comes out.