Secrets to Branding Your Campaign with Ted Cruz’s Brand Strategist – Bonnie Siegel

Branding played a definitive role in both the 2016 Republican Primary and the General election and it’s changed the way we view campaigns.

I’m excited to have Bonnie Siegel joining us this week to discuss campaign and candidate branding. She first crossed my radar screen due to her incredible work on the Ted Cruz for President campaign and I’ve become increasingly fascinated with her work.

In 2015, Bonnie became the first person to utilize and successfully implement a new strategy that inevitably changed the game in campaign management – political candidate branding – a crucial ingredient for a successful campaign.

Bonnie works with political campaigns and teams, leading, guiding, melding, creating, implementing, managing and ultimately bringing to market a candidate’s political brand identity.

Additionally, Bonnie is responsible for steering advance teams, overseeing and executing campaign and donor events, reviewing messaging, content and marketing material, and providing campaign merchandise consulting.

We’re going to talk about the work she did pioneering this facet of campaigns, how she deployed it so successfully on the Cruz campaign and get her advice on how you can use those same strategies and tactics on your campaign.

Check out some of the other podcasts we’ve done with Cruz Campaign Alumni: Chris Wilson, Jon McClellan, Dr. Mark Campbell, John Lappe, Josh Perry and John Drogin.

Links from the Podcast:

Connect with Bonnie Siegel on Twitter, LinkedIn, or on the Political Branding Associates website.

Check out and subscribe to her blog on Medium.com for some great insights on branding your campaign!

Many thanks to Dave Kaup Photography for allowing us to use the wonderful portrait he took of Bonnie on the campaign trail!

Important Topics and Time Stamps from the Podcast:

[00:00] Special announcement

[01:33] Podcast Intro and Bonnie Siegel Bio

[03:18] Bonnie’s background and how she developed her political brand concept

[06:16] Building Ted Cruz’s Brand

[12:14] Identifying your brand’s “product discipline”

[14:02] Applying corporate branding principles to Ted Cruz’s campaign

[22:29] The candidate defines the brand. Building a candidate around a brand won’t work.

[28:02] How the Trump, Clinton and Cruz campaign branding impacted the 2016 race

[35:28] Making your brand stand out

[37:32] How should candidates start working to identify and build their brand?

[42:02] You MUST set yourself apart as a unique political force, within your race.

[46:32] What do you do after you define your core branding elements?

[50:41] How does Political Branding Associates help campaigns?

[54:48] Closing advice from Bonnie

[55:44] Where can people find you online?

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Also published on Medium.