The New Republic : "A new marketing campaign or a clever slogan cannot save a dog food that the dogs don’t like. So too is it with the Romney campaign. At this point, his only hope is to prevail by using about the oldest argument in politics: “The other guys are worse.”"

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"And considering the caliber of his opponents (the Three Horsemen of the Republican Apocalypse), Mitt Romney may just get away with it in the primary. But this is not the stuff that promising general election campaigns are made of".

The New Republic
Why Mitt Romney's Presidential Prospects May Not Be Salvageable
By Walter Shapiro
February 20, 2012

Why Mitt Romney's Presidential Prospects May Not Be Salvageable


Some excerpts :

Business School Case Study: Company R has the financial resources, the professional staff, the marketing know-how, and the business expertise to dominate its competition. But despite the near-universal familiarity of its signature product, Company R has been dramatically losing market share to upstart challenger Company S, which until recently was little-noticed outside of rural Iowa.

Company R is obviously due for a major re-branding. But there is a major obstacle—Company R has changed its marketing strategy so often in the last decade that consumers have no clear idea what makes it distinctive. Asked to describe Company R’s positive attributes, focus-group participants constantly say things like “It’s rich” and “It’s safe” and “It’s there.”

Because Company R’s sales are plunging in Michigan, the state where it got its start, the futures markets are shorting the stock. Suddenly, a total collapse seems possible. Assignment: Prepare a PowerPoint showing how you would execute a rapid-fire turnaround.

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