Talking with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly earlier this week, Trump appeared to be edging toward a deportation policy not much different from the one adopted by the Obama Administration. “What people don’t know is that Obama got tremendous numbers of people out of the country,” he said. “Lots of people were brought out of the country with the existing laws. Well, I’m going to do the same thing.” Then, speaking to CNN on Thursday night, he backtracked, saying that under a Trump Administration all undocumented immigrants would have to leave the country before applying for legal status.
.. In many rebrandings, there is a tension between the urgent need to change public perceptions of the company and the danger of alienating existing customers and stakeholders.
.. A successful rebranding campaign has to have two elements. It must be surprising enough to attract people’s attention and make them think again about a company or product. And it must be credible.
This exercise never passed the credibility test. In 2005, a BP-owned refinery in Texas blew up, killing twenty-five people; in 2006, a pipeline owned by BP failed in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude; and, in 2010, the BP-owned Deepwater Horizon rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in a huge oil spill that threatened the entire Gulf Coast. Six years later, BP is still struggling to recover from a huge hit to its finances and reputation.
.. The “Beyond Petroleum” fiasco proved that you can’t deny who you are.
.. If he’s looking for guidance from the corporate world, Trump could do worse than reading up on the recent history of McDonald’s
.. It was all partly a con, of course. As McDonald’s broadened its menu choices, it still sold huge amounts of unhealthy fried food.
.. McDonald’s turnaround came “not from greater sales of healthy foods but from selling more fast-food basics, like double cheeseburgers and fried chicken sandwiches
.. McDonald’s rebranding was effective because it challenged perceptions of the company without undermining its core value proposition: cheapness and convenience
.. Given how central immigration has been to Trump’s campaign, announcing a more humane approach toward the undocumented could send a forceful signal that he is willing to compromise
.. He’d also need to do some damage control with his base, of course. If he does change tack on deportations, he could also make clear that he still intends to build a wall across the southern border, and to make it much harder for foreigners from other parts of the world, particularly Muslims
.. Kellyanne Conway, the veteran Republican polling expert he brought on as his campaign manager, is reportedly pushing for a U-turn on immigration, and so is Chris Christie.
.. Is he in it to win? Or is his real goal to build up the Trump brand among conservatives and ultra-conservatives, perhaps with the ultimate ambition of launching a media venture?
.. If winning is a secondary concern, it might make more sense to stick with his existing policy and preserve his image as a conservative renegade.
When many lower-income Americans feel isolated and empty, they yearn for physical social networks. All across US, this happens organically at McDonald’s
.. Walk into any McDonald’s in the morning and you will find a group of mostly retired people clustering in a corner, drinking coffee, eating and talking. They are drawn to the McDonald’s because it has inexpensive good coffee, clean bathrooms, space to sprawl. Unlike community centers, it is also free of bureaucracy.
.. In other McDonald’s, politics are central. In one near downtown Kansas City in an African American neighborhood, each Friday morning the sitting area is turned over to a community meeting. When I was there, the topic was the politics surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement.
.. For many of the poorest, for the homeless, and for people caught in an addiction, McDonald’s are an integral part of their lives. They have cheap and filling food, they have free Wi-Fi, outlets to charge phones, and clean bathrooms. McDonald’s is also generally gracious about letting people sit quietly for long periods – longer than other fast-food places.
.. In almost every franchise, there are tables with people like Betty escaping from the streets for a short bit. They prefer McDonald’s to shelters and to non-profits, because McDonald’s are safer, provide more freedom, and most importantly, the chance to be social, restoring a small amount of normalcy.
.. When faced with the greatest challenges, with a personal loss, wealthier Americans turn to expensive therapists, others without the resources or the availability, turn to each other.