The Selling of the Candidate 2012: Is Jon Huntsman the Un-Republican?

Gerry Patnode, assistant professor of marketing, was quoted in a story on the marketing of Jon Huntsman as a presidential candidate:

More than four decades after Joe McGinnis exposed the Madison Avenue side of campaigns in The Selling of the President 1968, the packaging of Jon Huntsman could be a new success story in product placement. (That is, unless he crumbles like the equally buzzworthy, late-arriving candidate in the 2008 GOP primaries, Fred Thompson.) "He's trying to position himself as the un-Cola," said Gerald Patnode, a marketing professor at York College in Pennsylvania, recalling the old 7-Up ad. "The rub against Romney is that he has no personality and that he's too stiff, and Huntsman is trying to play off that and show that he's just not another flavor . . . . It's no different than marketing soft drinks or soap."