Obama set out to build a tribe. The traditional vote bank was not enough for the new president. The young, progressives, internationalists, african-american formed the new tribe. A tribe that he ensured identified with him. The result, a historic turnout.
Look at the numbers – 95% black (no surprises here), 66% Hispanics, 56% Women, 66% under 30's and a whooping 71% first timers (thanks to the new-age campaign!) - voted blue!
A massive half a billion dollars were raised for the campaign. Spent thoughtfully across all media. Traditional and emerging. Web 2.0 (I love it even more now!) led the digital thought process.
Obama announced his candidature in early 2007. All those a part of the rally that followed soon after were asked to give their email addresses, zip code and phone numbers to the organizers. (Smart!) Needless to say, the valuable data bank was exploited to its max potential both online and offline.
This Ad Age Marketeer of the year set forward a fine example of integrated marketing and made his campaign so accessible by creating tools to let people get engaged so very easily.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, My Space, LinkedIn, FaithBase, Eons, Glee, MiGente, MyBatanga, AsianAve, DNC, PartyBuilder. You name it. The online media mix was flawless. Race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality did not matter.
Look at the numbers – 95% black (no surprises here), 66% Hispanics, 56% Women, 66% under 30's and a whooping 71% first timers (thanks to the new-age campaign!) - voted blue!
A massive half a billion dollars were raised for the campaign. Spent thoughtfully across all media. Traditional and emerging. Web 2.0 (I love it even more now!) led the digital thought process.
Obama announced his candidature in early 2007. All those a part of the rally that followed soon after were asked to give their email addresses, zip code and phone numbers to the organizers. (Smart!) Needless to say, the valuable data bank was exploited to its max potential both online and offline.
This Ad Age Marketeer of the year set forward a fine example of integrated marketing and made his campaign so accessible by creating tools to let people get engaged so very easily.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, My Space, LinkedIn, FaithBase, Eons, Glee, MiGente, MyBatanga, AsianAve, DNC, PartyBuilder. You name it. The online media mix was flawless. Race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality did not matter.
And with President Barack's direct orders, this online reach-out was merged with traditional door knocking. The online-offline flip was so successfully carried off by the campaign managers that the tribe Obama created connected with him personally and any attack made on him was an attack made on them.
In my opinion, the biggest mistake McCain's campaign did was attack Obama incoherently and consistently. When you are attacking the leading brand, you ensure your strengths shine. Instead of focusing on his strategies and values, all McCain did was talk about Obama. Obama instead used McCain's tactical mistakes to portray him as an erratic leader and trounced the republicans on his way to victory.
This was indeed a very bad time to be a republican. The one thing an ailing US economy did not want was another Bush administration and McCain or his campaign failed to prove “the red” otherwise.
Disclaimer : I don't fully agree with some of Obama's policies but yes 10/10 for the brilliant campaign!
In my opinion, the biggest mistake McCain's campaign did was attack Obama incoherently and consistently. When you are attacking the leading brand, you ensure your strengths shine. Instead of focusing on his strategies and values, all McCain did was talk about Obama. Obama instead used McCain's tactical mistakes to portray him as an erratic leader and trounced the republicans on his way to victory.
This was indeed a very bad time to be a republican. The one thing an ailing US economy did not want was another Bush administration and McCain or his campaign failed to prove “the red” otherwise.
Disclaimer : I don't fully agree with some of Obama's policies but yes 10/10 for the brilliant campaign!
Post Disclaimer : My favourite part of the campaign was the Sarkozy prank call to Sarah Palin. It had me rolling on the floor laughing. She did cost more than just a few RED votes!!
6 comments:
I think your post is just summarizing the opinions of media in US and rest of the world. It was never an equal race to begin with. Anyone fighting with a blue ticket this time had an upper hand just because of Bush. Bush's approval ratings were a measly 20% at the time of going to election. John Mccain is not super smart neither did he go to Harvard Law School. But neither did Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson or Winston Churchill. Great leaders are not necessarily super intelligent law grads who can speak well. Therefore, the rhetoric around Obama is just that : plain rhetoric. He won because he stood for change, for the unconventional. Whether he proves to be a leader the greatest country in the world deserves, remains to be seen.
I agree that remains to be seen. All I see him as is a great marketer who ensured his position as the leading brand did not falter despite the odds which may be minuscule in comparison to those faced by McCain.. and standing for change is not enough. A good advertiser has to make his audience believe what he stands for and Obama did just that...
diya -
I dont understand marketing well enough but I do have something to say -
Keeping Obama aside, I have more of an issue when the word brand is used for human beings, or for that matter living beings.
Isn't that a bit trivilisation of the human being and over glorification of brand ? Because then we can go onto assume that human lives can be governed by the laws of advertising and marketing which i dont think is correct.
Obama ran a fantastic campaign, but to call him a 'brand'...
I think the choice was between the devil and the deep sea. People chose the deep sea ;) ... Sitting here in NY and living through the so called meltdown...I have some perspective or so I would like to think. Frankly, the attitude here was more of disbelief... I think half of those voters were pretty clear that they were voting for nothing more than a "gifted" speaker, but then they were chilled to their spines thinking the other alternative was McCain... !
Mitt Romney!! where art thou.. ? is what half of them are thinking!
@ Deepan - I'd like to think of brands as people and not vice versa. And trust me just like people.. there are NO laws in advertising and marketing..
Prithu - Gifted speaking is also clever advertising! :P .. ok..jokes apart.. i agree the blue-s had it easy.. but the one thing they didn't do was take it so. And that was refreshing. Next post will be on Rajasthan State General Assembly Elections...
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