The Brand Called Obama®

The April issue of Fast Company® has a cover story on the Branding of Obama.  I thought now would be a good time to explore the marketing and polishing of the Brand.

The Fast Company article is favorable for Obama, please read it.

I’ve been somehow involved with marketing for most of my life and I love to step back from my Hillary supporter self and look at the marketing aspects of  this campaign.  From John Edwards as the people’s champion to Hillary as the stable mother figure, I’ve been intrigued at the approaches taken by the various marketeers.  

No campaign strategy in my memory comes close to the total control of message and outright branding of the persona of Senator Barack Obama.  And make no mistake, this is classic product branding executed as well as any major corporation would in launching their newest flagship product.  

My marketer’s cap must be tipped to David Axelrod.  What a job he has done.  We sometimes grumble about the millions people like Joe Trippi get for helping Howard Dean and John Edwards lose but Axelrod has earned every penny.  

From Fast Company

The fact that Obama has taken what we thought we knew about politics and turned it into a different game for a different generation is no longer news. What has hardly been examined is the degree to which his success indicates a seismic shift on the business horizon as well. Politics, after all, is about marketing — about projecting and selling an image, stoking aspirations, moving people to identify, evangelize, and consume. The promotion of the brand called Obama is a case study of where the American marketplace — and, potentially, the global one — is moving.

They go on to say

“Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand,” says Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide. “New, different, and attractive. That’s as good as it gets.” Obama has his greatest strength among the young, roughly 18 to 29 years old, that advertisers covet, the cohort known as millennials — who will outnumber the baby boomers by 2010. They are black, white, yellow, and various shades of brown, but what they share — new media, online social networks, a distaste for top-down sales pitches — connects them more than traditional barriers, such as ethnicity, divide them.

Let’s try and explore what David Axelrod has acomplished to create this brand.

Perhaps one of the most notable moves was to hire, on leave, a Facebook genius named Chris Hughes.  According to Fast Company Hughes has helped the campaign to play Facebook and other social networks with a skill the other campaigns know nothing of.

   The campaign’s secret weapon: a fresh-faced 24-year-old named Chris Hughes. Four years ago, he was at Harvard, helping launch Facebook with his roommates, kids named Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. Just over a year ago, Hughes took a leave from Facebook to do online organizing for Obama. A history and literature major who did no coding at Facebook, he brought with him a mastery of the human side of social networking that has translated into real results for the campaign. Early on, when resources and credibility were in shorter supply, one insider told me, “We were completely focused on making sure that people knew on a very basic level how, where, and why to caucus in Iowa. And a local network, like Facebook, was ideal for that.” It was a cheap and effective way to leverage supporters’ personal connections.

Axelrod used new technology and new people to market the brand in ways unheard of in the past.

I suggest that everyone who is interested in marketing read the article.

So where you ask is this Hillary supporter going with this.  The article in the business magazine is thrilled with the marketing of Obama.   I’ve praised the skils of David Axelrod.  I am in awe of the Branding of Obama.

Many have looked at how Obama tries to be all things to all people.  His great skill and the main basis of his campaign is his ability to bring people together.  But I disagree.

I think what is sold, what the brand marketers have done is to create a different model for each of his constituencies.  Branding is much more than sticking a name on a product and advertising it.  Branding means market segmentation and the focusing of style, design and message for particular groups.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand is the example of Ford SUVs.

The following product groupings are all built on the same basic vehicle, on the same assembly line but with changes in visual design or parts quality.

Crossover SUV

Ford Edge
Mazda CX-7
Lincoln MKX

Compact SUV

Ford Escape
Mazda Tribute
Mercury Mariner

Quoted for emphasis

The same essential vehicle built for wildly differing markets and very different prices.  My Honda Pilot and an Acura MDX are much the same once the skin is removed.

Obama is actually 3 possibly 4 brands designed for his target markets.  I don’t know how he does it or even how he manages to remember who he is at different times.

The Professor.  The Obama I saw early on.  The Obama who appeals to my highly educated, upscale friends on our democratic town committee.  The Obama we heard at the San Francisco fund raiser.  This is the serious, thoughtful Obama we see on Meet the Press.

The Rock Star.  This is the Obama that speaks to crowds of young people with rock stars playing to warm up the crowd and Obama scratching his cheek with the middle finger.  This is the snarky Obama, the “I love you back” Obama and the one that is sold via text messaging, email and the blogs.

The Preacher. The Obama of the Trinity Church who could actually be an incredible preacher.  This is the Obama that makes the inspiring, rabble rousing speeches that have defined his campaign.  This is the Hope<sup>TM</sup&gt and Change<sup>TM</sup&gt Obama.

Three Obama brands that I bet, and I do not know, but I bet each segment of the market has it’s own team of responsible marketers.  In business those would be the brand managers.

The press fell in love early with all three Obama’s.  But they highlight the “Inspiring” one and the Rock Star.  Management of press by the PR consultants is another aspect that I must tip my hat to.  These consultants figured out how to make our lazy press accept their statements as gospel and do no digging.  They know how to make a negative into a positive, how to make their competition’s positive’s into negatives.  

The press is brought into play if the brand needs cleaning up after some error.  In business this would be a recall.  After Pastor Wright did his best to help his friend stay a Senator, Axelrod ordered up another strong dose of the Preacher Brand of Obama.  The press was then informed that Obama was beyond Wright and they were free to move back to asking why the issues are not spoken about, as Hillary gives speech after speech on the issues.  But the press is another issue, or is it?

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Three Obama’s.  Three markets.  Three personae.

Three markets, three groups that rarely come together because the campaign segments them into events with their peers.  Townhalls for the elders, Rock events for the young and periodically a rallying speech after some bad news.

Three Obama’s and one Presidency for all of us.

   
• Which one would we get?
     
• Or would we get all three?
     
• Will they keep segmenting us?
     
• Are you glad the “corporatists” are not involved?
     
• Which Obama is yours?
     
• Which Obama attracted you?

Obama is a registered trademark and Hope and Change are Trademarks of Obama for President Incorporated. Copyright © 2008 NewHampster, All rights reserved.

  One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
    One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,