You are currently browsing the daily archive for November 8th, 2008.
John McCain was the original, durable brand as far as the media was concerned. What was on the wrapper was nothing compared to what was inside.
If we deconstruct his campaign we would see how, as I had mentioned even before the results, his team badly managed the brand, the positioning, the distribution, the user experience.
But Brand Obama is something else entirely. It was all about connections. Well managed, for sure. Strategic as good as it gets. Someone commenting on the Fast Company cover story in March this year said “the Obama brand is a short lived one, I would not want to put on any product I was marketing”.
Another response from one Tim Leberecht was very telling:
“The Obama brand is all software and only a little hardware, and it comes with an open SDK (software developer kit) — a dynamic, modular platform that both individual campaigners and institutional networks can plug into.”
A brand that individual networks can plug into. Now that’s what all brands must aspire to be.
It’s almost like describing the iPhone. Not just for being a shiny object but for being something people could connect to, customize, create their own apps (T-shirts, signs, even graffiti!).
Compare the image on the left to this response from a French Minister, Rama Yade:
“This is the fall of the Berlin Wall times ten … On this morning, we all want to be American, so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes.”
The brand undoubtably infected them.
“Thank you for painting your barns, canvassing by horseback, and volunteering alongside your Llama for Obama.”
Message of thanks on the BarackObama.com blog
“We should be careful of these zero-sum games where the new media drives out the old.”
Andrew Hayward, former president of CBS News, in The New York Times, commenting on political campaigns in the web 2.0 world.
“If I actually had a set of tear ducts, I’d probably cry.”
Angela Navtividad, at AdRants.com, reporting on the jubilation among Manhattanites on Barack Obama’s victory on Tuesday.
“The long nightmare is OVER!”
Comments by an avatar (!) going by the name Jordanna Beaumont, in Obama’s unofficial Second Life Headquarters.
“It’s marketing, not news … a bad idea executed with pompous pancake-faced flourishes and meaningless ta-da’s.”
Jim Veihdeffer, commenting at ValleyPRBlog on a post about the way a local TV news station did a story on LinkedIn.
“The public relations practitioner in me has to wonder why clients – even celebs – smugly throw their communications team under the bus when they aren’t happy with a decision made by management?”
Blog post at Phoenix PR agency, HMAPR, on ABC firing Brooke Smith in Grey’s Anatomy, and co-star Patrick Dempsey’s comments about the decision.
“He deserved better from his supporters. I was embarrassed when I heard the booing.”
Dan Wool, co-blogger at ValleyPRBlog, commenting on the response John McCain got during his concession speech, from an invitation-only audience of his “base” in Phoenix.
“I’m really glad it’s over.”
Raja Petra, a 58-year old blogger and editor of a site in Malaysia who was released after two months.
“insisting on a 20th century world behind the walls of the State Department while the watching a 21st century world develop outside the walls is not a sustainable posture…”
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