How Obama’s Presidential Campaign Can Change the Marketing of Products

Posted by lramella on Tuesday, 20 January 2009

On Inauguration day, it only makes sense to reflect back on how our new leader became President.  As is evident, a number of things were remarkable about the 2008 Presidential campaign, and many experts have reported on the adoption and widespread use of technology in determining the final outcome.  Few, however, have focused on what the Presidential campaign can teach marketing and PR professionals about effective brand building.  Indeed, Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, if viewed through a marketing lens, resulted in a perfect two-year “product” launch that created a consistent “slogan” or brand message, an empowered and passionate “consumer” base, and confirmed the importance of extended brand relationships.  The Obama team even now has a wealth of consumer information with which to continue to grow the brand in Washington.

When Obama announced his intention to run for President in February 2007, there was little belief that he could actually win even the Democratic nomination.  He first had to beat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic ticket, which at the time was viewed as a nearly impossible task.  It was akin to Apple taking on the music industry a few years back – everyone knows how that turned out.  Obama quickly established a consistent campaign slogan – “Change We Can Believe In” (later slightly altered to “Change We Need”) – and surrounded himself with a loyal team who recited this mantra at every possible moment.  This consistent brand message throughout the entire campaign provided both a rallying point for his consumers and an effective counter to his entrenched opponents who argued that he did not have enough experience.   It also provided the campaign with a brand “mission ⁽¹⁾” that appealed to their consumers, in sharp contrast to other candidates who changed their mantra with every speech. 

In addition, Obama and his team realized more than any prior political campaign in recent history that a grassroots community of consumers could be built through the use of technology.  Obama met early on with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, to discuss ways to mobilize his campaign.   Four years earlier, Howard Dean’s campaign established the Internet as an effective way to fundraise and communicate.  By 2007, political consumers had caught up with technology, and indeed, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 46 percent of Americans used the Internet, e-mail or text messaging to get information about the 2008 campaign or to mobilize others – more than the 34 percent who read newspapers daily, the 39 percent who watch cable news or the 29 percent who viewed network TV news.  The Obama campaign first built a database of brand supporters (essentially an Internet-enabled direct mail list) that the campaign then mobilized for fundraising; voter registration drives, phone banks, videos on YouTube, and posts on every social networking site.  Obama and his team effectively created and empowered a core of brand consumers online to then spread the product message throughout a broader community.      

Finally, a key component of building any brand is responding quickly and effectively to criticism (negative “reviews”).  Once again, the Obama campaign effectively tackled bad reviews the moment they surfaced.  During the course of the campaign, the minister at a church Obama attended in Chicago, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, made a number of speeches that contained harsh racial rhetoric.  Obama himself admitted to having been a member of Reverend Wright’s congregation, but immediately distanced himself from Reverend Wright.  His campaign realized it was not simply enough to distance one’s self, but that any negative publicity must be addressed head-on, and that the Obama brand must prove that it can maintain its message and rise above the negative press.  Obama effectively did both by tackling the difficult issue of race in his famous speech on March 18^th – the video of this speech has been viewed more than four million times on YouTube ⁽²⁾.   

To conclude, there are a number of key takeaways from the 2008 Presidential Campaign marketing and PR professionals:

Be consistent – Companies that provide a consistent brand message that conveys the core of their product maintain a loyal base of consumers.  The message does not change with trends (it may modify slightly, as when the Obama campaign changed from “Change We Can Believe In” to “Change We Need”), but is flexible enough to be widely embraced over time.  Think of Nike’s iconic “Just Do It” or Microsoft’s recent “I’m a PC.”

Build local, and then go global – Obama’s campaign was effective in part because it started at a grassroots level, and built from the ground up.  A number of passionate, early adopters act as a tipping point and an effective testing ground for brands.  Obama was able to put his product and his brand message out there, and receive instant feedback from a small, core group.

Empower and engage your consumers – The best consumers feel actively engaged with a brand (their feedback is valued, they contribute to spreading the brand message and they assume some level of brand ownership as in the case of the campaign’s MyBO website), and develop a passion for their product.  These consumers provide feedback, reviews and spread brand awareness.  The Obama campaign also leveraged new technologies and social media to make it easy for their consumers to feel empowered.  People these days are happy to engage but they need to be able to do it in less than five minutes.   

Actively respond to negative reviews/bad press – Negative reviews are often underestimated by companies.  An extreme example of a company not responding to negative reviews and bad press is The Sharper Image, which is now going through a messy bankruptcy partially related to poor product reviews.  In a desperate move to boost sales in 2004, the company became an early retailer of air purifiers, in particular the Ionic Breeze purifier.  By 2005, air purifiers accounted for 28% of the Sharper Image’s sales.  A Consumer Reports article that year, however, stated that the Ionic Breeze purifier could be a health hazard for consumers as it released small amounts of ozone while in use.   Sales of air purifiers for the Sharper Image tanked, and the company did little to respond to consumers about this particular product – there were few alternative options offered, no “bring your purifier back” campaigns, and indeed, not even an open apology to loyal consumers.  Instead, the Sharper Image funneled efforts into suing the manufacturers of the Ionic Breeze.  Clearly, the Sharper Image bankruptcy is more complicated, but there is no doubt that a failure to respond to poor product reviews added to the company’s demise.  Of recent note, companies like Dell are now actively responding to product criticism on outlets like Twitter.  New technology can be an effective tool for marketing professional to instantly respond to any bad “press” regarding a product.

Brand relationships do not end with a “purchase” – Brands need to move beyond the point of sale as the ultimate goal.  Brands that extend their consumer relationship beyond the purchase and into daily life guarantee future success.  Now that Obama has secured the Presidency, his campaign did not end – consumers receive emails asking for input, details of current Cabinet appointments, information about upcoming events, and opportunities for community engagement.  One can only imagine that with time, the Obama brand’s database of consumers will be a powerful tool for change in Washington. – Leah

(1)    Grove, Lloyd. The World According to David Plouffe. Portfolio Magazine. December 11, 2008. http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/the-world-according-to/2008/12/11/David-Plouffe-Interview#page6

(2)    Talbot, David.  How Obama Really Did It.  Technology Review.  September/October 2008.  http://www.technologyreview.com/web/21222

Posted in: Learning, Politics, Social Media | Tagged: Brand building, marketing, Mobile, mobile data, Product Development, Product launch | 3 Comments