"When the book is written on [the US presidential election], it should not be titled The Making of a President, but The Marketing of a President," says Harvard Business School Professor John Quelch. "Barack Obama’s campaign is a case study in marketing excellence."

As Quelch says, for an inexperienced, single-term, African-American senator tagged with the most liberal voting record, to defeat the heir apparent in his own party and then go on to hold off the much-vaunted Republican machine, "is a truly remarkable achievement."

Obama’s achievement was a triumph of true marketing, in the sense that it was based on substance rather than spin. It demonstrated how carefully marshalling all the forces at your disposal can help you overcome apparently insurmountable odds. As such, it provides signal lessons for business leaders – particularly in the current economic downturn.

Obama’s personal charisma played a major role in his success. But he used this to good effect, deploying not just his tremendous public speaking skills in rallies and debates, but showing himself to be an excellent listener too. His demeanour was consistently positive and composed, while his compelling biography – his background and his evident closeness to his immediate and extended family – attracted the attention and empathy of voters.

He converted this empathy into tangible support – not least from the grass roots. More citizens volunteered time and money to help the Obama campaign than for any previous presidential candidate. A large percentage of the funds came from first-time donors – many of them in traditionally hard-to-reach groups, such as youth and people with a criminal record.

His fundraising prowess was aided by his clear understanding of the power of communications media – particularly the internet – to engage voters in what has been dubbed ‘the first YouTube election’. By contrast, Republican candidate John McCain’s early admission that he didn’t use the internet put him at a severe disadvantage in what turned out to be the critical online battle.

"Obama’s campaign demonstrated that if you have a powerful message to get across, these enabling technologies allow you to communicate with tens of millions of people immediately and very effectively, says Steve Harty, Chairman of advertising agency BBH New York. "Many brands in the commercial world have not fully realised the power of this."

And his message was very powerful, very consistent and very clear, and designed to appeal to all citizens, not just traditional or likely Democratic voters. At a time when the populace was terminally aggrieved with the most unpopular president in US history, who had led them into an unpopular war and a severe financial crisis, Obama’s message of hope and ‘change we can believe in’ was deeply compelling.

But, as Quelch points out, "the emotional appeal was buttressed with solid and specific policy details." As he says, the ability to combine emotional with functional benefits and the consistent positioning of both message and delivery, are core to all successful branding campaigns – whether product or corporate.

Page 1 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next