Posted on 11/07/2008 8:04:58 PM PST by FocusNexus
Obama's defeat of the heir apparent in his own party and his victory over the much-vaunted Republican machine is a remarkable achievement that owes a lot to his instinct for marketing
When the book is written on this election, it should not be titled "The Making of a President," but "The Marketing of a President." Barack Obama's campaign is a case study in marketing excellence.
True, it was always going to be a Democratic year. An unpopular war, an incumbent Republican president with rock bottom approval ratings, and many Republican incumbents retiring from Congress as a result all meant that change was in the air. Add to that the economic meltdown that decimated millions of 401K retirement plans and undercut any Republican claim to be the better steward of the economy.
But, even so, 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. Much of it has to do with Obama's instinct for marketing.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
The author is clearly an obamabot, so ignore his admiration for Obama, but the specifics are worth contemplating -- Republicans could learn marketing for the next election from this.
I really think that youthful attractive looking Romney would’ve gotten more of the vote from the under 30 crowd.
Unyielding principles IMO. The dems are toast when there are multiple issues.
Marketing skill or raising more money despite lies about sticking to public funding?
bump for tomorrow
all abouthow you frame your argument in the land of Obama.
Hmmm, so in 4 years he wouldn’t be a good candidate, then?
The MSM did all the marketing for bambi - he is neither charismatic, charming, smart, or a good public speaker. Barry is a media creation.
You describe the physical aspects of your candidate and wonder why he’s not there?
The real issue is the RNC who wasn’t prepared to win. Obama was groomed from the day he gave that speech in 2004, the RNC bench was almost empty and they didn’t do squat.
How many Republicans can even name the head of the Republican Party?
Obama ran a near perfect campaign, and despite the Clinton influence was able to command record financial support.
McCain emerged in most peoples mind as the best of a bad lot, and the Republican donors sat on their wallets, with the results we see today. The good news is, we now have Palin, Jindal, and a few other rising young stars and a part that has only one choice in direction if it is to escape extinction.
An 8 to 1 funding advantage does buy better marketing.
Well said. That is the bottom line.
And I’ll take it a step further and add that the media gave us McCain. Every other candidate was ignored or demeaned during the primaries.
IMO, it was a very well orchestrated coup.
Yeah, 3/4 of a billion dollars buys a helluva lot of “marketing”.
Marketing excellence? Geez, he had academia, the unions, Hollywood and the MSM actively and freeley campaigning for him.
The candidate should avoid the strong temptation to tell voters outright that his/her mission statement refers to the more specific platform items; let them see that for themselves.
I am NO fan of Obama, but he did what I have just recommended very, very well. The 'hopey/changey' theme actually said very little (this was deliberate, IMO), but it obviously resonated with many voters who defined it variously by whatever they wanted from a presidential candidate.
McCain message, in contrast, was totally horrible. It was weak, variable and fragmented, and therefore, there was no possibility of a good-quality, summary, catch-phrase to tie it all together and use consistently throughout the campaign on promotional materials. I can't even remember whatever it was, but I will not forget Obama's. I believe McCain's message problem stemmed, in large part, from his apparent lack of personal, political, unifying principles. Obama clearly has a core of strongly-held, leftwing political beliefs. It seems clear to me that McCain, just as clearly has no clear, consistent beliefs. Anyway, we're all gonna pay for it for a long time to come.
The Ayatollah Hussein IS NOT the President elect yet, and may never be. We will see what the Electors decide mid-December about supporting an illegal alien as President of the US. McCain may yet win.
Of course it would have. How obvious was that? Did anyone really think that young voters 18-35 would vote for a 72 year old McCain over Obama? This group knows little about our history, and less about politics. It’s all soundbytes and attractiveness I’m afraid.
I remember when Gary Hart had to drop out because of an affair. Kerry lost because of the Swift Boats. Barack had a multitudes of scandalous associations and he still won. (scratching head)
I still think there was MASSIVE voter fraud. Acorn had four years and lots of money to prepare for this election.
I agree with your post.
The McCain Campaign chose the slogan “Country First”—Not a bad slogan but it really was never incorporated into the campaign. Every message they sent out should have included this and it rarely did. Even the tag line at the end of his commercials should said something like, “Always putting my country first. I’m John McCain and I approved this message”
Whoever ran the campaign missed some great opportunities.
Never happen
The problem is that the Republican party and the Conservative movement does not realize that this ain’t the eighties.
Reagan is dead and the problems that Reagan dealt with are different from the problems of today.
Reagan’s greatest challenge was the Soviet Union (a military power) whilst our greatest challenge is Capitalist Authoritarian China (with a 1.8 Trillion dollars worth of foreign reserves).
We have a 10 Trillion dollar budget deficit, Reagan did not.
My friends, tax-cuts and reduced Government spending alone are not going to dig us out of a 10 Trillion dollar deficit. The average middle class American knows that, but the average Republican activist behaves as if ‘we just reduced Government spending and cut taxes’ all will be well.
That is intellectual laziness at best and Americans know it.
Reagan spoke to the hopes and aspirations of America. America was demoralized by the Vietnam experience and Americans needed something to lift up their spirits. Americans are pragmatic people, eternal optimists - they reworded Reagan for his optimism.
Today, Americans are demoralized and fear for their future, but I have not heard a single senior Republican figure speak to the fears of the American people. Duncan Hunter builds his campaign on illegal immigration and little else. Fred Thompson has nothing new to say. John McCain and Sarah Palin built their campaigns on picking holes in what Barack Obama said - they did not articulate any NEW ideas on how to solve the significant problems of our times.
Barack Obama (inspite of his many faults), understood the moment (like Reagan). He understood that Americans yearn for hope,for optimism, for change.
The Republican party CANNOT grow if it keeps on dividing America into ‘real America’ and ‘unreal America’. It is extremely silly for us to brand ourselves as ‘the party of Small-town America’.
Demographics don’t favour ‘Small-Town America’.
We have abandoned the younger voters, the African-Americans and the Urban vote to the democrats. We are already working very hard on abandoning the Hispanic vote. There will not be enough ‘Joe the Plumbers’ to win elections in future.
We need new ideas for this day. I feel bad when I hear Conservatives trumpeting ‘small government’ and ‘tax cuts’ without seriously considering the consequences. Tax cuts and small government are good, but they are not the be-all and end-all solution. Our present economic condition calls for bold new ideas.
We need to once again become the party of new ideas.
Actually, I think reason had little to do with this. Obama was marketed from a purely emotional point of view, and any reasonable discussion fell on deaf ears.
I read that Axelrod had focus-grouped two different strategies early on, during the primaries, and then even tested them among voters in a few counties. If he presented Obama from a left-brain point of view (appealing to reason and arguments as to why voters should pick Obama), Obama lost every time. If he presented him from a right-brain point of view, appealing to emotion, Obama won. He then decided that the entire campaign thereafter would focus on the right-brain approach, appealing to people’s emotions and avoiding rational argument or defenses.
It was a brilliant move. But it explains how Barry was allowed to get away with lying, denying he had said things he had said virtually the very day before, and refusing to provide specific answers to anything. People didn’t care what he thought or said anyway, because the appeal was being made on an entirely different level. And when McCain argued and presented reasons, people didn’t want to hear it because that wasn’t the high they were getting from Obama.
Personally, I find him repellent and creepy and don’t see how he could evoke positive emotions in anybody. But apparently he did, all the way from Chris Matthews’ famous leg tingle to that of the people swooning at his Nuremburg rallies.
It’s very discouraging that so many Americans would vote on this basis, although I will say that Axelrod got out a group of people that makes its choices based almost entirely on emotion and made them an influential part of the voter bloc, which oddly enough seemed to have the effect of driving out more rational voters. It was indeed all about advertising.
Even though I voted for McCain, in the back of my mind I think he was probably just a tool for the Coupe d’tat against the Free Citizens of the US. Distruction of the middleclass is the goal and almost complete, at which time the US as a nation will cease.
No, it was MONEY, lots and lots of MONEY that got Osama elected. 400 million from the Unions, millions from Soros, Hollywood, etc.
Flashy ads, the warped effort by the media and the unfair financial advantage the MSM gave Obama for publicity and air time.
Marketing had very little to do with it. A completely ignorant, brain dead public is the main reason.
It was proven that anyone with an internet connection could go to Obama's website and make a credit card donation under a phony name. They deliberately disabled the AVS system for validating CC transactions.
This allowed Axelrod & company to play and an elaborate shell game with wealthy/foreign benefactors and effectively create *new* donors at will.
This cannot be emphasized enough.
Some points:
* The same type of marketing paradigms, complete with its own logo, applied to Obama could apply to commodities. "Obama Shampoo: for change."
* Team Obama successfully penetrated to nontraditional venues, like video games. Advertising and the web are part of our game consoles in 2008. The content had darned well better match up with the target audience, though! For Obama, that comes naturally. For McCain with his "cutting earmarks" stuff: "Who is this guy and what's that have to do with Grand Theft Auto?"
* Hand-painted signs.
* X
* Y
* In this last campaign, that worked doubly well for Obama because McCain restricted himself to "traditional" outlets - TV, papers, magazines, and of course the new addy, the Web.
What McCain had over Obama was his biting wit and sense of humor - even the slightly self-deprecating sort. Any of our guys (gals?) running from Obama's marketing playbook should expand it.
The intangibles of a multi-faceted offensive like this are not to be underestimanted: You bring in artists, the high-tech crowd, and many others. People are at their best performance when they know their work is high-profile, high-skilled, and valued. That breeds enthusiasm! "Hey, I did the sound on that ad!" Or, "Hey, my shop created that sign!"
Knocking on doors, while necessary, is not a special skill that one normally takes great personal pride in. Let's leverage the mindbogglingly diverse skills of the masses, who then gain a personal stake in the campaign, and will be more likely to do that door knocking because they, not they the door knocker, but they the artist/producer/pianist/chef are valued for who they are as a part of it!
Otherwise, if the advertising matches only the politician and consists of political soundbites, you miss all these people living in thier own worlds.
We can rightfully regret that the gravity of politics has been compromised in the age of virtual reality, but we cannot deny reality.
Every political campaign I've been in has been poorly organized, owing in part to its temporary nature, but never (except through the written word) have I been able to apply higher skills to the benefit of a campaign. This is doubtless because I've come at it as a stranger walking into the GOP HQ saying, How can I help? "Knock on these doors!" Okay, but you do realize I have other skills besides my knuckles, right? Change that within the Republican party, get past the Neanderthal approach to campaigning, and we'll be able to build a bang-up team dynamic and the same success of the Obama team. The challenge will be, how much will they build on their success, and can we catch up?
As one insightful FReeper posted: McCain should step up to the plate and say he was wrong to pander to Democrats. Even worse, McC whined on TV, "Obama broke his promise to me" (about campaign finance). Un-figging-believable that McC actually believed a Dem would keep his promise. McC did not comprehend his public griping made him look like a naive tool of Obama. Not a very inspiring presidential picture there.
DAMN TOOTIN' IT WAS MARKETING Obama solemnly talked about big ideas---McC's image was that of a pasty-faced, over-the-hill, Home Depot clerk making a few bucks to supplement his SS, looking for the paint stirrer.
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AS IS SEE IT McC and The Repub PTB surrendered the party to The Everything-For-Us-Nothing-For-Conservatives types.......dominated by kicking conservatives to the curb, and, relentless religious cleansing of the Repub Party. In his headlong quest to show his "bi-partisanship," McC could not comprehend (and/or did not particularly care) his associations were a huge turnoff to the crucial conservative base.
LOSERS GHOULIANI/LIEBERMAN STRIKE AGAIN Conservatives were incensed that McCain allowed himself to be duped by conservative-hating pukeneos and RINOS (making the same mistakes Bush did). The sight of pukeneo stooges and gay/abortion worshippers--Lieberman and RINO Rooty Ghouliani---dominating McC was nauseating. The idea that these suckers would be active and visible in our government for another 4-8 years was a huge turnoff for conservatives.
ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST ELECTION NIGHT ACT Smirking little puke-jerk---Fox pundit Billy Kristol---putting on his old reliable "I Know Nothing About This Republican Disaster" act.
AS FREEPER TADSLOS COGENTLY POSTED: "People forget that candy-a** Kristol, and his crony, metro-sexual Brooks are the original makeover artists for McCain post-2000. They are McC's original groomers and media switch operators. For Kristol to be urging McCain (to fire his staff as McC's numbers dived) to start all over at the 11th hour belies how ill conceived, advised, equipped and poorly managed McC's campaign continued to be. But then, I expect as much from a Republican candidate made up from Kristol’s and Brooks’ bolt of whole cloth."
The marketing only worked for two reason. 1. The press was a propaganda arm of the Obama campaign. 2. The financial metldown of September and October quashed McCain’s comeback. Without either of those, Obama would have lost. So, if there is a study, is should be of how the media turned themselves into propaganda whores.
Pure BS, it was the ghost of Josef Goebbels and a propaganda machine saturated by communists.
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