The Marketing of Barack Obama

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The Marketing of Barack Obama

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Obama targeted all important demographic and psychographic segments by brilliantly exploiting a mix of traditional media and modern technologies.22 But the key segment he targeted was ‘youth'. Out of the 44 million Americans in the age group of 18–29 eligible to vote, 17 million were college students.23 This segment was concerned about the availability of student loans and college costs. Their families found it difficult to cover their college costs because of the recession and tightening of credit markets. Obama addressed their concerns and built a bond of trust with them. A striking feature of his market targeting was the use of many modern technologies for the first time. He bought commercial time on Comedy Central, VH1 and Spike. MTV's networks do not usually accept political advertising and this was the first time a presidential campaign bought time with them.24 His website provided tools to blog, talk to voters, join a local group, find an event and raise funds. It also showed videos about his life and times and provided links to many social networking sites. The reach achieved through social networking was one of the most impressive elements of Obama's online marketing campaign.25

In the final month leading up to the election, the Obama campaign used mobile advertising to target youngsters.²⁶ Quattro Wireless helped run a ‘Vote Early' mobile advertising campaign to target the youth. The young user base of Boost Mobile was targeted with banners on the operator deck and text ads at the bottom of SMS messages. People could also contact the Obama campaign on mobile by texting HOPE followed by the number.²⁷ Obama even purchased virtual billboards in nine different videogames from Electronic Arts and once again took his presidential campaign somewhere no political campaign has gone before.²⁸ Retail outlets known as ‘Obama branches' sold accessories and memorabilia such as his ‘Change the World' T-Shirts all over the US.²⁹

Branding

The Obama branding sought to ensure that Obama owns the ‘change' (Exhibit II) idea in the voters' minds. A first step in this direction was the publication of his second autobiography, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, on October 17th 2006. Soon afterwards, Obama was endorsed by talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey and his autobiography became number one on both the New York Times and Amazon.com bestsellers lists.³⁰ In this book, Obama expounds on many of the changes that would later become part of his 2008 presidential campaign. He also admitted to past indiscretions in his autobiography and cleverly defused negative criticisms well before the election campaign started. After announcing his candidacy for the presidency in early 2007, he repeated the ‘change' message over and over again so that potential voters identified Obama with the concept.³¹ He attracted the attention and empathy of voters with his personal charisma and oratorical skills. His events were brilliant spectacles that were choreographed

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22] Temporal Paul, “Building brand Obama”, http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/Documents/bao/BusinessatOxfordWinter08.pdf, November 6th 2008, page 21
23] “Capturing the Youth Vote: McCain, Obama Target Concerns About Paying for College”, http://www.marketwire.com/pressrelease/ Nextstudent-894472.html, August 29th 2008
24] Rutenberg Jim, “Obama Aims TV Ads at Younger Voters”, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/obama-aims-tvads- at-younger-voters/?pagemode=print, October 8th 2008
25] Cleanthous Alex, “6 Lessons We Can Learn From Barack Obama's Online Marketing Strategy”, http://www.webprofits.com.au/ blog/2008/07/23/6-lessons-we-can-learn-from-barack-obamas-online-marketing-strategy/, July 23rd 2008
26] “Obama Used Mobile Advertising To Target Youth And Voters In Key Battleground States”, http://www.reuters.com, November 5th 2008
27] “Building brand Obama”, op.cit.
28] Davenport Misha, “Obama will be the first candidate to advertise in video games”, http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/ videogames/1220900,obamagames101408.article, October 15th 2008
29] “Building brand Obama”, op.cit.
30] Graff Garrett M., “Could Oprah Help Elect Obama?”, http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/2907.html, December 1st 2006
31] “What Marketers Can Learn From Obama's Campaign”, op.cit.