The Marketing of Barack Obama

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The Marketing of Barack Obama

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to perfection. His advertising messages throughout the campaign continued to communicate his upbeat themes of hope and ‘change we can believe in'.32 The emotional appeal was driven home with solid and specific policy details. The ability to skillfully combine emotional and functional benefits is essential for successful branding. 33 The success of the Obama branding campaign can also be attributed to its consistency. Obama ‘positioned' his brand consistently throughout the campaign and targeted different market segments with a consistent message. While Obama kept his message of ‘change' unchanged, both John McCain and Hillary Clinton changed their positioning and message delivery several times during the campaign.34 Hillary Clinton first tried to position herself on ‘experience'. She was after all one of the best-known women in America and wife of one of the most successful politicians in history. But when she saw the progress Obama was making, she changed her positioning by adopting the slogan ‘Countdown to change'. By then Obama had come to own the ‘change' idea in the voters' minds and she was criticised for taking a leaf out of Obama's book.

So she changed her positioning once again by adopting the slogan ‘Solutions for America'. This confused the voters even more. McCain also first tried to position himself on ‘experience'. After all, he was a well-known war hero with a long and distinguished record as a U.S. senator. However, McCain later decided to adopt the slogan ‘Country first'. By then it was too late in the campaign and the slogan had little appeal to the average voter.³⁵ Voters not only remembered Obama for the changes he was proposing but also trusted him for being so consistent in his message.³⁶ The discipline to be consistent in positioning and message delivery is core to successful branding.³⁷

Online Marketing

Obama used the internet effectively to promote awareness and build a loyal following. He leveraged his personal website to engage not just donors and volunteers but all citizens. The first time you visited his site you were asked to join his mailing list. Once you subscribed you would start receiving high value emails from him driving you back to his website to take action.³⁸ The website was very well designed and navigating within the site was a pleasure. The content of the website included compelling topics that grabbed the attention of all citizens and the site was regularly updated with videos, articles and latest appearances of Obama. Every web page encouraged voters to ‘Donate Now' and helped the Obama campaign in attracting more donors than the entire Democratic or Republican party nationwide. The traffic to the website increased after the Obama campaign carried out Search Engine Optimisation activities³⁹ to ensure that a search for the words ‘Barack' or ‘Obama'

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32] “The Marketing of a President”, op.cit.
33] Ibid.
34] “What Marketers Can Learn From Obama's Campaign”, op.cit.
35] Ibid.
36] “Obama the greatest marketer of them all!”, op.cit.
37] “The Marketing of a President”, op.cit.
38] “6 Lessons We Can Learn From Barack Obama's Online Marketing Strategy”, op.cit.
39] Dorausch Michael, “Barack Obama Presidential Campaign Website Success Secrets”, http://www.planetc1.com/search/barackobama- presidential-campaign-website-success-secrets.html, September 8th 2007