president barack obama : the winning marketing strategies. Strategy No. 2 : High-Ground

WAWAM! will be looking at exactly the same things that a political analyst or strategist will be looking at in analyzing the campaigns. but WAWAM! will look it at from the eyes of a marketing and advertising man. these strategies and analysis can be written into marketing plans of brands and it will make sense and most likely work.

this is part 2 of a series and we have added point number 2 here. read part 1 here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/Obama%20Winning%20Marketing%20Strategy

1. Consistent, consumer-meaningful message from start to finish : Change. the obama campaign is on the "time to change" theme from the very beginning, on day 1, as early as the democratic primaries. the core message was, enough of the 8 years of the bush-led republican years of managing the country be that the iraq war across other issues, specially on the US economy. consistency in message across time allows the audience to focus and the candidate to build consensus. marketing tells us a brand needs to stand for something and the obama campaign has done a most admirable job at standing for "change". it is not only consistency that is important ans where the obama campaign has succeeded, it is also in relevance or in WAWAM! marketing term - "consumer-meaningful". being consumer-meaningful and consistency are both required to be there to succeed, they are like twins where having only one in the end will not amount to anything. while both are critical, finding the right message that is consumer-meaningful is a much more difficult task. it is here where most campaigns and brands fail at. you can be consistent but if you do not have the right message, the effort will not amount to anything. consistently delivering the weak message is very much like garbage in-garbage out, repeated many times over.

2. High-ground brand character that was strongly defended, upheld and consistently applied across all aspects of the campaign, again from the very start, during the primaries to the end till the presidential contest. The most telling application of this high-ground brand character is the stubborn refusal to do negative campaigning. Not only did the campaign refuse to do negative campaigning, it called out the Mccain campaign each time their opponent did negative campaigns.

This brand character also fits Obama very well as a person. It reflects his demeanor and views on politics. You get the impression it comes from within and not just a political message. The eloquent speeches also fits within that brand character.

Not only does having such a brand character help drive up desirability, it also removes potential negatives. It would have been tougher for him as an african-american to adapt a brand character other than that. A tough and aggressive brand character would have fed right into the stereotypes. Being the exact opposite of the stereotypes made sure race cannot be used in any form.

The good guy image and the relentless pursuit of the high-ground brand character was so powerful that it could have changed american politics forever. The accepted principle is that negative campaigning, though seen by many as ugly and not right, do work in american politics. Poll results during this election point otherwise. Mccain's ratings were hurt because of the negative campaigning they launched when things got too tough for them.

But that does not mean the Obama campaign only does positive campaign materials. They do not do negative campaigning but they are competitive and aggressive. Another key difference is that the Obama campaign has not done that kind of campaigning on a national level but limited to pockets of states where it was needed. This is unlike the Mccain campaign where we hear Mccain and Palin launch negative speeches on the national stage.

For brands that run for elective post, brand character is very important. Having a bad one spells disaster, having a good one at minimum removes a potential negative. But for Obama, it has dome much more than removing potential negatives, it has built his desirability.

read Strategy No. 1 here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/Obama%20Winning%20Marketing%20Strategy

read US presidential election posts here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/US%20presidential%20elections