srah palin voted for barack obama

that surpised me, too. in fact i was shocked when i read what sarah palin said. she apparently voted for barack obama!



this is what sarah palin said when she arrived at her alaska office:

"I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration? If we're talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing,"

source : http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h21ZbzgPbTVRftcJPT5vkHkonY5QD94CMR0G0



read WAWAM! discussion here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/10/president-barack-obama-winning.html

Palin said in a story published Sunday.what palin said is EXACTLY what barack obama has been saying during the campaign, in fact way back starting from the primaries until the end of the election campaign. "change" is obama's number 1 winning marketing strategy and palin gave a very good summary of the core marketing positioning of obama. part of the short list of obama's winning marketing strategies.

i wonder if palin was aware of what she said and it's significance. from that statement, it looked like palin voted for obama. you hear essentially the same words when ordinary voters are interviewed on tv. they give essentially the same answer when asked why they voted for obama.
with palin as a running mate and with that kind of thinking, it's no surprise obama won the electoral college votes by a landslide. palin is lucky that she said those words after the election. what she said would have been great material for obama ads.

help me out here -- is palin smart for realizing those things, for realizing that's what american voters want or is palin really dumb for not realizing that's exactly the marketing positioning of obama? from a mccain presidential bid campaing standpoint, sarah palin is a definite WAWAM!

PDI headline : black in white house

what a headline!

the maccain losing marketing strategies, strategy # 2 : sarah palin

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 on the Mccain campaign, we added strategy #2,.

read about the Obama Winning Marketing Strategies here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/Obama%20Winning%20Marketing%20Strategy

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

read about sarah palin as vp choice, brilliant marketing or biggest marketing blunder here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/palin



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1. Core strategy of 'Personality', pursued from the start appearing in different forms across the campaign period. The Mccain campaign was loudest on making personality as a key campaign issue be that of their opponent, Mccain himself and even in his VP choice. At some point towards the latter part of the campaign, they were so stuck on it that they missed an important opportunity that they allowed the Obama campaign to preempt them on it.

2. Sarah Palin as VP choice is a marketing blunder. We wondered if Palin as VP is brilliant marketing or a marketing blunder. We think the choice of Palin as VP running mate was intended to be a strategic choice but turned out to be a poor tactical move. It was strategic in the sense that it was consistent with the campaign's core strategy of "personality", but it did not produce strategic benefits, only very tactical ones. Palin was to compliment Mccain, as a counter weight but turned out to be just a pretty decor on the wall. They wanted to exploit the void that they thought was created when Obama did not choose Clinton as his running mate. They were hoping that choosing a young female as VP will be able to capture the Clinton's supporters who were clearly disappointed by the Obama move. The key problem with that choice is that they didn't seem to consider that Palin may not be equal to Hillary. They are similar only in one aspect - being a female and on all other things, Palin suffers in comparison to Clinton. None of the above was delivered by Palin.

Not being able to deliver the strategic benefits of choosing Palin as VP, it instead I think distracted the Mccain campaign from the strategic imperatives it needed to deliver for a win. The choice of Palin gave the Mccain campaign a boost specially at the first few days of the announcement. It was so left field that nobody really understood the choice nor did anyone know who Palin was. This rush to know Palin more gave the Mccain campaign the boost but it eventually waned and the weakness of the choice showed it's ugly head after the honeymoon period. That rush could have given the Mccain the wrong impression the campaign was doing well.

America so it seems is not in the mood for tactical things during this campaign. The issues of the Iraq war and the economy are just too real for tactical efforts.

Now, polls are saying that some voters are questioning the choice of Palin and has made that as a reason for voting for Obama. We know that even Colin Powell himself has mentioned that is one of the reason he is supporting Obama.

The learning here is almost a carbon copy to the lesson in marketing consumer brands --- it is a marketing blunder to think that tactical moves will result to strategic benefits.

obama's wining marketing strategies, strategy # 3 : down-home presence

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 3 of a series and we have added point number 3 here. read parts 1 & 2 here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/Obama%20Winning%20Marketing%20Strategy

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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.

3. Down-home presence - the Obama campaign probably has the most extensive organization and system at getting to very specific voters right in their homes. This also requires very sharp and specific targeting of the voters. If this was a consumer brand, we will call this superior down-scale distribution where the brand is made available and sold in the smallest types of retail outlets, retail stores right beside the homes of consumers. It's a grass-roots organization where many face-to-face interaction occurred and this was done not only once, but in many states, specially the battleground states, it occurred a few times during the election campaign period. Face-to-face selling, specially by a neighbor or a friend is much more compelling and and excellent follow up to the dominant media campaign the Obama campaign ran. For consumer brands, poor or weak distribution usually spells failure.

The Obama's down-home organization is to die for. Their organization was a magnet for large scale number of volunteers, many of them involved in such a campaign for the first time. And these army of volunteers reached not only the Democratic faithful but first time voters, young voters and previously uninvolved voters. The Obama campaign knew it was a strength that they have asked voters to vote early and it worked. Data from many states show that a much higher percentage of democrats voter early versus republicans, in many places 2 is to 1 in ratio.

Of course this kind of strategy is something you can do when you have a lot of funds to execute it. And the Obama campaign has no problems at all with funds. This campaign will most likely come down as one of the richest in US presidential election history.

the mccain losing strategies - strategy # 1 : personality

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 1 of a series on the Mccain campaign.


read about the Obama Winning Marketing Strategies here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/Obama%20Winning%20Marketing%20Strategy

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

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If there is a winning strategy, there is certainly a losing strategy. In marketing though, ts not as tough and iron clad as in other things like sports. In sports, once a losing strategy, it is always a losing strategy. Applying the same will not to reault to anything else but a loss.

That is not the case in marketing. In marketing, a strategy may not bring the desired result for one brand in one category but the same strategy can succeed for another brand in a different category.

One example is pricing. People might find it strange that very low pricing may work well for shampoos but that might not necessarily work for certain brands of cars for example. Yes, that is strange but that is how it goes in marketing.

The Mccain campaign employed certain strategies that in my view were losing or within the spirit of the above, weak strategies that did not work well for them.

1. Core strategy of 'Personality', pursued from the start appearing in different forms across the campaign period. The Mccain campaign was loudest on making personality as a key campaign issue be that of their opponent, Mccain himself and even in his VP choice. At some point towards the latter part of the campaign, they were so stuck on it that they missed an important opportunity that they allowed the Obama campaign to preempt them on it.

The Mccain campaign has spent perhaps too much time on making a point on personality issues on Obama, like for example his being inexperienced. This started early on but they keep bringing it up throughout the campaign when it seemed convenient to them.

They also contrasted that with a personality pitch for Mccain - his being war veteran, spending 5 years in vietnam as a prisoner of war, Mccain as a maverick.

His choice of Palin, we believe was also based on a choice based on personality - either as a balancing or counter choice to Mccain's personality and the fact that Palin was female and even a desire to present Mccain as a maverick, a personality trait.

Most recently, the Mccain campaign hit on Joe The Plumber, again consistent with the personality core strategy. While we agree that Jot The Plumber was a success, it does build on the point we are making here. Joe The Plumber was not much of a speaker nor was a real draw but it certainly got a lot of press and attention. His contribution to driving desirability, however is uncertain.

While personality may get a lot of recal in the press, it did not seem to matter much to the consumers or the voters. The voters were faced with real life national issues like the Iraq war at the start of the primaries to the economic collapse towards the middle and last part of the campaign. Apparetnly, the American voters are very much issue oriented rather than personality oriented.

On the other hand, the Obama campaign was very much an issue oriented campaign. While the Mccain campaign was enjoying the ride they got with Palin, Obama unveiled his economic plan, something that the Mccain campaign forgot to do. The Mccain campaugn eventually unveiled their own economic plan but it was about 2 weeks late and that was the time when the US stock market was about to take it's most devastating loss.

Contrasting this to the Obama seem to be pointing to that classic marketing question - should we go on form or on content. In this election, content seem to be the key driver.

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

president barack obama : the winning marketing strategies. Strategy No. 1 : Change

last october 15, 2008, we posted in WAWAM! our prediction that barack obama will win the US presidential election on the strength of a brilliant marketing effort and a marketing blunder of the mccain campaign.

(read in full here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/10/barack-obama-wins-us-presidential.html)

we also said that the point of no return will most likely occur right after the 3rd debate. our analysis of the 3rd debate was that mccain was unable to rock our world. mccain's task was to not only to do well in that debate but to do so well that he needs to reverse the trend to his favor. while he did well than the first 2 debates, mccain unfortunately did not do well enough to reverse the trend that was not in his favor.

we also posted on WAWAM! a few factors that has the power to reverse the trend of an obama win. since that time, none of the factors listed occurred, thus we concluded, also posted in WAWAM! that obama is on track to win in this election.

(read in full all posts on barack obama here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/barack%20obama)

just about 8 days before the election, we are posting here what we think were the core marketing strategies that both campaigns employed that resulted to obama winning the presidency and mccain losing it.

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.

we will be posting this in a series.

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.

at the start of the primaries, bush ratings were on all time lows and on a continuous decline. the key issue at the time was the iraq war and most specifically on the solutions that america was supposed to apply to it. more and more americans were increasingly withdrawing their support on the iraq war and they felt the end game solutions were unclear at best to wrong at worst.

then as of late the failing US economy has been the key focus. and that while largely unpredicted by the obama campaign (no one else was able to predict it), it fell quite nicely, very snugly into the "change" theme and core strategy.

we can argue that the obama campaign was very lucky that the US economy failed towards the last months of the presidential campaign and towards the very last part when nothing can be done to reverse the trend given the short period of time.

with american voters disappointed with bush on the iraq war at the beginning of the primaries the US economy failing became a double whammy to mccain. add to that the fact that obama stands to be the first black president in the history of the US, the meaning of "change" takes on a very different, almost cosmic meaning. when obama wins, it will be a real "change" in the US in very many ways, in very many aspects of american life and most specially the american psyche.

mccain's obama attack ads - speed and strategy

i think mccain's advertising ad campaign is being run very well - very professional, admirable speed, highly consistent and well thought out strategy.

they are able to come out with tv ads within 24 hours of a new development on the barack obama side. we have seen two ads aired, one within 24 hours, the other within 48 hours of obama's announcement of joe biden as his running mate. and these are no oedinary tv ads, i think they are very effective and very well thought out ads.

this speed to airwaves is definitely creating momentum for the mccain candidacy as it is effectively removing steam and power from the obama campaign. polls show the mccain and obama numbers are getting much closer and that's because obama's numbers are slowing down if not shrinking while mccain's numbers have not changed or slowly improving. that may show the impact of the attack ads that the mccain camp has been releasing - they are chipping away on the strength of obama and slowing it down.

the ads are also very consistent on one strategy - the message of inexperience, lack of skill, lack of ability and weak leadership message the mccain campaign is portraying obama to be.

it's also interesting that the mccain ads are delivering that strategy and messages through a very effective way - the use of what the other candidates like clinton and biden have said previously about obama. it's very tangible and clear and creates a solid question in the minds of the voters about obama.





it is no surprise that these two ads carry the same message, they are on the same ad strategy that the mccain camp has decided to adapt for the attack ads.

it also builds very strongly and i would say very effectively on the split that occured within the democratic prty brought about by the long drawn, bitter and highly passionate campaigns waged by clinton and obama. to this day, the clinton supporters are still clinton supporters and continue to be obsessively so. now, obama is saddled with an extra task of winning over clinton supporters within his own party on top of the the general voters and going against mccain voters and supporters. he has some extra baggage to get over with.

if obama loses the election, it is very possible that clinton's dogged determination to stay in the democratic nomination process will be tagged as one of the key reasons for it's failure to win. clinton held on to it too long and too strong. it was the fear many were saying then and it's possible that its effects are now showing.

the convention in denver will put into the arena new messages and bring out new arenas, it will be interesting to see just how much power mccain's attack ads truly have in this election.

next in WAWAM! ---- what can the obama camp do?

mccain's "we're number 2, we try harder" gambit or why the paris-obama-britney threesome should just be a fantasy

this tv spot by mccain reminds me of many things, a couple of which are - the threesome fantasy with paris and britney. and that makes me hate obama. oh, wait a minute, it didn't really happen, they just appeared in the same ad. oh, well, i hate him just the same.

another thing is this ad campaign by avis many years ago that became some kind of a textbook discussion in the ad industry where avis, being the 2nd largest brand in the market had the ad campaign that was based on "Avis, we're number 2, we try harder" selling line.

in some ways that is what the mccain tv spot does - mccain admits his opponent is hugely popular. like what the article below says, obama is not just a celebrity, he is a rock star in politics

going through this route is asking the audience to go through a long and round about way to get them to conclude this rockstar is not as good as he actually is. aside from it's a round about process, the dangers one faces in trekking through a long route is what most of us fall into - we can get lost and not reach the destination at all.

in my mind, it's simple - why put a powerful and strong thought into the ad, that of obama being a rockstar, then spend the rest of the ad to remove it or discredit it? why not dispense with the first half and just go straight into the last half?

that wasn't the first time that mistake was made in this ad.

the second time was the threesome reference to paris and britney. and the tragedy of it is that it happened at the beginning of the ad.

paris and britney appeared in the ad just a few seconds, 2 to 3 seconds for both of them and yet that is what most of us remember. the press and tv certainly remember that part very well, it's played up and written about in all reports on the matter. in other words, britney and paris' 3 second inclusion in the ad became the issue, not the rest of the 27 seconds of the ad.

it's a tragedy that it happened in the first third of the ad because my guess is most people who watched it got so shocked by their inclusion into a political ad, that the brains stopped processing anything that was said or shown in the ad after seeing their two faces. who wouldn't? a threesome with paris and britney will make hearts stop pumping blood or pump more blood, depending on the gender of who owns the heart.

the point is - you get so confused, so disoriented that you miss the whole message of the ad.

look, a threesome in any ad will get my vote, but not in this kind of threesome. and as mccain, a non-entity to obama's rockstar status, will know, trying harder in this way just might get him in the number 2 spot during the election in november.

i don't think the inclusion of paris and britney in the ad added anything or made a single contribution to the sale. all it did was put a polarizing element in the ad.

there is a third point here, one of irony. with this mccain ad, the presidential election in the US just became real ugly and the irony of it is, it was ushered in by two beautiful faces of hollywood. makes you wonder - maybe perhaps that is the reason why mccain is number 2?!


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The celebrity backers of Barack Obama say they are not like Paris and Britney.
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
7:04 PM PDT, July 31, 2008

TO HOLLYWOOD it smacked of desperation.That's why the reaction to a new John McCain ad attempting to portray Barack Obama as a kind of mindless celebrity -- likening him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- drew collective yawns and shrugs of irritation from politically active members of the entertainment industry.

"I didn't think McCain could look silly," mused Norman Lear. "But that ad diminishes him and makes him look silly."Just for a start, industry types say the ad is wrong: In the Hollywood lexicon, Obama is not a celebrity. He's a rock star. (Note to McCain strategists: That's the difference between Jessica Simpson and Bono.)

Then there's the small inconvenience that Paris' parents, Rick and Kathleen Hilton, are supporters of McCain's Republican presidential bid. According to federal campaign records, they gave the maximum $4,600.No word on their plans for the general election, but this much is certain: Their daughter has never paid to attend an Obama campaign fundraiser. (It's unclear whether she's even met the senator, or whether she's even registered to vote. The same goes for Spears.)


read the whole article here :
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-et-cause1-2008aug01,0,4172463.story