today's AMAZING TV AD : honda's "cog" 2 minute tv spot

for more on this, go to this post : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2008/04/cog-honda-tv-spot-another-amazing-ad.html; april 14 post.
the inspiration is mount pinatubo when some years ago, all of a sudden, after decades of being dormant, it decided to erupt, spewing debris and ash several kilometers high, blowing ashes to float everywhere, far and wide, turning the skies gloomy gray as far away as metro manila, hundreds of kilometers away, covering metro manila streets and rooftops with thick ash. the pinatubo eruption was so powerful that its ashes changed the color of sunsets not only in the philippines but also worldwide.

that's what happens when clients and advertising agencies decide to run ads not worthy to be called advertising. its dark, its huge and very irritating and unfortunately, everywhere!


all they are doing is wawam! what a waste of advertising money!


here is a first row view of Philippine Advertising and Philippine Marketing.

mount pinatubo erupts shooting ashes several kilometers high, then floating to blanket many other towns hundreds of kilometers away

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Showing posts with label obama wins election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obama wins election. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

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!

Monday, October 27, 2008

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.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

barack obama wins the US presidential election - on the strength of a brilliant marketing effort and a marketing blunder by mccain

let's put things on the line here : i am calling it a barack obama win in the US presidential election. based on trending, it's no longer a question of "if" but a question of by what margin - a strong finish or a landslide.



looking at the presidential elections from a purely marketing standpoint, obama's win will be delivered through brilliant marketing and brilliant communication by the obama campaign and marketing blunders by the mccain campaign.

james carville was "The Man" during the bill clinton presidential campaigns, now i want to know who the marketing dude is of the obama campaign. the picture of this obama strategist whoever he is, deserves to be posted here in WAWAM!

james carville
geez, the election is 3 weeks away and we are already calling it an obama win. if obama does not win, well it's not the first time we have failed in our analysis.
just hope that readers of this blog will appreciate the courage of calling a winner this early. calling an obama win is based on an analysis of marketing and communication strategies and execution. and that is next here in WAWAM!


posted : october 15, 2008 12:32 pm manila time