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

obama's november surprise vs mccain's november surprise

obama and mccain share the same two things - one, now is the time when both of them don't have time anymore. while they share the same thing on that part, the end result of that they need to do are very different. and both, this is the 2nd thing, need to pull out a november surprise. while they share the need to pull out a november surprise, obama will pull out his to close the deal for good. mccain on the other hand need to pull out his november surprise to reverse the trend and win the election.

both camp's november surprises are the sort of things these candidates need to do trampoline their campaign to get to the results they want. for obama, a strong, clear and emphatic close for the win. for mccain, it is not just to recover lost grounds but more importantly to overtake obama. it's obvious mccain has a tougher job to do than obama.

obama's november surprise - get colin powell to do a political ad endorsing obama. or at least make an apearance in two to three states where the polls see a tie between obama and mccain. powell has been asked that question but his answer was he was not planning on doing it as he is not a politician. recernt polls show there are around 4% tp 5% undecided voters specially in battleground states. that figure is equivalent to most poll's margin fo error. that means the candidate who will get the undecideds will move his poll numbers away from tie to a significant win. and powell is the man to do this for obama for the simple reason that most of the undecideds are republican holdouots. powell is a well respected and highly regarded republican who obviously has the power to get the undecided republicans to move towards obama, a phenomenon that has occured in a few states that used to be solidly republican but now has chosen obama.

mccain's november surprise - is his hail mary pass play, pull out the race card. we have talked about this previously in WAWAM!. mccain actually said he does not think race will not be a factor in the election. he said it's just going to be a "tiny, tiny" number of people who will vote on the basis of race preference or race fear. but the polls show otherwise. some polls show that for some of the holdouots, race seem to matter. if the mccain campaign finds itself in a tight corner, playing the race card can be their hail mary pass play. will mccain do it? or will he not do it for fear of a backfire.

both november surprises have the potential to be powerful and truly game changing. but one is a high risk one while the other is a sure thing. will any of the campaigns do it? the only time to do this is this weekend. we will wait and see.





read all posts on obama and mccain here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/US%20presidential%20elections