Hail To The Chief Marketing Officer

Now that the Presidential Election is over, I can’t help but think about how campaigns are run with a good healthy dose of marketing.  When a corporation has what they think is a great offering they do all they can to promote it so consumers want it.  Elections are absolutely the same concept.  The candidate is the offering and the campaign is run all with the goal of convincing voters/consumers that they want that offering.  I have never seen a campaign take advantage of IMC as the Obama campaign did.  And his use of internet advertising and email campaigns were brilliant.
Everywhere I went online it seems as though Barack Obama was following me.  If I was using Pandora Radio, he was there offering to find my polling place.  If I went to CNN he was there urging me to calculate my income to see what I could expect to pay in taxes under his economic plan.  John Quelch from Business Week observed:
“He leveraged his website, the blogosphere, and even user-generated content (remember Obama Girl) and video games to engage not just donors and volunteers but all citizens…Obama’s communications were professional without being slick, attention-getting without being in-your-face.”
Throughout his entire campaign Obama kept his message clear, concise, and on mark.  Some are now saying Obama was able to portray himself as a brand.  While people as a rand is not a new concept (think about fashion designers…my bag is Chanel or my shirt is Tommy) the likes of this have not been capitalized on in such manner in politics until now.  In an article entitled “That Brand Called Obama” on Fast Company’s site, Ellen McGirt examines this concept further:
“’Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand,’ says Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide. “New, different, and attractive. That’s as good as it gets.” Obama has his greatest strength among the young, roughly 18 to 29 years old, that advertisers covet, the cohort known as millennials — who will outnumber the baby boomers by 2010. They are black, white, yellow, and various shades of brown, but what they share — new media, online social networks, a distaste for top-down sales pitches — connects them more than traditional barriers, such as ethnicity, divide them.”
This is marketing at its best when one examines the results.  CNN exit polls show the following break-down of voters by age:

Age	Obama	McCain	Other/NA
18-24	66%	32%	2%
25-29	66%	31%	3%
30-39	54%	44%	2%
40-49	49%	49%	2%
50-64	50%	49%	1%
65+	45%	53%	2%

I fully understand that this election was not won on marketing alone.  But one has to have respect for a media plan that delivers that kind of ROI.  That said I think marketers have some lessons to be learned from this campaign.  It is the beginning of real proof of how powerful a consistent message and an effective communication mix can be.  I know this: I will be examining the Obama campaign in much more detail in the future in an attempt to apply some or all of the elements to future marketing campaigns.