Obama's team vs Clinton's
5.25.2008
Any election campaign is a mighty beast of a marketing challenge. From mere branding of the main banner campaign, or simply branding of the candidates, to detailed segmentation, profiling of state demographics and ultimately budgeting media buys and strategies vis-a-vis the projections, the whole campaign is a marketing exercise.
This is what got me very interested in the 2008 democractic primary battles between Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama. It's a battle of wits. A battle of product qualities: on one hand one who is a "fighter" and another, a candidate of "change". These one-word associations that came to define their campaigns are not accidents - they are predetermined modes of character that aim to highlight the product. What's interesting is, as with any battle between competing brands, one will end up a clearer winner in the end.
Somehow, Obama's largely Internet-based and new media campaigns have outpaced Clinton's. Could it be the young demographic that supports him which fueled the quick spread of his videos and speeches? Or is it merely a tactic that was not as exploited by the Clinton campaign?
As it turns out, it's not just strategy but the message, something is new about the campaign, in the way it was managed like a community event, ground-up but on a nationwide scale. Is this success a question of the message (the product as it is 'essentially' placed, that is, "change") or is the success of the Obama campaign really due to the management behind the campaign. It's easy to attribute it to both, but which one has a bigger effect? Is it the money - Obama having more in his war chest? I remember from the book Freakonomics, however, that it isn't decidedly sure that once you have more money - you correlate that to winning an election (that's only half the story).
Nedra Pickler, has an interesting article about the Obama team out-organizing their Clinton counterparts. There it's laid out how the Obama campaign has sustained the campaign (aka managed the funds) while Clinton had to lend her team her own money. The article outlines the people behind the Obama campaign and talks about their key strengths.
We've all come across the claim that a good product will sell itself. Or that one product if good enough will not require a lot of marketing but will largely advertise its own by sheer referral volume or popularity.
Well guess what, I don't buy that. Not all online sensations for instance got big by sheer luck. You think there are no marketing teams behind such viral campaigns? There are companies that capitalize on the initial surges of such phenomena to sustain them and plan how to most efficiently schedule the exposures.
And so I end with Obama's team. Much a great character he is whose message a lot will buy, you got to give it to his staff for making it happen. Certainly, he would have mark his leadership on key points in the campaign, the famous address on the issue of Rev. Jeremiah for instance, wherein he wrote his own speech. But ultimately, without the staff capitalizing on the grassroots movement and the enthusiasm of the supporters, and planning effectively, America would not have known that such a product call "change" was even available.
Labels: Branding, Elections, Marketing, Obama, Politics, US Politics
posted by Jdavies @ 5/25/2008,
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Googling "Marketing"
2.29.2008
I googled the keyword "marketing" today and here's what I think are important things to notice:
- The Wikipedia entry on top.
- Google has 'Viral Marketing' as the second most relevant term.
Two things with certain implications to marketing:
- Does your product have a wikipedia entry?
The wikipedia community will take down any biased posting, but if you would like a historical placement on your company, this maybe something to look at, not for marketing but for PR. - Have you implemented any Viral Marketing Program?
While not a requirement, and such a strategy maybe applicable to certain markets only, if google has it on top, shouldn't you be considering it if you have online presence?
posted by Jdavies @ 2/29/2008,
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On Marketing Accountability
9.15.2007
What works and what doesn't? If we choose to do the same thing that works, are we not accountable for lacking innovativeness?
I recently received an email from Warc.com selling me a report on practices & metrics that make marketing profitable, among other details on marketing efficiencies.
While I do not plan to buy the report, I must agree the questions it seeks to clarify are very important to marketing professionals. Some questions are easily answerable by experience, while others remain debatable and largely dependent on implementation monitoring.
Consider the following:
- Which business goals make the best campaign objectives?
- Is pre-testing worthwhile?
- Is it better to focus on loyalty or penetration?
- Does a surround-sound media strategy actually work?
- Is television becoming less effective?
- Which are the most useful marketing metrics?
For instance, while I think pre-testing does have its merits in avoiding wastage, it can take time, and whatever effect it has on current projects will have to be considered. In other words, my take on this is case-to-case.
In the end, we are all accountable for our projects. Do we delay projects if only to ensure we are armed by the best move in the market? Or do we push for early launch?
Seems to me that while the study will be a good read on the markets are driven, and will surely have powerful insights based on quantifiable data, how potential situations will tend toward disaster, ultimately have to considered in light of the situation or the choices available in the market more than by statistical precedence. That is, is it playing safe, or pushing forward? How much of a risk do we bet our careers on?
If you are interested, order here.
Labels: Marketing, Practice, Reports, Strategy
posted by Jdavies @ 9/15/2007,
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Product Substitution & Unexpected Usage
8.28.2007
The Dailymail reports of 'four tiny orphaned hedgehogs are snuggling up to the bristles of a cleaning brush - because they think it's their mother'.
It's easy to imagine such animals have poor eyesight, or that they mistakenly think it's their mother due to the texture.
Relating this to customers however, and in my branding experience, I wonder how this process, which seems to me wreaking of product substitution could be exploited marketing-wise.
How much of any product is potentially a substitute for other products? While we could never easily predict whether the products we create will be used for exactly the same purposes we intended for it, it's an interesting insight to know that a process of substitution has happened before in marketing history: Listerine, for instance is not initially a mouthwash but a surgical antiseptic.
As wikipedia furthers:
It wasn't a runaway success until the 1920s, when it was pitched as a solution for "chronic halitosis", the faux medical term that the Listerine advertising group created in 1921 to describe bad breath. By naming and thus creating a medical condition for which consumers now felt they needed a cure, Listerine created a market for their mouthwash. Until that time, bad breath was not conventionally considered a catastrophe, but Listerine's ad campaign changed that. As the advertising scholar James B. Twitchell writes, "Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis."As a marketer, having been busy ensuring current campaigns remain successful, I must admit I fail to seize this opportunity a lot of times: Do we have systems in place testing our current market for unexpected usage habits or metrics? While most companies will admit having an automated monitoring or reporting system in place for current project is a good thing (something most of us have), sometimes a simple pivot chart on raw data may reveal something new - precisely a gem that we just might miss.
Labels: Brand, Marketing, Metrics, Questions
posted by Jdavies @ 8/28/2007,
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Creating New Products vs Replication of Ideas
I've come across a link on digg selling "Zombie" action figures.The site features monstrous renditions of the Hulk, Thor, Wolverine, and Magneto, among other popular characters.
It prompted me to ask whether us, marketing professionals should focus on creating new products (innovative) or more on replication of previous ideas that are already successful and just needs a few tweaks (distinctive).
The choice of either being early in the game, or being distinct from current offers will certainly have pros & cons. While the overall strategy may differ from company to company, due to various circumstances, I wonder if one beats the other, or one product creation paradigm is subscribed to more by marketers.
In my mind I have the ipod (not the first portable, digital music player), Microsoft's Surface, Snapple, Evian (first in category, correct me if I'm wrong) etc, as examples. Which one? Hmm...
Labels: Implementation, Launch, Marketing, Questions
posted by Jdavies @ 8/28/2007,
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Digging for Brands
8.20.2007
What is "digg" and what can companies get by being on the front page?
Here's a quick primer for the confused. In short, it is a digest of the best links in the Internet according to tastes of users of the site. Users rummage through a pile of links and "dig" up links that work for them - essentially a democratic vote. More votes, more diggs, and the site is unearthed. Your site gets digged, you're popular.
For one to get to the main page, one's website has to be uniquely interesting to millions of people at the right time, and believe me it's that hard to get to the top. So much so that it's a gem for SEO people if they can get a relevant link on digg and people talk about it.
What does it mean for your business online to be linked to and accessed by thousands of people at one time? Here's my quicklist:
- Sudden jump in your site's popularity, possible cross-linking
- Bloggers may talk about you & email their friends
- This may translate to some returns if you have content
- Free unsolicited comments for your brand manager
- 1000 new sign ups for that hour
- Website crash if your hosting company can't take the bandwidth
Getting dugg is just the same as having hundreds of people on your booth. Everyone likes to touch and see, but hey, how to convert that to money?
Labels: Brand, Marketing, Online Strategy
posted by Jdavies @ 8/20/2007,
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The Author
J.Davies
Jdavies lives in Quezon City, Philippines and has been blogging since 2002. A brand manager in a leading technology company and a freelance new media/web strategy consultant, he has refocused his blogging from personal, political & sociological observations, to marketing-related efforts and Internet trends that are relevant to his career and branding advocacies.
About This Blog
This blog is a depot of thoughts and observations on marketing trends which remain personally relevant to the Author as far as his marketing career is concerned. Having evolved from the personal blog of Jdavies, much of the earlier work contained herein are laced with personal speculation, political views, and similar advocacies. These posts are being kept for posterity's sake and for no other reason. No effort is being made to claim that the author will not contradict himself from his previous positions or that such advocacies are absolute.
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