Obama: a lesson in branding in a connected world

The inherent assumption in traditional branding is that the brand manager is in control, and uses a mixture of tools in order to attach meaning to and alter consumer perceptions over time until the brand and its values resonate with the consumer. The open branding approach, in contrast, accepts that the brand belongs to and is created by the people.

For the Republicans the appointment of Sarah Palin as running mate was part of this approach and, even a few years ago, would probably have had the effect intended, drawing in the female voter. Once the votes were, in the commander-in-chief would run the country.

Power of the people

Obama believed in the power of the people to create the change, “Yes, we can” is a call to the crowds to believe in themselves to believe that they could make a difference. It's a call to the heart of the American people to understand that the world won't be put back together by one man alone but by a collaboration of the people. In effect he created a vision, something real that people could believe in and he gave the people the tools to carry it forward.

Obama understood the tools, the ability to mobilise people - tools that weren't available just a few years ago. He had the power of the social web, and the networks, linkages and influence of the Internet generation. He used them to beat Clinton in the primaries.

The stats below, courtesy of Twitter friend Jeremiah Owyang, senior analyst in social computing at Forrester Research, should give you some idea:

• Facebook
  • Obama: 2 379 102 supporters
    
  • McCain: 620 359 supporters
    
  • Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain
  
  
• MySpace
  • Obama: Friends: 833 161
    
  • McCain: Friends: 217 811
    
  • Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain
  
  
• YouTube
  • Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since November 2006, subscribers: 114 559 (uploads about four a day), channel views: 18 413 110
    
  • McCain: 329 videos uploaded since February 2007 (uploads about two a day), subscribers: 28 419, channel views: 2 032 993
    
  • Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain
    
  • Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain
  
  
• Twitter:
  • Obama: @barackobama has 112 474 followers
    
  • McCain: @JohnMcCain (is it real?) 4603 followers
    
  • Obama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain

The Obama campaign was an integrated campaign with massive spend in traditional media; it is also being hailed as the campaign that brought digital marketing of age. There is no doubt that it has, and the approach will give marketers and branding people a lot to think about in coming years. He also made it a worldwide campaign: at the time of writing a day after the victory, already more than 180 000 people from around the world had signed a petition in support.

The lesson

The lesson, though, is not the technology. The lesson is how to use the technology in order to empower the people to create a movement, to create a brand in a new way, from the bottom up.

I suspect that we may also see a new way of governing. The figures above demonstrate the existence of a huge social network, especially when measured through the secondary nodes (friends of friends, etc). Could the Obama presidency be the first user-generated one, truly of the people, for the people?

Yes, we can.