{"id":356,"date":"2008-11-14T16:52:06","date_gmt":"2008-11-14T20:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/?p=356"},"modified":"2008-11-18T17:34:58","modified_gmt":"2008-11-18T21:34:58","slug":"its-not-politics-its-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/its-not-politics-its-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"it’s not politics – it’s marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This isn\u2019t about politics. No. The just concluded election turned the corner on how America communicates<\/strong> and in the process opened the door to the new face of marketing that\u2019s savvy, smart and hip.<\/p>\n

Reporting in the October 13, 2008 edition of Powersports Business News<\/strong>, editor Neil Pascale singled out brand consultant Paul Leinberger\u2019s comments from the Suzuki national dealer meeting in Las Vegas. Ready? \u201cThe most important thing you have at your dealership is your web site.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back to Obama. The campaign conducted in very large part via an elegant and super efficient URL is on track to sweep every marketing awards category on the planet. Maybe beyond.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to like politics to stand slack-jawed and stupid in front of the promo machine spec built by the pros from Chicago. From zero to seven thousand m.p.h. in two years, they introduced a totally unknown brand with a difficult at best product name and grabbed the brass ring.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like deciding to take on Coke with a new warm cola beverage named It\u2019s Not That Bad \u2013 and winning the first at-bat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> There\u2019s plenty of detail elsewhere about the strategy and execution that\u2019s already become legendary, but key factors for the campaign\u2019s success include a distinctive logotype (Pepsi, anyone? Hint: the new generation)<\/strong> that actually involved serious graphic design, a web site that totally redefines the notion of content, and a complete mastery of social networking, internet style. Throw in drop dead collateral and POP and you\u2019re halfway home.<\/p>\n

If you’re looking for a perfect example of Web 2.0,<\/a> this is it. In concept, design and construction, they’ve leveraged everything from social content to shopping cart with a ton of blog in between. User generated content, push marketing, and plenty of painfully hip gear were a few of the more obvious differences.<\/p>\n

Think style points don\u2019t count? Try counting the massive numbers of youngsters sporting any one of dozens of flavors of Obama apparal. Shirts, hoodies, watch caps, baseball caps \u2013 you name it, it was branded. Merchandised. And worn by millions.<\/p>\n

But just branding isn\u2019t enough. The designs nearly all revolve around LA graphic designer and Rhode Island School of Design grad Shepard Fairey<\/a> now legendary interpretation of a web-downloaded Obama image that was reworked into a thirties-era graphic.<\/p>\n

The donated style sense of one graphic designer<\/strong> merged with a truly revolutionary web strategy to produce what has to be judged as one of the most perfect examples to date of internet leveraging.<\/p>\n

And that web site\u2019s compiled one of the most extensive registered user databases this side of the IRS. Without doubt you can look for that speed and efficiency to be imported into the Obama White House in what can only be a massive headache for anyone else who might want the keys down the road.<\/p>\n

Forty years – count ’em – after author Joe McGinniss’ benchmark bestseller “The Selling of the President 1968”<\/a>, in which he revealed the first use ever of ad agencies by presidential campaigns (Nixon and Humphrey) to market the candidates as brands, not individuals, the Obama people took John McCain to the woodshed of popular opinion.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019ve been fence-sitting on making up your mind as to whether or not this whole web content thing was a fad or not<\/strong>, we bring news. The train\u2019s done left the station. And you\u2019ve probably got a tough sprint to catch up while it\u2019s still in sight if you’re not already onboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This isn\u2019t about politics. No. The just concluded election turned the corner on how America communicates and in the process opened the door to the new face of marketing that\u2019s savvy, smart and hip. Reporting in the October 13, 2008 edition of Powersports Business News, editor Neil Pascale singled out brand consultant Paul Leinberger\u2019s comments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[64,65,66],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brand-management","category-marketing-and-promotion","tag-graphic-design","tag-obama","tag-shepard-fairey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfUeo-5K","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365,"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siebenthalercreative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}