Tuesday was a great day. We sat in the office, in awe of an undoubtedly great man. We were transfixed.
As Paul Carr said in his weekly column, the usual British cynicism that so often comes to the fore when anything American is concerned disappeared like $1 Obama water offered to a million-strong crowd.
The reason: he’s a great, natural marketer.
From day one, Obama has marketed himself brilliantly. There was a great comment piece in last month’s Revolution magazine which compared some of Obama’s early speeches from before he won the nomination to the email he sent on the night he was elected. The messages were almost identical.
That’s great branding. Great messaging and great strategy. We are always telling our clients that if you get the messaging right at the start, then everything else follows and works much better. It’s true and Obama knows it. I guess from a political standpoint, it suggests that this is also a person who is true to his beliefs and his vision. A good business lesson too.
Sure, he was very different to what went before, and that certainly helps. But so is the best marketing. And Obama accentuates and plays on these differences, if subtlety. Marketing the same message in the same way as everyone else is only going to get you so far. Doing something different, something unique, gets you noticed.
David Meerman Scott has brilliantly demonstrated the linguistic differences between Obama’s inaugural address and the one Bush gave 4 years ago. It’s subtle but it seems to hit home.
As Seth Godin says: be remarkable. Obama is certainly remarkable – the person and the brand.
Politically speaking, the hard work starts now. And, at the end of the day, he is a politician, not a marketer.
But in the days when countries are hiring PR agencies, what better leader to have than one that seems to understand how to inspire, persuade and communicate effectively to his own country and globally.
Seeing the RT or ‘re-tweet’ as a viral marketing vehicle is not necessarily a new concept, but as Twitter seems set to take off in 2009, this is worth thinking about. Of course, the success of this is dependent on numbers/influence of followers. Lance mentions two useful tools that could help: Retweetrank.com and Retweetradar.com
I really enjoy Weber Shandwick CEO Colin Byrne’s blog. Whatever your political leanings, his take on the polictical landscape is usually spot on, informed by his obvious experience in this field. This post is slightly random in terms of the themes it covers. But I agree with much of what he says about the Euro and also about the state on the music industry. Having worked in the music industry in the past, I totally agree that social media presents a great way for artists that don’t want to go down the ‘Simon Cowell’ route. And by this I don’t just mean Myspace. This subject (with an obvious US slant) was also covered on a recent TWIT podcast - about half way through.
Blogging has undergone something of a rocky patch recently with many feeling blogs are not what they used to be. But that’s surely a good thing? Nothing should stand still. Especially something as young and evolving as blogging.
So here goes with another evolution.
And it’ll be something of an experiment I think. I’m still involved in ‘blogging’ elsewhere – at work (where obviously the purpose and audience is probably, but not exclusively, different) and in my work with clients. And I’ve been involved in blogs in the past too.
But, there is scope to explore other, less traditional (if you can use that term in digital yet!) ideas, concepts and creations. And also new ways of blogging, of writing and of expressing ideas and thoughts.
So what will you find here?
Probably a bit of technology, some PR and marketing, all things digital and online, not to mention some random bits and pieces.
I’ve picked a Dave Winer quote to adorn the top of the blog. I think it sums up what is great about blogging and the internet.
It’s why we come back to places online, because they send us away again – either in the way Winer originally meant – through links. But also in other more abstract ways. If that doesn’t sound too wanky.
Hopefully something will grab your attention. Enjoy
