THE BARACK BRAND

User Generated Content: Shepard Fairey sold a limited edition of 350 similar posters with the word progress and used that money to print these Hope posters.

If you have a couple of minutes to look at this guardian video on The Barack Army you can see what a brand really needs to do to become successful in the longer term, during the periods between advertising campaigns, it’s my hope that which ever candidate wins they will continue the nature of their campaign strategies to connect with hockey moms and joe six-pack during their term in office.

Obama08 has followed all the fundamentals of outlined in this blog post on 7 Ingredients of Good Corporate Design… it’s all the usual stuff: Look, logo, colour, typography etc etc; I’m sure you know it. But specifically I’d like to point out how the Obama Campaign have built:

1. Build Community as Obama campaign has done so well. From his MyBo community and all the major social networking sites and feeds news and information and encourages them to produce their own content; be it online or in the real world like your own real world Obama event (McCain Does this (and many similar avenues) also,my point is: I think Obama does it better)

2. Build Culture as is illustrated in the video above. I’m sure the Republican’s have an enthusiastic fan base, but it the Obama08 campaign has provided his base with what is so important to marketing in Web 2.0 style. Content and many way to access and use it. Basically the ability to integrate Obama08 into your life in long and far reaching ways the suit each individual. Having advocates for your brand from grass roots up to the upper management echelons is most important. Infact this video here illustrates the heavy hitters the Obama campaign have to spread around; compared with the McCain/Palin double act that seems to have to stick together and limit their reach.

Brands should deconstruct the Obama strategy for some critically effective insight into some brillient transmedia planning if they really want to see how step it up on their rivals as Obama seems to be doing as I post here.

I’m not saying the Republicans are not doing many (if not virtually all, though I’m not sure there’s a McCain iPhone app) of these. For example the official McCainSpace community and you can find him on Facebook and in all the social networking communities as would be expected… but on the whole I just don’t feel they’re just not doing building community and culture as effectivly. I look touchpoints but fail to find them as easily as I do for his opponent.

I’ve tried to remain level and even on both campaigns – as I’m not from the US I can’t vote anyway – but I have not noticed how to intergrate the McCain Campaign into my life as easily or through as many channels as the Obama Campaign.

This is not an advertisement for Barack Obama – it is not in my interest to influence you either way – the purpose of this post is to highlight his strategy. But please if you disagree and believe the McCain Campaign doing all the right things or at least some things better then please post a comment. Let’s not talk US politics (because you’d most probably reveal how little I actually know about the two candidate’s positions) let’s talk branding and strategy… as if we were reviewing Coke and Pepsi or Apple and Mircosoft et al.