Marketing Obama.

No matter what your politics are ... for a lesson in how to run a successful 21st Century marketing campaign, read this: The Machinery of Hope-RollingStone.

Obama is giving everyone a lesson in "authentic" marketing - the catch term of our business these days. It happens to be for his presidential candidacy. But it is scary how it has worked from the very ground up - and laid a major amount of whoop-ass on Hillary and the Democratic Party machine with their Big Media approach.


It is a wonderful study for marketers of all kinds, though, of how to invert the traditional marketing paradigm of big media - big dollars ... and migrate an online and events-based, Web 2.0 campaign that builds momentum in a methodical, well concieved, steamrolling way... to an eventual offline Big Media message. But the basis for it has been built by high envolvement with the "brand" that translates into some other action to support that brand - going out and envolving someone else.

"That was a very important test for us," says Steve Hildebrand (Obama deputy campaign manager - and architect of his marketing/media strategy). "Can we make this work offline? We said to our online supporters, 'We love you, but we need you to actually go to work in your neighborhood.' Their online support was only great if we could translate it into activity within their community."

Then it was about expanding that base - using today's marketing tools:

"With the help of one of the founders of Facebook, the Obama campaign created, MyBo, its own social-networking tool, through which supporters could organize themselves however they saw fit."

Translating to an unprecedented "authentic" sales force ...

"That move unleashed supporters to mobilize on their own — and they did, in unprecedented numbers. Before long, the campaign had transformed hundreds of thousands of online donors into street-level activists."

The payoff came on Super Tuesday when Obama swung the campaign his way ... unleashing a pre-poll Big Media onslaught ... but, predicated on the pre-roll grassroots activism already well stirred up.

"As Super Tuesday approached, the Obama campaign understood that the Clinton strategy was to try to deliver a deathblow by winning big states like California, New York and New Jersey through a traditional campaign driven by thirty-second TV spots and tarmac-to-tarmac appearances by the candidate and her surrogates. The Obama team was confident that it had both the ad budget and the precinct-by-precinct support to capture delegates in states like California, whether or not they won the popular vote. They also recognized that, even with her paid staff of 700, Clinton didn't have the manpower to compete against Obama's grass-roots organizers in the caucus states. "

Obamas campaign turned on that moment in time ... "Having wrestled the Clinton campaign to a draw through Super Tuesday, the Obama campaign suddenly found itself in a dominant position."

Nobody knows yet, of course, how this will all turn out in the Democratic Convention or National Election ... but, seems pretty clear that Obama's marketing strategy will change the future of political campaigns.

And, maybe serves as one of the most intriguing New Age marketing case studies we have to draw on for strategic and tactical use of new media tools.

Memo here to AAAA's or any other Advertising and Marketing related organization - the guy you really should have keynote your next big conference (after all this Presidential stuff in done ...) is Steve Hildebrand.

Bet we could all learn a few things ...

PS - course there's no discounting the power of web 2.0 like Obama Girl ... (oh well)



UPDATE: 3-31-08 And so, in Fast Company's April issue they also weigh in on this unique marketing case study ... The Brand Called Obama .

UPDATE: 4-14-08 Obama's Rivals Should Steal From His Social Playbook-AdAge