Marketing Lessons from the Obama Campaign

Today we have a new president-elect.  

What marketing lessons can we learn from Obama's victory?   One disclaimer is in order:  I consider myself politically independent.  I've voted for Democrats and Republicans, so I've go no political axe to grind.  These are simply the opinions of an interested observer who happens to know something about smart marketing.

1. Have a Purple Cow product:  Has there ever been a more unique candidate for the Presidency?  No one needed to invent or "spin" or convince anyone of Obama's uniqueness.  Some embraced it and some feared it.  But all recognized it.  He was a Purple Cow (see my earlier blog on Purple Cow thinking).
2. Identify a strong strategy and stick with it:  The Obama team had a very simple and easy to understand positioning strategy represented by one word:  CHANGE.  His campaign hammered the theme consistently and they didn't let Hillary Clinton or John McCain usurp it even though both tried.  His sub-theme "YES WE CAN"  conveyed optimism and self-confidence at a time when those qualities were exactly what the majority of Americans needed and wanted to feel.
3. Packaging is critical:  Obama always staged his major speeches and TV ads in settings that made him look "Presidential."  Regardless of whether you supported him, the staging of his Victory Speech last night was impressive.  He only won 51% of the popular vote yet it looked like he won a gigantic and overwhelming landslide.   Brilliant Packaging.
4. Re-position your competition:  Bush's current unpopularity was a huge problem for McCain.  He did all he could to distance himself from the President.  The Obama campaign  never conceded that issue and kept linking McCain to Bush, forcing McCain to be on the defensive and prove his independence.  You can't win by playing defense.  You need to score.
5. Seize opportunities quickly:  The economic crisis turned the campaign from a referendum on the War in Iraq to a Debate about Economic Recovery.  Bad luck for McCain, who had an advantage on foreign policy experience.  But the Obama campaign had the good sense to keep the debate focussed on the economy and McCain's depth of foreign policy experience became relatively unimportant.
6. Invest in marketing:  No matter how great your product is and how brilliantly it's positioned in the market, you won't succeed if you don't invest in marketing.

I hope that Obama's skills as a smart marketer foreshadow the skills he will show as our President.  If he's as good at running the country as he was at running his marketing campaign, we'll be in capable hands.  Let's all wish him well at this difficult time when our country needs exceptional leadership.

Brand Building - How the Little Things Add Up.

I confess.  I'm pretty much a Starbucks junky.  

It's hard for me to walk past one without wanting to go in and get a fix.  Partly, it's the coffee.  But a lot of the explanation for why I'm addicted to Starbucks is that I admire the way they've built their brand and I love to look for the new little things that they keep adding to the in-store experience.  Over the years, Starbucks has carefully and intelligently cultivated their brand and invested in it and built it one brick at a time.  It's now one of the most formidable and valuable brands on the planet.  Marketeers can all learn from observing Starbucks and watching not only what they do but how they do it.

Starbucks is a great real world example of "Purple Cow" thinking (a topic of an earlier Marketing Sanity blog posting).  "The Starbucks Experience:  5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary"  is a good book that outlines the guiding principles of the Starbucks brand.  The principles are:

1. Make It Your Own:  Are you old enough to remember when Maxwell House and Folger's owned the coffee business?  Starbucks re-invented it and has never looked back.
2. Everything Matters:  More on this principle in a minute.
3. Surprise and Delight:  Exceeding expectations.  It gets harder and harder to do, but somehow Starbucks keeps managing.
4. Embrace Resistance:  Listen and learn from the anti-Starbucks people.
5. Leave Your Mark:  Be a great corporate citizen.  Give back.  Care. 

Two recent developments at Starbucks have really caught my attention and both are great examples of both "Everything Matters" and "Surprise and Delight."  

The first and biggest is their strategic alliance with Apple and iTunes.  Every week at Starbucks you can collect a "Pick of the Week" card good for a free download of a song by a featured artist.  That's a $.99 value.  How cool is that?  Soon, you'll be able to do a one click download in the store onto your iPhone or iPod.  Hear something you like while you're enjoying your mocha?  Instant gratification.  Download it then and there.  This alliance is an obvious win-win for both companies on many levels.  It is definitely delighting in my book as a customer of both brands.

The second example is smaller but also surprising and delightful.  Recently, Starbucks has started a partnership with "Good" and begun distributing a weekly "Good Sheet".  Each weekly sheet is sponsored (so the cost to Starbucks is probably close to nil) and each features intelligent information about a thought provoking important issue of the day.  Just the thing to make me and a friend spend an extra few minutes in the store looking it over, discussing the issue and maybe ordering that second latte.  

These two new additions to the Starbucks brand are polar opposites from a technology standpoint:  one is digital and one is newsprint.  Yet they  both enhance the Starbucks brand and the in-store experience.  

As you're taxed with building your brand, in addition to all the big "important" things like ads and packaging and PR, think about all the little things you can do to surprise and delight your customers.  Then do them.  Commit to them.  Add them to your brand's experience.  Collectively, they will turn your brand into something unique and wonderful and very very valuable.