Don’t Give Branding So Much Credit
By Haley Swenson - Aug 13th, 2008 at 2:16 pmOne of my greatest political pundit pet peeves is when explanations for the political decisions of young adults (or any demographic, for that matter) rely on the same shallow reasoning that marketing departments use to explain why we choose Nike instead of Adidas or the iPod over the Zune. So this article from Advertising Age, which argues the Obama campaign has demonstrated how well mass marketing works on the kids, really rubs me the wrong way.
True, the youth vote traditionally skews Democratic, but the difference this year is that Mr. Obama has actually motivated turnout. His success, it seems, is a result of both product and the branding behind it. The qualities he projects — a cool, smooth aura, the communal values of hope and unity, his teeming crowds and his campaign’s seamless graphics — are the essence of appealing to millennials.
The basic assumption of the piece is that Obama’s campaign has relied more on mass marketing than McCain’s, and I think it’s an entirely misguided conclusion. Just because McCain has attempted to mass market himself as an unelite, average Joe who is strong on foreign policy does not make him any less a brand than Obama.
Is it so difficult for people to understand that it might just be what Obama talks about and not how he says it or how he looks that has won him his advantage with young voters? My main gripe with this shallow brand analysis is that it completely fails to delve into exactly what it is about that product young people might like, and it feeds into the stereotype that young voters in particular are merely shallow consumers and Obama merely a brand they feel cool buying.
So how do we explain Obama’s success in exciting young people if we don’t rely on the assumption that kids today are more easily sold on mass-products than their parents and grandparents?
While my explanation doesn’t do much to perpetuate the “kids are shallow” stereotype, I’ll agree that Obama has been a lot better at mass marketing to his target market than McCain has to his, but not necessarily because of his campaign’s marketing brilliance; I think it has much more to do with the fact that our generation is truly engaged and supportive of the actual policies Obama supports, and we were already passionate about creating these changes before a lot of us had ever heard of Barack Obama. Our generation is proving to be one of the most progressive generations in history, and the usual arguments about “young voters traditionally skewing Democratic” can’t explain our ever-increasing progressivism. It’s not that we support one party over another. It’s that we share and support a certain set of progressive beliefs and ideals.
Commentators ought to understand that the product we’re interested in buying is far bigger than a candidate.
It’s almost cute how many conservatives (and many moderates) can’t get their head around how a massive portion of the younger demographic can all stand behind a common interest without being subliminally influenced in that direction by the media or some trivial public image.
Though, I WILL get suspicious if Obama starts publicly smoking Marlboro’s to enhance that “cool” aura about him.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:00 pmi tend to disagree. every politician is branded. to say obama is the first misses the point. but what the obama campaign has managed to do with respect to a presidential candidacy resembles what advertising firms were able to do in the 70’s and 80’s with respect to children: tap into an open and uncontested market. his brand was specifically targeted to a younger generation. he’s the first post-baby boom candidate. he has jay-z on his open. he’s hip, he’s cool.
and it’s past all of that. the median voter theorem says that a democratic candidate moves to the left during the primaries but shifts to the center in the general election. this has held true for almost all candidates. but with obama, it wasn’t that he was just more liberal before securing the nomination. its that he sold himself—sold his brand–as a non-politician. as an outsider. and we eat it up. personally, he was the first politician i have ever given money to. five months later, what do we see? FISA? campaign finance? offshore drilling? lapel pins? it was false advertisement. many have buyer’s remorse. but in my opinion, this all stems from the fact that there was (and still is) in fact a branding-effect.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:46 pm