Given that I do marketing for a living, I’ve been interested and at times, fascinated at Obama’s ability to use the wide range of marketing tools to his benefit for his Presidential campaign. Of course, he’s working with a dream budget but that’s besides the point.
In an innovative and very “personal” move, Obama announced that he would announce his VP nomination via text message to his supporters before he told the press.
At 11:50p, CNN breaking news sent me a text message:
“CNN confirms Sen. Barack Obama has chosen Delaweare Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice-presidential running mate.”
It’s 11:58pm … I still haven’t seen a text message from the Obama camp.
There’s been questions whether Obama’s effort to hold out on revealing the VP pick would hurt him, I doubt it. But now he has to answer for why he promised that the people would be the first to know, and we’re not. While CNN likely leaked the news, Obama’s camp should have known and anticipated as such.
The truth is, there is no way Obama could have accomplished what he claimed to do. When you consider how fast news travels, thanks to tools like Twitter, he didn’t have a chance to live up to his commitment.
Considering the impossibility of the promise, it makes me wonder about the rest of what he’s promising. Does he really know what he’s committing to?
Update: At 2:43am CST, I received the following text message from Obama’s campaign:
Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the frist Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!
Again, from a marketing standpoint, the language is worth noting:
- He’s referenced on a first name basis. A sign of personal friendship. (Remember when your parents required you to call people Mr. and Mrs. out of respect?
- They used “our,” not “his” VP nominee when referring to Senator Biden
Kudos to Obama’s campaign for being deliberate in positioning him as the peoples candidate. While it makes people believe that they are involved, the truth is, Americans won’t have anymore say this election than previous. The question is, will Obama’s approach really make a positive difference or is it a self-fulling prophecy?
