Online Branding the Obama Way
President Obama’s 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe was the keynoter at today’s Marketing Profs online conference, and the Obama 2.0 guiding themes for harnessing and managing volunteers should be in everyone’s brand loyalty playbook:
- Core messaging never changes, despite pushback.
- Messages are consistent across all communications platforms every day.
- Repetition, repetition…and more repetition.
- Believe in the power of people to deliver the message.
- Use every tool — from old-school tactics to innovation — and no tool is more important than any other.
- Embrace new technology, but don’t let it take you away from your strategic mission.
- The campaign’s website (“the people’s home”) and email were the central drivers. Twitter didn’t even exist when the campaign started!
- Arm volunteers with information and data so they can spread the word through their own social networking entry points and in their own words, as long as they stick to the core message.
- Use videos and Flickr for personalization.
- Don’t get ensnared in negative comments, but understand that they can be early warning signals.
- Analyze the customer base continually.
- Measure obsessively.
- Take risk!
