Advertising to a new generation

This is the last day we’ll talk about Obama. We promise. Like yesterday though, we want to focus on areas which are relevant for everyone in business. In this case there was another key factor that aided Barack Obama in securing his election win. Having accrued funding so successfully, he was able to tap into a younger generation, successfully encouraging the American youth to vote in unprecedented quantities.

Submitting regular videos onto YouTube was a must for his campaign marketing and certainly his republican counterpart used the same approach as one would expect of the viral infested web. Companies regularly use the online broadcasting site to popularise their name and products.

Moreover, a group on Facebook called the Obama Volunteer Corps tapped in to the zeitgeist via social networking, an approach that is becoming more and more popular for commercial bodies and company marketers to generate publicity and support.

The appointment of Chris Hughes, one of the founding members of Facebook as one of his senior advisers also represents his shrewd campaign management. Hughes has been running Obama’s online campaign at my.barackobama.com, in itself a kind of social networking site. With democrat blue, the site is similar to Facebook in both style and functionality.

He was able to recruit an army of volunteers (1.5 million strong), facilitated by the Facebook-like process of inviting friends to join, allowing a form of peer to peer recruitment process to unravel.

He did not stop there. Unlike any presidential candidate and indeed any politically motivated advertiser prior, Obama sought to subliminally infiltrate the gaming community. The relatively new real estate found within video games was bought up in 18 different titles featuring Guitar Hero, Madden 09 and Burnout Paradise.

A spokesperson for Electronic Arts Inc, responsible for some of the games said, “In general, the Burnout audience is typically male, aged 18 to 34. I think the sweet spot age is 27 or 28. The attractive benefit any advertiser sees in advertising on a game like Burnout is reaching that demographic.”

The most surprising aspect of this is of course the variety of methods chosen considering the product being sold. Obama and his team have entered the marketing history books with their strategic and creative approach to reaching a broader political audience than ever before. Take note.

CMFL