Marketing And Brand Prediction Instead Of Polls

Well today is finally the day.  This is the biggest event of the year, maybe the century.  I have discussed over the past few weeks the marketing and branding by both campaigns.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  If I was to predict today’s election results through the marketing and brand, let’s see how it would go. 

 First off, America has a reputation for liking the newest, biggest thing.  Think of today as the biggest shopping day of the year.  Everyone “got to have it”.  If this is your thinking, then Obama wins.

What if you get to the “store” and you say that the economy is down and I don’t know if I can afford to take the chance and “buy it”.  Well that might give McCain the edge.  But we like to buy things we cannot always afford because “everyone” has it.  If this is the case Obama wins. 

As I have mentioned over the past few weeks, the Obama marketing team has done it all correct.  They stayed focused; they kept to the marketing plan.  They created a huge brand name.  They created hype.  They went to a market demo they knew they could own, the younger voter and made it theirs.  They used non-traditional marketing and all the new technology.  They brought grassroots marketing to a new level. 

The McCain campaign made ground also in the marketing and branding.  They took a chance with bringing the first republican Vice Presidential candidate to the ticket.  Sarah Palin was not on the radar and she had no brand presence in the country.  They changed all that in a very short period of time (with help from Tina Fey).  I really tip my marketing hat to them. They wanted to shake things up and create hype and excitement and they did that.  They even gave new life to Saturday Night Live.  Ratings not seen since the days of the original cast. 

I think the real mistake the McCain campaign made was not marketing correctly John’s McCain’s best asset the “maverick” image.  If he had used the same marketing plan for the general election in 2008 that he used in the 2000 primary I think the marketing might predict John McCain.  Now you might say that it didn’t work in 2000.  True, but the country has “changed” and the 2000 campaign would have worked today.  He used the “maverick” brand this year but he didn’t live up to the brand. The overall campaign was too old school.  That does not fit the maverick image.

The final result based on marketing is that Obama wins.  It doesn’t matter what my unscientific method says, it’s our vote that really counts.  No matter how you vote today, just vote.  Make sure you do it.  Be a part of all the hype!

 

Facebook Marketing

Now that I have been using Facebook on a daily basis, I have been looking at all the marketing opportunities that go with this type of online service.

Of course you can buy advertising directly with Facebook.  These are the ads that are placed on the right side of the page.  I would like to know the click rate for these ads?  Do members really check them out? 

But the most effective way to market is to directly ask the member.  The Obama & McCain campaigns have all kinds of direct marketing on Facebook.  I did a quick Obama search under events and it produced more then 500 Obama event causes.  McCain produced the same results.  Here is an interesting stat: The cause group that claims they are the “official” McCain group has almost 217,000 members and the big Obama group has more the 800,000 members.  There are two reasons for this.  I believe the Obama campaign has done a better job of marketing to the social websites and he appeals to younger voters which use the site.  When I was searching both campaigns on Facebook I could have looked forever.  The groups for both candidates go on and on.  Some have just a few members and some have tens of thousands.  No matter what, this is a lot of eyeballs promoting the candidates.

A great marketing tool with Facebook is the join an event option.  The first one I received was asking if I was voting. I had the option to RSVP with confirm or decline.  It shows you how many others have already confirmed.  This is a wonderful marketing tool because you have the person do something (interactive) which will help them remember and you have direct stats to tell you how many saw it.  It also creates hype.

Starbucks is using the election & Facebook to market.  They are offering free coffee to all who tell them they voted.  They added the RSVP feature to this.  Not because you need it to get the coffee but it tells them how many people really read it.  The last count I saw was over 61,000 people saying they would attend.

We all should be taking a closer look at social networking.  I think this is the next big marketing battleground.