The overwhelming victory of Barack Obama in the US elections yesterday encapsulates the desire of the American people for change in their country, sharing the opinion of the whole world. The personal charisma of Obama, his message of change both in internal and external politics and his promise to make Americans proud to be Americans again gave him the victory over McCain who focused on what he would not do rather on what he would do if elected, gambling on conservatives’ fear for change as one of his main assets.
Next to the factors I mentioned as main contributors to the victory of Obama we should not forget his impeccable campaign strategy that could become a marketing textbook case; anyone who questions the change taking place in the marketing world should study this case carefully. This campaign made a very strong case for what some of us call New Marketing with the individual customer, the Internet and the Social Media playing the central role. Those who doubt about it can read a lot in the press or simply have a look to the online proposition of the Democratic Party as long as it is online. It is a state of the art example of how the New Marketing approach (combined with the perfect “product”) can attract, mobilize and motivate many people and particularly the new generation that for the first time in the American history played such a decisive role in presidential elections.
