Marketing to Millennials, the Obama Way
Aug 13th, 2008 by John Stodder
Barack Obama is more than just a messiah; he’s a brilliant marketer, especially to the Millennial cohort, according to this excellent analysis by Advertising Age’s Peter Feld:
Baby boomers and Gen Xers declared mass marketing dead long ago. We live in a world of fragmented media surrounded by cynical consumers who can spot and block an ad message from a mile away. But what Gen Xers and boomers may not realize is that the unabashed embrace of select brands by millennials, from technology to beverages to fashion, has made this decade a true golden era of marketing for those who know what they’re doing. And when it comes to marketing, the Barack Obama campaign knows what it’s doing.
IPod. Harry Potter. Barack Obama.
Gen Xers and boomers may have assumed that today’s youth are as anti-marketing as they once were; millennials’ mass adoption of Mr. Obama’s brand may puzzle or alienate them. After a video featuring celebrities like the Black-Eyed Peas’ will.i.am and actress Scarlett Johansson crooning along with an Obama speech went viral last winter, a response mocking the mass Obama phenomenon was posted to YouTube, set to “Building a Religion” by quintessential Gen-X band Cake.
Pete Markiewicz, co-author with Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe of “Millennials and the Pop Culture,” said Gen Xer cynics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert often lampoon the Obama campaign’s messianic tendencies. Said Mr. Markiewicz, “Both Colbert and Stewart are liberal, but the worship of Obama sticks in their Xer craws.”
The article goes on to explain that Obama does have a message for the slightly older voters, but it’s carried more by the content of his policy proposals. The balancing act Obama is trying to perform requires him to inspire the newest voters with lots of branding and whipping up mass excitement, while offering enough substance to the rest of us that we’ll overlook what we oldsters might think is too corny or swoony.
To use a baby-boomer expression that probably makes no sense to millennials, stay tuned.
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