posted by Andrew Rogers
The Wall Street Journal's inauguration-day edition has an interesting article about Emmett Beliveau, executive director of President Obama's inaugural committee and a former campaign advance man. Almost in passing, the piece makes a vital point:
Working on another Democrat's Senate campaign in the fall of 2006, he met Mr. Obama, and their collaboration began. Both men eschewed the standard campaign mantra begun with Ronald Reagan to go for the "perfect shot" at a big event. With Mr. Beliveau's roots as a field operative and Mr. Obama's as a community organizer, the pair focused more on the attendees. "Starting in Iowa, we wanted everyone to leave feeling good about Barack Obama," Mr. Beliveau. "It was never about playing to the camera but to the people," says his advance deputy, David Cusack.
That says a lot about the changing nature of American politics, but it says even more about the Obama campaign's insight into the changes in our media. With today's decentralized news sources and the rise of bloggers, social-networkers (Twitter's "tweets-per-second" count was five times the normal rate as Obama was being inaugurated), and "citizen journalists," the days when Michael Deaver could carefully stage the precise image that showed up on the TV news that night are long gone.
Your brand is no longer the image you lovingly create in your "perfect shot."
The people talking about you -- in the media, on blogs, or in their own homes -- may not recognize your perfect shot and almost certainly don't care about it. They're driven by how you make them feel. Are you "playing to the camera," or focused on making sure everyone leaves feeling good about what they're achieving by interacting with you.
Technorati Tags: fundraising, inauguration, branding
Excellent Jeff - Thank you. I'm stealing it as inspiration for my blog this weekend! So much great learning in that article. Cheers.
k
Posted by: Kimberley MacKenzie | 22 January 2009 at 17:00