Le blog de la Stratégie

Je suis très flatté d’avoir été taggué par Théo Kouamouo au sujet d’Obama. Mais je propose une réponse indirecte pour une raison toute simple. Malgré ses origines et la couleur de sa peau, Obama est pareil à n’ importe quel autre candidat démocrate classique à l’élection américaine. Ils brillent tous par leur totale ignorance du monde extérieur aux USA. Et quand au sort réservé à l’Afrique, je ne me fais aucune illusion. Pour sortir de notre marasme, nous ne devrons compter que sur nous –mêmes.
Tout ceci n’occulte en rien l’exploit réalisé par le candidat Obama et qui mérite d’être célébré à sa juste valeur. Montrant ainsi que toutes les limites peuvent être repoussées par des hommes de foi comme notre continent a tant besoin. Je vous présente ce magnifique article (que je n’ai malheureusement pas le temps de traduire) qui fait l’apologie de la stratégie marketing d’Obama, qui pourtant ne partait pas favori. Merci à tous pour votre fidélité et à bientôt.

The brilliance of Obama marketing
The staggering rise of Barack Obama over the last ninety days carries many lessons that can be applied unilaterally in the corporate world. His meteoric rise to the front runner position for the Democratic Party Nomination is nothing short of a marketing coup of unprecedented proportions. Indeed what he and his team have done over the past few months will be studied for decades. In this article we will take a closer look at the brilliance behind his campaign marketing. To be clear this article states no opinion or preference of which candidate or party is to be preferred, this is merely a discussion of what has become one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time and how the techniques can be applied to normal business operations. As we continue to analyze the strategies behind his campaign we are constantly figuring ways we can apply it to our promo items business. Some of what we have taken from this is discussed in the following paragraphs.
A few months ago the dominance of Hillary Clinton was so uncontested that Saturday Night Live host Brian Williams joked in skits that it was a foregone conclusion. In the skit he quips about how the media had already ordained her the winner and paraphrasing that it was a waste of time for other candidates. Skip ahead a few months and hardly a commercial passes on the evening news without some coverage of Barack Obama even on off election nights. What powered the transformation was absolutely brilliant personal and viral marketing at all levels. Merriam Webster defines marketing as the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service. Barrack Obama is both the product and the service of course as his entire campaign has been astutely directed like a well defined marketing campaign. Tuesday night witnessed the tenth straight campaign victory for Obama and it is now all but impossible for his opponent to end up ahead in pledged delegates. In short regardless of the outcome his marketing campaign was so successful that he has achieved absolute victory. The strategy they followed was simple and perfectly executed.
Senator Clinton started out with more money, more support and was an established name. She was very much akin to the large established competitor in a marketplace with a dominant position and substantial infrastructure in place throughout the country. Meanwhile Senator Obama was the new kid on the proverbial block with not much in the way of resources and an undefined brand. Rather than trying to take on Senator Clinton no her “turf” the campaign attacked on the edges foregoing some of the larger but fewer delegate rich States in favor of more but smaller States. Instead of concentrating his efforts in a few areas which could have ended his campaign if resources and efforts went into a failure he went after the overlooked regions. This is akin to a competitor targeting an old trusted client that doesn’t get the same level of service or attention as a new client you are actively trying to capture. Perhaps an even better analogy would be that Barrack Obama did not try to compete by selling the hottest item on the market in direct competition with the largest player in that market but instead picked a product not heavily marketed by his competition and sold it heavily to smaller niche markets.
The campaign also banked heavily on word of mouth and subsequent momentum to further the dollars they spent and in turn generate even more revenue. By gaining support like he did in each area he rapidly built up a base of dedicated supporters actively selling his message to more and more people. Just as important to his success was the geographic and demographic dispersion of these supporters which is clearly being illustrated in his growing dominance across all demographics. Sure he is spending money at unprecedented levels as well but his victory margin arguably is coming from the initial efforts of individual supporters that has snowballed across the country. It is the equivalent of immensely successful viral marketing.
The lessons to be learned and applied are simple: don’t overlook the smaller clients in favor of the big prize as ultimately the smaller clients are your stable base, utilize this base to promote your message through innovative marketing programs and more importantly conventional wisdom is often much less valuable than actual results. The Senator has turned many old marketing premises on their respective heads and has fully utilized “Web 2.0″ in a way never before seen. Whatever the outcome of the race what he and his campaign have done will be studied for decades to come.