Tribal Politics - Marketing Lessons from Obama

Tribal Politics - Marketing Lessons from Obama

We all had a feeling he would do it, but only until the counts started coming in were we convinced of the significance of this world event. Obama did it, and now the real hard work begins. Getting into the Oval office was all about marketing, the next stage for Obama will be about delivery. If he fails to deliver, all his critics will say "i told you he was inexperienced for the job", but if he does deliver on his manifesto promise we will see a very different world after his term in office.

So how did he do it?

Appointed as the Senator for Illinois in 2004, there is no doubting his meteoric rise to President-elect of the USA. As Seth Godin (www.sethgodin.com) points out in his book Tribes, Obama created and cultivated a tribe to follow and believe him. Based on previous Democratic failures, Obama realised early on that the traditional Democratic voter would not be sufficient to get him elected. So he set out to create a new tribe, a new following, that included weary veterans, the centre vote, black voters and others. A risky approach, one that would be time consuming and very expensive. However, with momentum behind him, after defeating Hilary supporters in the Primary's many thought that John McCain's move of getting Sarah Palin in would shift Hilary voters his way. This did not happen.

Barak and The Long Tail

In fact, Barak's momentum with his tribe got stronger and stronger, they contributed more and more via the Internet - $10 here, $5 here....but all of these small contributions enabled him to fund raise the most in history for a Presidential race. He connected with his tribe, these small niches in the US which the Internet enabled him to connect to, provided him with his fund raising war chest, and ultimately were the people who voted for him on election day. Through the well known concept of the Long Tail (visit www.chrisanderson.com to learn more), via the medium of the Internet he managed to connect with individual voters who in turn have put him in office.

Obama, created a tribe of people who believed, followed and now respect him. A marketing genius. His business was politics, now you can do the same in yours!