Will CMO’s Follow Obama’s Next Social Steps?

Most CMO’s are bullish on the medium, but still TV seems to remain their surest bet for advertising. So if CMO’s want push, why should we cover Obama’s Second Social wave? But our fans protested, so we capitulated…

Our first case study of the Obama social marketing strategy started as a bet between Paul and me. When Paul delivered 250 slides end 2008, we decided to publish them beginning of 2009.

A the end of 2010 I had presented the Obama case study at 22 marketing events in 19 cities around the globe. That was my last bet with Paul. I liked the tour, and a few Top CMO’s even embraced the Obama Social DNA- and launched a long term social marketing program.

And, Obama is doing it again. Social Media is going to be a big part of the Obama 2012 campaign. So here we go again…

US President Barack Obama launched his reelection campaign with a social media barrage Monday 4 April 2011, turning once again to the online tools that helped propel him to the White House three years ago.

Obama, 49, announced his 2012 candidacy with a message to his 7 million Twitter followers, a status update on his Facebook page (19 million fans) and an e-mail blast to his millions of supporters, all of which provided a link to his BarackObama.com campaign website.

“Today, we’re filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign,” the Democrat told the 7.28 million followers of the @barackobama account on Twitter.

The Twitter message, Barack Obama page on Facebook and email all urged voters to “Say that you’re in” and provided a link to barackobama.com where they could provide an email address and a zip code.

The website invites supporters to make a donation to the campaign, volunteer and offers a new range of branded merchandise, including 2012 badges, bumper stickers, water bottles and T-shirts.

The new campaign logo featured on the items includes the celebrated image of a rising sun used in 2008, but this time nestled in the “0” of 2012.

An “Are You In?” application on Facebook lets members of the social network write a message of support for Obama’s candidacy and invite friends and family to do the same.

Obama also released a two-minute YouTube video that did not feature the candidate himself speaking but a diverse range of supporters explaining why he should be given another four years in the White House in the November 2012 elections.

Obama relied heavily on the Internet during his 2008 presidential campaign for organizing, fundraising and communicating and Monday’s launch made it clear he plans on doing so again, building a grassroots campaign online.

In his message to supporters, Obama said “the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, but with you — with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends.

“The work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start today,” Obama said, adding that he was counting on his supporters “forging a new organization that we’ll build together in cities and towns across the country.

“We’ll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, reconnecting old friends, inspiring new ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year’s fight,” Obama said.

Nancy Scola, an associate editor at TechPresident.com, a blog which covers technology and politics, said Obama’s reelection campaign announcement was “baked through with the spirit of a social, collective effort.”

Nonetheless, the Obama-supporting blog saw a jump of 3,000 new fans on its Facebook page in the past week for a total of 28,000 fans. The change is illustrated in the graph above.

Promising take-out for CMO’s? Obama is not all about shouting TV campaigns. He has thought beyond campaigns and embraced long term strategic social marketing programs and community marketing tactics the last 5 years. And more CMO’s and Brand Managers could overlook their upcoming campaigns.

So TV will stay a powerful push medium to you, and we understand. But what we do not understand is this: How will you as a CMO, balance your brand promise on TV with online dialogue marketing with your targets? How will you add that little extra value to consumers’ lives?

Source: Yahoo! and SMI, Intelligence in Social Media.