Obama and the power of social media

In light of reading the case and relying on external internet search, please answer the following two questions:
1. Why You think this Campaign won the “Year Best Marketing Communication Campaign in 2008”. Please be detailed in your discussion of the rational and reasons behind your point of view. (feel free to do your own online internet search)
Introduction
When Senator Barack Obama launched his campaign for the presidency in early 2007, the challenge for a long-shot candidate was to build a grassroots movement so big it could overcome strong primary challengers and, eventually, a well-financed GOP.
The Obama campaign couldn 't afford to do things the usual way, so it invested in some seasoned people and some brand-new tools to help rethink the way presidential campaigns are run—and give Digital a seat at the table for the first time.
Analysis
In the analysis I’ll go through the different communication plan component and asses how Obama online marketing communication campaign performed in each one.
Promotions Situation Analysis
1) Analysis of the Promotion Function Review
In our case here Obama can be considered as a new product to be developed, from an underdog senator into the president of the united states of America, for this reason the evaluation of the current promotion function (as a senator) would not provide much of value.
2) Brand Perception Analysis
As a presidential candidate, Barak Obama had his brand derived from his origins, own character and the different achievements he had in live. So starting with his origins Obama as the first potential African American president for the United States represented the values of change, inspiration, equal opportunity for ordinary voters especially from the minorities. His own character also added the values of intelligence, decency and integrity. And finally his educational, political and civil rights career achievements added the values of persistence and success to the overall Obama brand.
3) Competition Analysis
Obama and McCain were both perceived differently. On one hand McCain (71 years old) was representing the experienced traditional candidate, while Obama (47 years old) was on the other end of spectrum representing youth and change and this can be seen adopted by both campaign strategies and even reflected in their slogans (McCain “Country First” and “Leader we can Believe in” vs. Obama “Yes we Can” and “Change we can Believe in”). It also was reflected on the online presence and use of technology for each campaign.
The following table highlights each candidate online presence, and it’s clearly identified from the numbers that Obama was leading by a huge edge over McCain in utilizing the internet tools.

Obama
McCain
Facebook
2,379,102
620,359
MySpace
833,161
217,811
YouTube
1792 videos uploaded
Subscribers: 114,559
Channel Views: 18,413,110
329 videos uploaded
Subscribers: 28,419
Channel Views: 2,032,993
Twitter
112,474
4,603
Target Audience Profile
Obama Campaign was targeting the regular voters for democrats who are usually the different ethnic groups in U.S. with a special focus on youth and first time voters. And it succeeded in its mission specially by reaching young voters through the online and social media tools which dominated by them. The different target groups and their voting power were distributed as the following:
95% of black voters went to the ballot for Obama and only 4% for McCain.
55% of white votes went to McCain, but Obama stunned many by taking an impressive 43% of total white votes, cutting the Republican lead compared with 2004.
66% of Hispanic voters turned out for Obama, while McCain only took 31% of the Hispanic vote. Obama used techniques such as Spanish-language adverts to win the Hispanic voters over.
56% of the female vote went to Obama, exceeding the usual Democrat advantage.
The male vote was essentially tied with 49% voting for Obama, thus evening the score on the male-heavy Republican advantage in 2004.
66% of under-30 's showed their support for Obama - far higher than in any previous election - compared to 31% for McCain. Overall, this also helped Obama secure a high number of first time voters; 71% of whom voted Democrat.
Nearly 25 per cent of U.S. adults - about 30 million - are Catholic and 54 per cent of them voted for pro-abortion Obama as opposed to 46 per cent for McCain.
63% of Asian voters went to the ballot for Obama and 34% for McCain.
78% of the Jewish vote went to Obama. Jewish support - which made up 2% of the overall electorate were split 50-50. A key area in Bush 's victory four years ago, suburban voters make up half of the total American electorate. McCain also lost ground on rural voters, with the votes split 51-47 in his favor.
66% of single voters going to the ballot for him, compared to only 32% for McCain.
51% of married voters supported McCain and 47% voted for Obama. This was a drop from 2004 for McCain compared with Bush 's 15 point lead in 2004.
51% of over- 65 's voted for McCain - including veterans - and made up 16% of the entire electorate. They were therefore not dissimilar in influence to the under- 30 's on the overall result.
53% of voters who earned $200,000 or more in 2007 voted for Obama.
Brand Positioning
The campaign capitalized on the perception the public had for Barak Obama, so they built on the distinctive values Obama as a brand had which was mentioned in the brand analysis part (change, hope, inspiration, equal opportunity, integrity), and focused in his political success in terms of tax reforms and medical coverage expansion as Illinois State Senator.
Yet in building the brand the campaign was keen to engage the public in the process itself, giving the message that this change Obama promise to deliver will be with you and for you, in a bottom-up process rather than the tradition top-down. So basically Obama was positioned as the change you need and you will contribute in achieving it with him.
Objectives
The Obama campaign had three primary objectives for its online advertising. The first was to build a robust supporter base, the metrics for the success of which included signups to the campaign’s email list and online fundraising. Second, there was mobilization, which entailed a cluster of related advertising activities around voter registration, early voting, polling and caucus location look ups, get-out-the-vote operations, and volunteer recruitment to targeted demographic groups and individuals. The third was persuasion, which involved advertising that delivered information about initiatives designed to appeal to groups of individuals the campaign profiled as undecided.
Creative Strategy
In the creative strategy part we can see that the campaign created messages and slogans built on the desired brand and objectives of getting grassroots engaged and volunteer in the different activities and become an important part of the campaign itself rather than only being the target.
This can be seen in the focus of the ‘We’ word in the slogans and messages used like “Change we can believe in”, “Yes we can”, “Hope” and “Change we need”.
1) Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Obama had a distinctive USP which was the change he is representing in the unfavorable situation of the United States at that time, he was promising better economy structure, better tax reforms, medical care coverage and even a more balanced foreign engagement.
2) The Promotion Appeal
In their strategy they focused mainly on the emotional appeal, touching the need for change in their target audience and targeting get them not only convinced with the message but also become part of it and volunteer in the campaign activities.
Marketing Communication Mix (Programs)
The campaign didn’t simply create a Facebook fan page and a YouTube account and expect things to take off: they created energy of involvement, of participation, and a sense of purpose in their supporters, each of which was funneled through social networking technologies. The medium wasn’t the message, so to speak; it was the vehicle. It connected real people, with real enthusiasm, in real time, and gave them an easy and accessible way to show their support for change.
So they designed the campaign to empower people and giving them tools to contribute instead of just informing them. They also went where people are and expanded in all the social networks their target market would be using. They always had a clear call to action, so in essence every action in the Obama campaign was geared toward getting people to vote. The sole purpose of online activity was to create offline activity and this was how they link and integrate the online activity with the offline ones.
They also exceled in using E-mails and text messages and not only in their aggressive quantity but also some of these messages were tailored to the individual level to achieved the maximum benefits.
Also the concept of micro giving was new by this time in the presidential campaign, and I believe it doesn’t not only succeed in securing much needed funds ($500 Million from 6.5 Million donations) but also created a strong bond and sense of ownership between the campaign and its supports which was part of the whole strategy.
Schedule & Budget
Obama campaign was focusing on the online part and considered it one of the strong pillars to attract volunteers and make fundraising, this can be seen reflected in the campaign expenditure amount for the online activities which has reached a new limit of 21$ M (McCain was only 4$ M). And based on their strategy they had two different types of activities, beside the fixed big events of the main campaign there was another set of activities initiated by volunteers with a flexible schedule to harmonize and allow maximum engagement of the individuals and integrate it in the overall campaign efforts.
Media type
Expenditure
Unspecified media buys
$352,314,593
Web ads
$21,087,908
Print ads
$20,619,814
Miscellaneous media
$17,006,627
Media production
$10,845,556
Media consulting
$294,907
Broadcast ads
$16,910
Evaluation Measures
The campaign measured its progress towards these goals by generating data and continuously evaluating metrics on the effectiveness of its online advertising. Online advertising is a “closed loop”; staffers instantly knew responses to ads through data on ‘click through.’ Tracking these click through in real time enabled staffers to continuously measure the outcomes and calculate the returns on investment (ROI) of all its online advertising. Based on this data, the campaign’s online advertisers developed a working ‘social-psychology of browsing’ to underlay their practice, crafting appeals, testing graphics, making allocative resource decisions, and reformulating goals based on user actions.
Conclusion
Obama campaign adopted different strategy based on individual voters empowerment and this was aligned with global campaign strategy, they were able to do that by successfully communicating the brand not only to make people understand and vote but also believe and engage and be part of that dream. This was achieved by the extensive use of social media and technology tools and also integrating the outcome with the traditional tools to bring the maximum benefit from both of them. The campaign measures of success were in dollars raised from fundraising activities and the number of volunteers it could achieved.
References
http://www.barackobama.com/about/barack-obama/ http://www.bluestatedigital.com/our-work/case-study/obama-for-america-2008 http://www.academia.edu/1526998/Using_New_Media_Effectively_an_Analysis_of_Barack_Obamas_Election_Campaign_Aimed_at_Young_Americans http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/11/03/snapshot-of-presidential-candidate-social-networking-stats-nov-2-2008/ http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/obama-vs-mccain-the-social-media-scorecard/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1083335/Breakdown-demographics-reveals-black-voters-swept-Obama-White-House.html http://culturedigitally.org/2012/05/the-2008-obama-campaign-and-online-advertising/ http://www.dragonflyeffect.com/blog/dragonfly-in-action/case-studies/the-obama-campaign/

References: http://www.barackobama.com/about/barack-obama/ http://www.bluestatedigital.com/our-work/case-study/obama-for-america-2008 http://www.academia.edu/1526998/Using_New_Media_Effectively_an_Analysis_of_Barack_Obamas_Election_Campaign_Aimed_at_Young_Americans http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/11/03/snapshot-of-presidential-candidate-social-networking-stats-nov-2-2008/ http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/obama-vs-mccain-the-social-media-scorecard/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1083335/Breakdown-demographics-reveals-black-voters-swept-Obama-White-House.html http://culturedigitally.org/2012/05/the-2008-obama-campaign-and-online-advertising/ http://www.dragonflyeffect.com/blog/dragonfly-in-action/case-studies/the-obama-campaign/