At a fund raiser yesterday, President Obama disparaged his opposition by saying: ” “you can pretty much put their campaign on, on a tweet and have some characters to spare.”
Obama’s comment shows how far the brilliant marketer of 2008 has fallen off his game. Obama has forgotten what it takes to make a winning brand: YES! You should be able to fit your campaign or brand positioning into a tweet!
There is a lot more to an M&M than ”Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand.” And Nike has a lot more to offer than “Just Do It.” Yet the fact that Mastercard is simply, in one word, “Priceless” says it all. Obama himself owes his election to “Change we can believe in.” Slogans or taglines that can fit in a tweet are a good thing: They convey a positive, unique, and important benefit in a catchy way. Good marketers and good politicians know that’s what it takes to sell product or get elected.
Of course, every winning brand should be able to answer “Where’s the beef?” in a full and factual way, but if your brand can’t be boiled down to a short tweet, you lose. Unfocused, free-ranging complexity that fills dozens of pages of a position papers won’t make it into the customer’s (or voter’s) minds–and if they can’t understand, articulate and remember what your brand stands for, they won’t buy it.
What is the Obama brand’s tweet? He needs to get one fast!
More on Obama’s brand in my latest article for Forbes: “Obama’s Branding Problem”
More on political brands:
Brand Obama: What Now?
Branding the Candidates: Obama vs. McCain