Barack Obama The User-Generated Candidate

I recently posted on the increasing use of digital and the social media platform in American politics. I touched upon how Obama was being used as a case-study for a great digital campaign by WPP Group to which my agency belongs. It was only having a recent conversation with a colleague who, oblivious of all of this, mentioned that he thought the Obama digital campaign was really inspirational that I started looking around for some more views. Were we really witnessing a cultural revolution!



I found a great article in The Guardian by Terry Mancour called The User Generated Candidate which I thought I would summarize and draw some conclusions from:


•Firstly his campaign has decentralized political campaigning.

•Moving away from the consultants (I probably shouldn’t be writing that) and focus groups

•Tapping into all the pop social networking platforms with a Myspace group, Bebo group, Facebook group , Linkedin group .

•The message has been personalized in two ways; firstly ‘how do you want it’ on your ipod, via RSS feed, or on mobile? Secondly he has allowed the advocates to communicate it to their peers in their own tone (I will touch on this in a later point).

•Donation by profile (the big red button) or email no matter how big or small. COULD THIS HAVE TRULLY DEMOCRATIZED POLITICS by moving dependence away from large donors and to the average Joe. Obama has raised an estimated $30million at the moment.

•‘Virtual volunteer’ (real audience participation online). As mentioned before the Obama campaign has attracted some of the brightest digital minds. Not just professional digital marketers but bedroom enthusiasts including the bloggers, diggers etc.

•An example of this if where the main campaign site fails to deliver hundreds of grassroots sites have covered. His campaign message appeals to everyone because they are translating it for him to their peer groups.

•Television commercials? Its been the creative user-generated contributions that have popped up on blogs, websites and Youtube that have created the buzz and the message. All starting with the innovative and brilliant amateur commercial (Hillary Clinton as Big Mother, a skit on Orwell's 1984).


•Followed by Obama Girl, ringtones, wallpaper, screen savers, text messages all done by the volunteer.

•Artist endorsement has even been deliberately de-centralized. The ‘Yes We Can’ video was produced by Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and Jesse Dylan (Bob Dylan’s son) and involved a star-studded multiracial cast singing the text of Obama's New Hampshire concession speech. The campaign team deliberately had no involvement so there was no risk, no censorship, not criticism of using celebs, or the wrong celebs therefore no censorship just a whole load of benefits.


•It's become much more than a candidate. Its about the mass of people who have committed their energy and passion to change with Obama as the focal point. Companies watch and learn!

•This level of involvement as a collective is not just about political allegiance. It’s about the supporters helping shape their candidate live during the election process to be truly representative.


MY CONCLUSIONS:

Is this campaign success down to Obama possibly being the first black president, frustration at what many Americans have regarded as a long and repressive regime, Obama’s campaign team? All these have undoubtedly had their influences on the American public but I think what is so exciting for me as a digital enthusiast is that I believe we are watching a cultural revolution.

These platforms, technologies and new ways of communicating we have been playing with for the last few years have matured. It’s no longer about having 5000 friends on Myspace or a Facebook Vampire widget. It’s about being empowered and using that power and influence to quite literally change the world and the governments that run it.

To end on a quote from The Guardian article, ‘The 21st-century is when everything changes, and Obama is the first example of the 21st-century politician’.