Obama, the brand

Obama the brand? What am I talking about? This post was spurred by a conversation with an inspirational marketing trainer I know called Julian French. Julian is a real brand expert and in a short conversation we discussed the links between personal brands and corporate brands and how values are so intrinsic to both.

What do I mean? Well, without going into a lengthy discourse on values and branding - we buy brands because of an emotional attachment developed through a perceived value. Whether that value is integrity, reliability, functionality or something even more tactile such as how it feels to touch, we associate values with brands.

Then Julian mentioned Obama but is the brand 'Mr President' or is it 'Barak Obama'? I think that due to the context of this appointment, the brand is always the individual in office. The use of the Presidential position is almost a separate brand - it's associations are with power and influence, yet with the post-holder, the brand is definitely about the person.

We have yet to experience the full impact of Mr Obama's brand, but his marketing team have been out there pushing very positive messages (some to specifically overcome negative background stories).

But back to branding, and why it is important. It's not just Presidents who carry this 'brand' label. What do you think your personal brand is? Are you a risk taker? Are you a slow and steady? Are you a good person in a crisis? If I use those three examples, you can probably think of individuals who run corporates that match those 'brands'.

The difference between a brand and the values? The values are what you associate with the brand: if you are talking about an airline, then the values are the service or pricing, the experience, and your affinity with the brand. Do you like cheap and easy, or would rather pay for comfort, or want the very best because quality and class match your own personal brand?

When I worked in an international computer company we merged with another to have a new name and a new brand. We had corporate marketing guidelines on how the new logo was to be used, what the brand values were and the new name was chosen. The reasoning behind the brand was cascaded through the organisation internationally. Those who were from one or other of the two original companies suddenly all had something in common. And in those days of proprietory hardware, a merger was an integration challenge on many levels.


Some companies make mistakes with branding though - paying (that's the bit everyone focuses on, how much it cost) huge sums to change an organisation name only to discover that the audience reject the image and then everything is either changed back again (resulting in further costs) or battle must be done to establish the new brand.

Brand values are important, and so is communicating those values. Making sure that your stakeholders (whether internal or external) understand the reasons and can genuinely buy into the values that the new or revised brand is supposed to create.

Branding is, of course, linked to marketing. One designer I spoke to today said:

"Marketing budgets are under horrendous pressure and Marketing Directors/Departments are really going to have to present a strong case for what they do if head count is being reduced throughout the company. And if 2000 are going from a production line, how can you help them – and their colleagues who are left behind – to understand why the company still has to go on taking TV time or running promotions in The Sun…"

Interesting! In some ways Obama has a similar challenge, how can he justify the budgets he will have to work with? That's a huge subject I am ill qualified to comment on. But - a lot of it will be about marketing. How the budget messages are sent out, how Obama communicates his Presidency to the world, not just the American people.

"Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand," says Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide. "New, different, and attractive. That's as good as it gets."

There's an in depth article on 'Obama the brand' on this website: Fast Company. Well worth reading.

If you'd like to inspire your stakeholders - we have a great programme on Understanding Branding on the Complete Trainer site.

If you'd like to learn more about branding, try the Business Link website for some simple tips, or read more by the branding guru, Leslie de Chernatony