by Faheem Chaudhry (@FaheemChaudhry) Arguably one of the most memorable arrivals to South African shores in recent years was that a few weeks back of US President Barack Obama – the man who during his first presedential election captured the imagination of the world through his message of hope and change for all. While President Obama always has and always will have his fair share of critics, I found myself captivated by his trip, his message for our country, simply, by brand Obama.
As disciplines, politics and marketing are social science cousins. In fact, politics is marketing. It’s about projecting and selling an image, talking 
to human aspiration and bringing people together through common interests and shared values.
But what underpins brand Obama? And what we as marketers can learn from his brand?
Relevance to audience reality
The US President talks the talk of his audience. When Obama stood up to address a crowd at UCT, he was speaking to business leaders, politicians, students, alumni, lecturers, university chancellors, you & I. Yet, every aspect of his delivery, regardless of the topic, resonated with everyone in the room. The audience was completely engaged from start to finish as Obama weaved his way through a variety of key topics. He opened the address by greeting Jameson Hall in almost every official South African language. It may seem like an obvious opening, but few are able to deliver it with the relevance and panache that Obama did. He even mispronounced a few greetings, but still charmed the crowd; he wasn’t talking to us, he was talking with us.
But Obama’s ability to captivate the audience in our own terms isn’t some arbitrary feat. Him and his team do their homework. They spend hours mining out the colloquial terms of the time, and make an effort to integrate local relevance into talks with global context. The result is an audience positively positioned to his message, feeling understood and open to listen.
As marketers, while we may endeavor to speak to our core audiences in the most relevant way, we often slightly miss the mark. Focusing on the most relevant ways to engage with the target markets of our brands should be a non-negotiable, and the time and effort that goes into the back end of this, should be shared by all responsible for communicating a brands proposition.
Talking to human truths
Obama is perhaps best known for his belief in the power of human collaboration over conflict [for an alternative view see here]. He calls it a Yes We Can attitude. From his days in the US senate running for the Presidency, to his various talks in our country a few weeks back, Obama always talks to values that we all share. Not just values that US citizens share, but values that bind societies together.
“Hope is what led me here today – with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be”
This depth of communication is critically important to brands of any form, whether people or products. The most captivating brands have always been those unpinned by powerful human truth over more service level benefits.
Disney and imagination. Coca-Cola and happiness. Dove and personal beauty. We’re captivated by these brands for the same reason we’re enthralled by brand Obama; they speak to the underlying drivers of human choices, decisions and behaviour.
The most powerful brands; brands that play a role in society beyond business, are founded on this principle. As marketers, if we can push ourselves to develop brand propositions that talk to deep layers of human truths, we’ll build more meaningful engagement with consumers. Obama understands this about his business; best we start trying harder to understand it about ours.
The power of the youth
Obama’s election strategists very early on identified the youth as the most important audience for him to garner support from. While his competitors focused on the retention of the current electorate, Obama focused on acquiring support from the most powerful untapped resource in his market, the power of the youth. The millennials who were politically apathetic and disinterested became the core of his campaign, and ultimately were the reason for his success. He understood the issues closest to their hearts, and offered them tangible, believable values to buy into.
As marketers in South Africa, we find ourselves operating in a country where a third of our population is under the age of 15 years old. Furthermore, the rapid growth of our middle class is largely due to an increase in young, educated lads and lasses entering more formal employment.
For the majority of brands navigating our market, constantly looking for the audience that offers the greatest opportunity for bottom-line growth, the power of the South African youth should never be overlooked. We’re a hungry market, a brand conscious market, and a market waiting to be more relevantly spoken to.
Conclusion
Brand Obama is arguably one of the most memorable of our time. Many of the principles that his messages are founded on apply to brands of any shape or form. His ability to deliver communication to his audience with complete relevance, authenticity and memorability is an asset we can all learn from. As marketers, our role at the end of the day is to get consumers to buy into a set of values. A set of values that our brands embody. Delivering this through powerful human truths that speak to our core audiences with complete relevance is a critical step in us enjoying the same end success that brand Obama does.
– Faheem is a passionate marketer at M&C Saatchi Abel. With a focus on the future, his aim is to better entrench the importance of creative thinking to solving critical business problems. Find his past columns here
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