• Ad Age , Wednesday, November 5, 2008 10:46 AM

Al Ries' lede in his column this morning is no less than: "Nov. 4, 2008, will go down in history as the biggest day ever in the history of marketing." While Hilary Clinton and John McCain tailored messages around the idea that they were "better," Obama held steady with the only positioning that really works in marketing. He was "different."

"When you're different, you can pre-empt the concept in consumers' minds so your competitors can never take it away from you," Reis maintains.

Throughout the campaign, Obama focused like a laser beam on one simple, consistent and relevant promise: "change." His competitors, as do many marketers, floundered with an ever-changing, laundry list of slogans.

They were just like Pepsi, which has changed its slogans as often as its CMOs since 1975, but is still the No. 2 cola brand. BMW, in contrast, has been "the ultimate driving machine for 33 years and has zoomed from No. 11 in the U.S. market to No. 1.

Reis also reminds us that the New York Times Magazine ran a cover story about John McCain's on Oct. 26 titled ""The Making (and Remaking and Remaking) of the Candidate," and that Age last month named Obama its "Marketer of the Year." Included in the latter story is an observation about Obama's savvy media strategy from Business Week columnist Jon Fine: "It's the fuckin' Web 2.0 thing."

Since my French Canadian friend is looking for a bit more detail than that, I press on .

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