• by Amanda , June 6, 2008

An interesting article came out of this week weighing the respective campaigns and marketing strategies from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over the past year plus. The author concluded that Obama won in every media from television to social networks to media innovations.

For the record, I agree.

Outside of being the only candidates in my short 22-years who has ignited people my age into a political fervor, Obama has promoted and marketed himself as the catalyst for change to a demographic entirely opposed to promotion and marketing. He has used social media effectively, “friending” and updating all of us on his activities throughout the campaign. Because this is essentially the point of Facebook, I don’t feel like any of us are opposed to Obama’s activities in “our” network. His campaign’s work in Facebook developed into a massive grassroots campaign among college-aged students, backed by online resources and plenty of TV advertising. Yes, I support Obama. This might skew my perspective, but I’m not sure many would dispute the fact that Obama just did a better job marketing himself and his platform to people my age.

As the next step in our political process commences, I have to wonder how the political campaigns will develop and adapt to the competition to come. Which media will prove to be most effective in targeting voters for McCain and Obama in the future?

Obama and McCain have very different voter bases who use media in very different ways. McCain’s voter-base tends to be older and wealthier. Generally, older Americans tend to read newspapers more, watch television regularly and spend some time online. Obama’s base is generally younger and more socially diverse. I can’t speak for the range of people in this group, but generally younger populations get their news online, sometimes on TV. So far, Obama has put an enormous effort into marketing online, whereas McCain’s online strategy has been “a let down” as one writer put it. What McCain has done is use print and television advertising pretty effectively, though a much shorter race has not required the same amount of marketing dollars and time from him as either of the democratic candidates.

As McCain and Obama are seeking out voters for the fall, the question is if and/or how their marketing strategies will change. As one of my friends asked me this morning, can Obama and McCain adapt their campaigns to target people outside of their core constituencies? Should they? How will these strategies change as the candidates move from scuffling with their own to battling the other side?