Writing in Advertising Age, Peter Feldman says Barak Obama’s campign “shows pitch-perfect understanding of the keys to appealing to the youngest voters.” I learned about the article from TargetX’s Email Minute newsletter, which provided the following summary:
Barack Obama’s appeal to young voters has not gone unnoticed by the advertising industry. Long identified as a generation sensitive to hype and resistant to marketing-speak, Millennials have nonetheless responded enthusiastically to the Obama brand. One of the best examples of the Obama campaign’s success with Millennials is its “mastery of cutting-edge social media,” according to Feld. Feld quotes Allison Mooney, who tracks youth trends for Fleishman-Hillard, a strategic communications agency. Mooney points to the social network set up by the campaign at my.barackobama.com. “It’s optimized for Millennial appeal,” she says. “For this generation, the new pronoun is me, my. Using my-dot brings it to a personal level.” The site also shows “that the campaign has made a leap from CRM (customer relationship management) to CMR (customer-managed relationship) better than many commercial marketers,” she says. “Young people want to be in control of their relationship with a brand. They want to customize and personalize….The campaign’s site allows this with its use of discussion boards, photo uploads and other interactive elements.” And now Obama has even offered to share his vice presidential pick with members of his social network. Some cynics are already calling it a shameless gimmick, but don’t be surprised if millions of young people sign up to be among the first to know. Millennials like to participate in the conversation, feel they belong to something bigger than themselves, build a relationship over time. That’s true whether they’re choosing a college or a president.
The full article is at http://adage.com/article?article_id=130254
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