I'm so glad you noticed this too. Obama's campaign has been marketed extremely well. Especially on the web. He had everything, even an exclusive application for the iPhone/iTouch. The only thing we probably shouldn't learn is the whole mudslinging thing... yeah, not cool.

the interesting thing about election advertising, it helps to have a devil. the adversary. the evil one.

hellfire and brimstone.

me, though, i don't think the devil is all that relevant for us.

the thing that is interesting about obama ads, though, in particular, is how convinced people seem to be that this will change things. me, i'm a bit of a non-believer about any kind of political salvation. but you've got a bunch of people out there convinced that this ticket will usher in some brave new world (no literary allusion intended).

the sense in this election of a lost world teetering on the edge of destruction, and a willful announcement to that world that there is a different course that people need to choose. that everyone needs to choose. that people need to make that decision today, or risk something horrible happening.

nah, the more i think about it the less i can see any sort of learnings.

The one thing that churches can REALLY learn from election marketing is how to really annoy people and the uselessness of a yard sign with the candidates name on it.
I mean seriously, this is the time of year I choose to leave my TV off as much as possible.

I think election-time marketing proves that with enough money you can make anything seem true.

Good post

http://selfpromostuff.blogspot.com

I think the use of Obama's logo has set the standard now. Bush got the ball rolling with the "W" in 2000/2004 but now a candidate might need more than just some cool fonts and a red/white/blue background with a wavy flag as their campaign icon. Fascinating to see how social media has played a role this year from the Obama groups to even Mike Huckabee's use of social media. Interesting to see where 2012 will have us.

What's funny is that I thought I was being original this morning in blogging about what we can learn from the Obama campaign regarding marketing. Oh, silly me. Good post; great point. Loved Godin's bit about what to learn from Obama's campaign. Couldn't agree more. If nothing else, we have to agree - good marketing works. Bad marketing, well, sucks.

some local nashville folks did an analysis of the obama campaign's use of social media and tried out the principles and they worked for them. you can see their brain trust at http://www.barack20.com/