Obama's Changing Advertising

At most of the awards shows, the stuff that wins prizes in the digital categories is very often video material of one sort or another. It’s high quality entertainment designed first and foremost to raise awareness. Think of campaigns like Win Nick’s Life for Steinlager. It’s a good old-fashioned TV commercial given a new form online.

We tend to forget that digital is a great direct marketing medium allowing brands not just to talk one-to-one about their products or their offers but to get people to do something.
The Obama campaign hasn’t forgotten. There are some brilliant marketers helping get a Kenyan into the White House and this viral is just one among many inspired ideas. Sooner rather than later someone is going to write a book about it. But not only is Obama going to change the world, we hope, but he is already changing advertising.

The art of DM is in making the message personal and this takes personalisation to extraordinary lengths. Here’s the link if you want to send personalised videos to your friends:
http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/taf.shtml?hp=1

/Patrick Collister/