When politics can teach business

How has the arrival of the Barack Obama presidency in the USA touched you? OK, everything that happens in the States sooner or later impacts the UK and the newly elected leader’s economic stimulus might just help world financial recovery. But even if so far you feel unmoved by the culture change in Washington, there is one big lesson that business leaders in particular can learn from the Obama phenomenon – and it started well before he reached the White House. He, and his team, ran one of the most awesomely effective marketing communications strategies so far seen in the 21st century. More importantly, it worked. It was not so much how he defeated John McCain and the Republicans in the general election, but how this relatively unknown senator took on and beat the established Democratic machine behind Hilary Clinton in the primaries that was so impressive. In part, he did it by harnessing modern media techniques, in particular the internet, to reach ordinary people. He also hired some of the smartest people from the world of new technology to help him. It is not too simple to suggest that Team Obama has provided a blueprint for anyone in the people business, with a marketing message to get out. The fact that Obama had a 25-year-old called Chris Hughes, who happened to be one of the founders of Facebook, on the payroll as “director of online organizing” didn’t hurt the cause. That’s not the sort of expertise that the rest of us can easily access, but it’s a clue to where we should perhaps be looking. Central to the Hughes/Obama approach was understanding people’s behaviour and developing online systems that helped individuals do what they wanted to do. For them it was about political involvement, but it’s just as relevant for helping people to go out and enjoy themselves. A vital point is that the Obama campaign had specific objectives in mind. Harnessing the internet and the power of social networking was a means to that end – not an end in itself. All the current chat directed at hospitality executives about why you should sign up to Twitter or Facebook sometimes misses the point. Playing with them is just a fad; using those communities effectively for a defined marketing need is when it gets interesting. What the Obama campaign did was develop online social networking tools that allowed committed grass-root voters to become activists. By the end of the election campaign last year, volunteers had used my-barack-obama.com to create two million profiles, plan 200,000 events, post 400,000 blogs and raise $30m (£20.7m). There is huge catalogue of books and magazine articles out there, many on the web, explaining and analysing the Obama marketing and communication triumph. If there is one motto to take away for your own collection of management quotes, it is this from a senior Obama media adviser: “People now expect to be able to communicate their concerns. If you respond, they’ll keep coming back to you.” It is not the detail of the Obama experience that is really important, but the way new approaches to doing things can change a whole enterprise. It is about providing access to information and communication, creating online relationships – and after all in the business world, creating relationships is what selling is all about. In essence it is about making life easier for people. The truth for all of us is that technological advances, and the internet and social networking are just elements of that – they are part of day-to-day life which we need to keep up with and learn to exploit. Having helped the launch of both Obama and Facebook, Chris Hughes says, in an interview with Fast Company magazine, that he is now looking at how to make technology less “obsessive” and simpler for everyone to use. Interestingly, he warns, having just reluctantly started to Twitter, about people becoming over-connected and that the internet can under-emphasise the real world. Businesses trying to tap the technology often miss the point, he says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a company or a campaign – you build around commonality. If it’s real people and real communities, then it’s valuable. Otherwise it’s just playing around online.” I guess that electing a new president is pretty real. Peter Martin is co-founder of M&C Report and chief executive of Peach Factory. A fuller version of this article appears in the latest issue of M&C Report The Digital Revolution Want to understand how the latest cutting-edge technologies can help drive your company’s sales and profits? Join M&C Report for a one-day seminar on 2 June at the Mayfair Hotel in London. The day will feature US digital marketing guru Aaron Allen, Google’s John Ray, and the Gadget Show’s Jon Bentley. It is supported by Brulines, iTradeNetwork and Zonal. For more information email helen.law@william-reed.co.uk, visit the M&C Report website or type ‘Digital Revolution M&C’ into a Google search