Here's Naomi Klein of NO LOGO on the branding of Obama in an article published in the Guardian. I tend to agree with her – having worked in outsourcing many years of my mis-spent adult life – that outsourcing is creating hollow corporations emphasizing on creating of brands (like Microsoft for instance), not products, and that "globalization" which most trenchant left-leaning intellectuals are decrying is actually "corporatization" of the world. Meaning the world is building hollow organization and un-trustworthy brands not solid products and customer loyalty. She point to the creation of the brand Obama (whose Twitter follower I am), who is carrying on with the faux pas created by George Bush in outsourcing most government work to corporations. The supply chain in Iraq for the American army is managed by outsourced corporations. It's a thoughtful article, needs careful reading.
Excerpt: "The nation found that in Obama, a man who clearly has a natural feel for branding and who has surrounded himself with a team of top-flight marketers. His social networking guru, for instance, is Chris Hughes, one of the young founders of Facebook. His social secretary is Desirée Rogers, a glamorous Harvard MBA and former marketing executive. And David Axelrod, Obama's top adviser, was formerly a partner in ASK Public Strategies, a PR firm which, according to Business Week, "has quarterbacked campaigns" for everyone from Cable vision to AT&T. Together, the team has marshalled every tool in the modem marketing arsenal to create and sustain the Obama brand: the perfectly calibrated logo (sunrise over stars and stripes); expert viral marketing (Obama ringtones); product placement (Obama ads in sports video games); a 30-minute infomercial (which could have been cheesy but was universally heralded as "authentic"); and the choice of strategic brand alliances (Oprah for maximum reach, the Kennedy family for gravitas, and no end of hip-hop stars for street cred)."
Hat tips to Albert Barton for the link.
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