There's a lesson in all of this.

In the words of reality tv show fans, the world is a "hot mess" (if you listen to the pundits, that is). That's part of the reason why President-elect Obama's message of Hope played so well this election season. But there are other marketing-related reasons why he did so well...
- he had a much more consistent and singular message than his rival
- he had a huge following of younger activists that were engaged and participating
- he presented a compelling image that was easy to understand and get behind

I'm not at all going to dive into the specifics of policies between the two campaigns or examine ideology or tax policy or anything political really, that's not the point to this article. But what I do want to look further into a few things that I gleaned from that second point...

Obama's campaign was very effective at "getting out the vote." A lot of individuals got involved and many, I believe, felt a tangible part of Obama's election because of their participation. (Ok, I'm not going to argue that this is a simplistic view of what occured, but again, we're not talking politics in this article, its just to see the lesson for us marketers. And that's all.) I have several friends who participated in the Obama campaign, some traveling great distances to canvass or offer help. Some took time off work to do community events for Obama. And when I speak to them about it (once you get past the politics), the reason is because they felt they were physically doing something that they were passionate about.

Earlier I posted an article about DIY projects and why those appeal to me. I suspect that there are fundamentally similar things going on deep inside the brain of community activists for Obama: These community activities are hands-on, they are interesting (moreso than people's day-to-day activities), they are social, and a fourth item (not included in the DIY article but I think applies to both), is that they tap into people's passion (you may not be passionate about calling strangers during dinnertime, but are passionate about the cause).

There's three important lessons for marketers in this:

1. To get interest from people to participate in your branding or marketing, you are going to have to make it interesting, hands-on, and social. Just putting a message out there, that doesn't have aspects these three things is going to be dropped quickly by target consumers.
2. To compel people (stronger than just interest in), you have to tap into their passion.
3. Finally, the conversion to action for both the campaign and a brand is a critical final step, that is often ignored

That final step of converting "potential customers" into current customers is what is going to make the difference between an interesting conversation with folks vs. having a business relationship with them.