obama knows good advertising

Being in advertising I am learning a lot about media coverage and the effects it can have on society. I think the media has done their most effective “brain washing” during presidential elections. Instead of studying past policy decisions of each candidate people watch the press and only listen to the campaigning and slander on various media vehicles.  I think that a candidate’s campaign team and promoters should get the credit for the win or loss of the potential president. I am not saying that Obama did not deserve to win the election, but like any effective advertiser Obama promoters recognized both their primary and secondary target market, primary being people our parents age and secondary being colligates and youths 18-24, and appealed in both ways. In one way he targeted the primary market by expressing lower taxes, better medical insurance, wage raises etc., etc. and in the other he created an image of  “change” that appealed to the 21^st century’s sort of new age counter culture that’s been evolving among people in the 18-24 age range.

On the other hand, McCain promoters only addressed the primary target market and hopped that enough of the older majority were still conservative. I am pretty sure that the vast majority of older citizens are a lot more conservative than our generation but the economy pissed them off so bad they decided they’d rather accept liberal rights such as gay marriage and pro choice than experience another four years in the same economic condition.

So for these reasons I think that Obama’s campaign managers created a far more effective campaign and the results of the election reflect that. In the 2005 election, citizens were not happy with the way the previous four years under Bush went, but John Kerry failed to create the image and trend Obama did. I think the reason young adults are so much more active in politics now is because the media has reached out to them a lot more in the last four years. I love the advertising industry because I think it truly has the ability to change perceptions and create trends in society. Even though the effect advertising has on people changed, because they aren’t trusting of it anymore, the advertisers responded in a smart way by getting to know inner emotions of consumers more and creating campaigns that hit close to home and heart. Youths respond to this very well because I think our generation has a lot more feelings and emotions than previous ones, we don’t see things as black and white anymore we grew up having choice. Obama was very creative in recognizing this large potential secondary market and appealing to it in an emotional way. Just his advertising and campaigning tactics alone show that he was the more intelligent candidate, lets hope his new policies are as good as his campaigning!