Product Management: Obama

While Obama's marketing strategy is worth evaluating and learning from, it is also important to remember that its success starts with Obama The Product. Obama is, quite simply, the perfect product for its constituency at this point in time. No marketing strategy, no matter how clever, could sell Obama if he weren't a product carefully crafted for his target market. He's like the iPod: Yes, Apple's brand and promo marketing is brilliant, but it wouldn't be effective if the product wasn't so perfectly developed to meet consumer need/desire. Obama = iPod.

Of course, developing a product is one thing, managing it another. It seems that Obama has the Dem leadership upset, due to his substantial position changes toward the Center. It's one thing to change a product/brand to meet demand. It's quite another to change a product/brand but, by so doing, move away from consumer preference by mistake. Product and brand manager beware.

But the bigger problem is the after-effect of Obama's extensive
"refinements" in policy. "What they thought they would do is improve their
position on issues by moving Obama to the center," the source says. "And
what they failed to account for is that in improving their position politically,
they underestimated the damage to the brand that was going to be inflicted by
this."

As evidence, the Democrat cites the recent Newsweek poll, which asked, "Some people say that since Barack Obama became the presumed Democratic nominee for president, he has changed his position on key policy issues to try to gain political
advantage. Do you agree or disagree?" Fifty-three percent of the registered voters polled agreed, while 32 percent disagreed and 15 percent didn't know. "If McCain can turn him into a politician, Obama has lost his advantage," the Democrat says.