OBAMA: the choice heard around the world

Posted on | March 1, 2009 |

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No person, brand or organization has harnessed the power of connectivity more than Barack Obama. He and his team of masterminds built a comprehensive, multi-channel campaign that captured a nation and created a groundswell by uniting the digital and analog worlds. The results were unprecedented; locking the gates of the old ways and introducing a new world of thought, action and communication. Obama brought incessant clamor and discussion through traditional media, established more personal connections with his followers and advocates through social media, and created a viral buzz by organizing, empowering and delivering a powerful message every step of the way. By embracing the new communication landscape, the Obama campaign ushered in a new era of connectivity. CHOICE would not be complete without paying tribute to the billions of nodes that came alive as Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States.

My.BarackObama
Obama’s official campaign website gave users access to virtually everything campaign related, from personal bios of candidates and their first ladies to information on how to donate. In addition, the site served as a social media hub, allowing blog posting and linking users to a plethora of Obama’s 3rd party social media sites.

MySpace
Obama is officially more popular than Britney Spears on MySpace. In fact, with over 1 million friends and over 500,000 comments, Obama trumps Britney twofold.

Twitter
250,000 people follow Obama’s personal story day-by-day with Twitter. On the campaign trail, if you needed to know exactly where Obama was and where he was heading, or if you needed to know the latest announcements, all you had to do was check Obama’s latest tweets.

Facebook
Obama’s Facebook page has all the stock features, including an informational bio, profile picture and wall. Unlike most Facebook pages, however, Obama’s has over 5 million supporters and nearly 600,000 wall posts.

iPhone App
The Obama ’08 iPhone app offered all the essential features such as campaign updates, news and local events. For those who wanted to take it a step farther, however, the Obama ’08 app also functioned as a grassroots organizational tool, allowing people to make calls to contacts in key battleground states and track results of those efforts.

YouTube
Obama proves his adeptness with social media by linking his YouTube Channel and Facebook profile through a YouTube Facebook Application, ultimately driving over 20 million channel views… and counting. With over half a million Obama-related videos on YouTube, Obama outdoes George W. Bush by a margin of 10 to 1. And, he’s just begun!

Obama Girl
The viral nature of the Obama campaign sparked many offshoots including the YouTube star known as “Obama Girl.” Her crassly greenscreened image on Obama video footage brought unofficial sex appeal to the Obama campaign and sparked tens of millions of video plays and blog posts. Obama Girl even landed in the mainstream media multiple times, including an appearance on MSNBC.

Shepard Fairey
The “Obey Giant” campaign has been one of the most widely spread and prominent street-art efforts in the last two decades. Its global sphere of influence can only be described as a grassroots masterpiece. So, it was
only appropriate that Shepard Fairey, the mastermind behind Obey, was responsible for creating the Obama HOPE poster — the most iconic image of the Obama campaign. The image, although not officially commissioned by the Obama camp, became a major component in the grassroots appeal of the campaign — on the street level, in the media and online.