The Office of The President Elect's Branding Machine

President elect Obama is still 8 days from taking office – but since the election, he’s faced all the branding challenges of a veteran – and he’s done it pretty well.

He steered relatively clear of the Blagojovich scandal in Illinois – avoiding comment and, thus far, implication.

One of my favorite branding moves was the December 15th memo that Obama released to the media. in which Obama clears himself and staff of any wrongdoing.

OJ Simpson is sitting in a jail cell somewhere thinking to himself, “dog-gone-it, why didn’t I try that?”

His second big branding challenge came with the daily advisories of who would be serving in his cabinet next. Have you looked at the list ?

It’s like a who’s who of Washington insiders. (Far more Washington insiders than Bill Clinton or either Bush’s). Here’s just a few of the choices:

State – Senator Hillary Clinton – my former employer needs no introduction

Defence – Current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates – ‘cause things are going so well thus far.

Health & Human Services – Sen Tom Daschle – 25 years in Washington - former Senate Majority Leader. Other than that, no real Washington ties.

Justice – Eric Holder – Janet Reno’s #2 person all through the Clinton years

Treasury – Timothy Geithner – another President Clinton guy who was nominated to this position out of his post as CEO of the New York (Clinton State) Federal Reserve. Also on his resume, Geithner helped engineer the sale of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. and was willing to consider a government rescue of Lehman Brothers

Commerce - Governor Bill Richardson - Oops

And my favorite -- CIA Director - Leon Panetta - Let's face it, as Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff, Mr Panetta is probably the best person on the planet at knowing how and where important information is hidden. He's got my seal of approval.

So how does a guy who ran a campaign based on changing Washington DC defend his decision to pack his cabinet with Washington insiders:

“What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking,” said President Elect Obama. He went on to explain that it would be foolish, at such a “critical time in our history”, to pick people who “had no experience in Washington whatsoever”.

He added: “What I don’t want to do is somehow suggest that because you somehow served in the last [Clinton] administration you are barred from serving again.


Again, this is exactly the response he should have made. From a branding perspective only, this statement succeeds on a lot of fronts:

1. It redefines what change is – it’s fresh thinking. And that doesn’t necessarily have to come in fresh packages.
2. It focuses people on the problems and concerns of right now, not on the fact that these people will still be in office even after the crisis is no longer so critical
3. It validates selecting a ton of people from Bill Clinton’s administration and opens the door for more (remember the 90’s – they were pretty good years).

Whew! Thank goodness.

You see, when President-Elect Obama gave his acceptance speech and said, “It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”… well… I thought this whole “Change” thing was going to be difficult.

If I had known it was just a matter of putting the band back together for one more mission from God --- heck – I might have voted this year (I’m just kidding about that, I did vote... early AND often).

What I also really like about this line is the fact that I’ve already heard it repeated by everyday Joe’s who are still filled with BaraKool-Aid. That, my friends, is the hallmark of good messaging.

It doesn’t have to actually be a good argument; heck, it doesn’t have to actually make sense. It just has to be easy to remember and easy to repeat – “It’s waaaay better than fast food.” (Ok , bad example. Because everyone knows that slogan sucks – even Wendy. I should have used “Just Do It”, which is a great slogan but also means nothing.)

Then there’s the whole issue of the inauguration itself. The “Office of The President-Elect” (I love that term too) issued a statement saying that the total cost of the event is currently estimated at over $50,000,000. This is, without doubt, the most expensive inauguration in history. And I am all good with that. This is an truly historic occasion and it should be a big BIG deal.

The problem is that most of the money raised to pay for this thing has actually come through Wall Street bundlers. That’s right – the same folks who will be asking for bailout money are the ones supplying most of the dough for the big O’s party.

No worries. The OPEL (Office of the …. You get it.) has also dictated that no one person will be allowed to give more than $50,000 -- which is why billionaire and left wing sugar-daddy, George Soros has donated money in the names of members of his family, in this way giving $250,000.

Corporations are also banned from donating, although corporate CEOs are certainly not. Google and Microsoft big-wigs, for example, have combined to give more than $450,000 to the inauguration fund. (FYI - executives from each of the two corporations also donated the Obama election campaign more than $700,000).

But it’s OK – because commenting in the New York Times, Obama spokesperson, Linda Douglass silenced the critics when she said emphatically, "No one who has contributed to President-elect Obama has ever been led to believe that they're going to have any special influence with him. He is passionately committed to changing business as usual and breaking the grip of special interests on government."

Which is absolutely perfect branding once again. In fact, this single statement goes well beyond ordinary branding and into the heretofore uncharted waters of “Jedi Mind Trick.”

1. Yes, there is a ton of money coming to us from people who generally get their way by buying it – but don’t worry, they know better.
2. This is Obama. He’s the “Change” guy --- or as one of my buddies defended this statement – “Obama IS the change. It really doesn’t matter if everything else outside of that stays exactly the same – because HE’S the change.” -- It’s waaaay better than fast food.


But despite the veteran acumen with which the Obama camp has deflected such intense probing by our media and citizenry, there is one issue with the new administration with which I am deeply disturbed.

Being a small government kind of guy, I have never seen the creation of so many new departments and committees and plans in such a short time. But don’t get me wrong; it’s not the mushroom-like expansion of government that has me nervous. It’s the names.

Let’s be honest. Once government expands, it rarely contracts. That means that all of these new creations are going to be around for a long time, a lot longer than the people who actually created them. And that, in turn, means that we, the American people, are the ones who are going to have to live with a position in our government called “The Chief Performance Officer”.

It’s true.

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that said that Nancy Killefer has been named our Chief Performance Officer.

I, of course, jumped to the logical conclusion that she would be overseeing the regulation and distribution of ED drugs – but, alas, I was wrong.

Evidently, The Chief Performance Officer is the person we are relying on to “to scrub the federal budget and reform government”

WAIT!!! I thought that’s what we elected Obama to do – you mean he’s delegating that?

This will be much more palatable to the American people if we give this new position a title that is long enough to sound important but not blunt enough to sound like it’s something the president himself should be doing.

As a branding expert I’d like to suggest something a little more descriptive. Instead of Chief Performance Officer, how about we title her the director of Budget, Lending Interest & National Goals

Also known as BLING.

She can ride around in one of those black suburban’s – but with really great rims.

The Times had a great Article on another new project, the heinously named, American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.

Ick.

Recovery and Reinvestment is something you do with scrap metal. Those are not terms you want to apply to jobs and people and misplaced national pride.
This would be the perfect type of title we could just steal directly from Barack’s enormously successful election campaign.

Let’s see. There was HOPE. That gave everyone a great feeling about the future.
There was that the ever-present chant at all of the Obama rallies, “Yes We Can” – which just exudes optimism and confidence.
And now there ‘s the whole CHANGE thing that the OPEL has adopted (their website is actually www.change.gov).

In branding and advertising, we try almost never to come up with anything actually new. We just take what’s already been done successfully and reconstitute it to appear to be something totally different and fresh. So if I were to do that with Obama’s three big branding themes from the election, I think I have the perfect title for this plan --- HOPE WE CAN CHANGE.

But the worst offender, in my opinion, is the newly formed White House Office of Health Reform – For an acronym infested country, I’m not sure we really want an agency in the US government --- called WHOHR -- no matter how accurate it is as a description. (I did not make that up - I promise you.)

So what have we learned?

Well, we’ve learned that The President Elect is doing a yeoman’s job at protecting his brand while communicating around touchy subjects and potential scandals.

We’ve learned that he’s surrounding himself with all the experience necessary to allow him to be the change he’s been waiting for. In other words, he’s waaaay better than fast food.

And we’ve learned that as our government continues to expand – there will be more and more programs, committees, departments and initiatives, all of which will need pithy and memorable names. It seems to me that this, in and of itself, can help create an entirely new job sector tailor-made for.... well... tailor made for the kind of people I’ll be laying off after the promised Obama business taxes take effect. And that is exactly why I have included this web address on all of my employees pay stubs this month --- http://change.gov/page/s/application