celebrating, artfully

The act of celebration has been permeating the American streets since the election was called a little before midnight Tuesday night. In New York, Barack Obama supporters congregated to celebrate victory in a rare moment of patriotism and even bonding with strangers. It was a night of fireworks, high-fives, hugs, song, oh and booze…

No celebration is complete without an iconic bottle of bubbly or another festive beverage of choice. Or so we have been told. This is an idea alcohol marketers have been clinging to since marketing and advertising were first introduced. The task (beyond making your campaign interesting) has become finding a way to distinguish your brand from all those other celebratory spirits. Who is having the most fun at their party? And what makes that party so special?

A good starting point, from the marketers prospective, is to find that person with whom you want to be celebrating or want to feel like while celebrating. Identifying is key. It provides both a context and implies a certain ideal. And done tastefully, celebration itself can be an art form.

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congress enacted a new law requiring all obamaniacs to stand behind glass

What is an endorsement? Quite literally, endorsement means approval or sanction. So, in a political context, it means, basically, giving a particular candidate your blessing. But of course, then there is this year when each candidate represents something much greater than the policies he stands for. Through endorsement you are really subscribing to a brand, which then brands your brand for as long as other people remember you’ve formed that association. So, you best choose wisely.

The news cycle is a reality and a faux pas can only be front page news for so long, but this election will go down in history as one of dwelling, rumination, and might we even say obsession. Meaning, a bad decision on behalf of your own brand has the potential to raise its ugly head later defying any sort of news cycle “rules.” Now on this decision, from a branding perspective is it even really a choice unless you are, oh I don’t know, selling shotguns?

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as always, Paris Hilton will play the role of “control”

There are lots of ways to put this, but most simply, she didn’t have one, or a little less simply, she wasn’t aware that she was playing a game at all. Had the imminent spotlight been on her mind, maybe she wouldn’t have been taped posing questions about the vice presidency we asked the first or fine, maybe second time, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

An ill-managed Fame Game does not, however, affect exposure; in many cases, it increases exposure. After all, every grizzly head, glamour shot, bloody caribou, and pregnant teenager carries with it an inherent number of media attention points. So that’s nice. More US-based internet search traffic than Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Michael Phelps and Barack Obama combined! The question, of course, for Ms. Palin becomes whether she can detract from the ridiculousness and redirect the attention towards the overarching mission of her beliefs to one day become richer, less gift in our laps blog fodder. It’s a lesson in quality over quantity and in sustaining after the spike.

Step # 1. Lose the banana clip. And from there? …

Photo from Getty Images by J.D. Pooley

Watching Barack Obama’s speech at the culmination of the DNC, one could perhaps sympathize with the McCain campaign’s allegation that Obama is a celebrity. The event was masterfully staged and choreographed. Insofar as all political speech is a kind of theater, Obama performed exceptionally. Of course, McCain means something specific when he calls Obama a celebrity. He means that Obama thinks he’s better than you. Obama, the subtext goes, isn’t one of “us” — he is one of “them.” The elites, the wealthy, the snobs, the lazy heirs and heiresses. One could spend a long time noting the irony of this, but let this brief pop quiz suffice:

1) How did John McCain come into his own personal fortune?
2) Which major party has run a presidential candidate in the last thirty years whose prior occupations included Hollywood Movie Star?

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ouch

John McCain is pissed: Paris Hilton and Britney Spears both want to nail Barack Obama, or something like that. I wasn’t really listening to his latest ad, because I was too busy thinking about how young and awesome Barack Obama is, and how if you went to John McCain’s house there’d be plastic on everything and you could only eat Fiddlestix and you’d get lectured about buying war bonds. And that’s why John McCain’s newest ad, like his campaign, will inevitably fail.

Why do I think that? Because Barack Obama is hotter than the sun right now. This guy has so much momentum behind him, the NY Times editorial staff has a collective seizure and an equally sycophantic front page spread every time he hits a jumpshot in a Chicago gym or helps someone’s grandmother across the street.

Fame is on Barack Obama’s side, and it’s the good kind of fame, which is pretty interesting. In the past most presidential candidates were more easily associable with infamy (see Blow Jobs). Good publicity and the kind of fame that is synonymous with respect hasn’t touched a political figure anytime in the lives of the generation that supports him the most. Goodness preempts his actions. This fact, that attention, adoration and fame beget more attention, adoration and fame is what seats him atop the tidal wave of holy water he’s been riding.

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