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Obama's Design |
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generatioNext
It is a pretty logo, isn't it? But in keeping with my deflationary style, I want to point out (and I'm not the first; the idea was not an original one of mine) the resemblance between Obama's logo and the logo for PepsiCo:
But maybe this is appropriate, given some of Pepsi's old slogans that would not be out of place in describing Obama or his supporters: "The Choice of a New Generation" or, more recently, "GeneratioNext."
To be clear, I'm not alleging plagiarism; just a slight similarity that is kind of funny to me. This logo has elicited a lot of commentary (in such a long primary cycle, what is left to talk about?): the slideshow in the NYT John wrote about earlier, which led to a lot of discussions elsewhere (see here or here).
But I think it also speaks to a point others have made about the extreme success the Obama campaign has had in marketing itself by branding itself. One blogger writes,
For more of this kind of this argument, see here or here or Google "Obama branding."
Political Marketing
Obama's use of political marketing is one of the most impressive in recent history, but he is not the first candidate to sell himself like cornflakes. Check this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nplm1G7t5UE
This Kennedy ad and the image presented are evocative of the marketing techniques that were used in TV commercials during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Check this Brylcreem ad from the 1950s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcRIbExrfg
Kennedy exuded the kind of sexual charm that Brylcreem promised by turning a head of average hair into a well coiffed hairdo. Both the campaign ad and the commercial also make use of corny but catchy tunes that were common in television advertisements at the time.
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