Tuesday, November 18, 2008

#892 The Name of the Game

Time to reflect on what I think is a huge lesson to be learned from the election and everyone singing sweet home Barack Obama.
He defied everything that Madison Avenue holds dear. All the experts in branding tell us that if you’re going to name something you should make it catchy, but keep it safe. Don’t name a meat loaf product, oh, let’s say, The Ptomaine Meatloaf. Don’t label a car “The Pontiac Crasher.”
But somehow Barack Hussein Obama rose above all that. And that is a huge achievement. From his history, it’s obvious he’s overcome some horrendous obstacles. His mixed race, his strange parental status, his cardoor ears.
And yet he made it to law school, developed an extraordinary intelligence and persisted all the way through Hillary’s minions.
I admit he took words less seriously than I thought he should. For a guy who was trying to duck the elitist label, using the word divisiveness in his final infomercial was a little problematic.
Especially when he pronounced it di-vih-siveness and not di-vy-siveness. I’m sure some people were as mystified by that word as I was when he said he wouldn’t allow CEOs to “game” the system.
He must have been reaching out to his younger supporters. The same ones who didn’t let his weird names get in the way of their adulation.
Barack Hussein Obama is bad enough to someone hoping to reach out to working class America. Musli-phobia is the new racism. A black man with a Muslim name, and not just any Muslim name, the name of the dictator that many Americans thunk was behind 911 thanks to the pre-war Bush propaganda machine.
That’s some serious we shall overcoming to do.
But he’s also got BO to deal with. That’s right, his initials are BO. As in “ooh, that guy smells.” A taunt he must have endured in Junior High a lot.
What did he do? He embraced it, told folks to Google MyBO, used it to direct them to his website, and created the internet nation that put him over the top financially.
Save the world with My BO...
Madison Avenue must be crashing like Wall Street did.
America, ya gotta love it.

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