New wave advertising agency leader looks at organizing process of Obama campaign

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: Larry Yates <llyates at shentel.net>


This is an article that I think will be interesting to many organizers, 
regardless of their choice (or lack of choice) of a presidential candidate.

AdWeek, a trade magazine for the advertising industry, analyzes the 
Obama campaign's innovations in these areas:
Leveraging the power of inspiration
Bottom-up brand management
Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Timed objectives
Social networking infused with healthy competition
Use of storefronts to galvanize online/offline activities

Certainly all things that organizers think about, though not always in 
these words.

The author, Illana Bryant, is clearly paying attention to the technical 
aspects of the campaign, and describes them intelligently and in some 
detail, for a brief article.

Her perspective? She is the global chief strategic officer at 
StrawberryFrog, a business that seeks to "create highly effective and 
efficient cultural movements" on behalf of clients like Old Navy, 
Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Credit Suisse and PharmaciaUpjohn. It refers to 
itself as "your friendly local neighborhood global advertising agency."

There are a lot of juicy questions here, folks, about power, about 
selling oneself, about selling out, about what a movement is, and about 
the validity of just plain good organizing. And, of course, about how 
the corporate structures constantly scrutinize and try to incorporate 
the best grassroots work and cultural innovation for its own goals.

The 'hood meets the Netizens meets the Boys on the Bus meets Madison 
Avenue (and yes I know all of those catchwords are so dated -- it's just 
hard to keep up...).

Here's the URL for the article:
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/community/columns/other-columns/e3i714b5acb6525107fda1eb890ff94a48a

Thanks to an old comrade across the Atlantic for sending me this article.




Larry Yates
VOP Valley Organizer
P.O. Box 245
Maurertown VA 22644
540 436 3432
llyates at shentel.net
www.virginia-organizing.org