The Obama Direct-by-text Marketing Test
Thursday, August 21, 2008SUSIE GHARIB: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama isn't relying on traditional media to announce one of his most important decisions -- his choice of a running mate. Obama is sending the news to his supporters first, by text message. And this isn't just a political event. For corporate marketers, the Obama announcement is a perfect test case for direct-by-text marketing. Darren Gersh reports.
DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: OK, so Barack Obama's vice presidential text announcement is kind of a gimmick. But this is marketing we're talking about. Thousands of people have already forked over their cell phone numbers, eagerly awaiting Obama's VP message. And that's the kind of math corporate communicators understand. Marriott started texting, using the social networking site Twitter just a few months ago and its communications guru, Kathleen Matthews, says other businesses should join the campaign.
KATHLEEN MATTHEWS, EXEC. VP, GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS MARRIOTT INT'L.: I think, like the presidential candidates, corporations are realizing that you have lots of new media channels where you can talk to your customers and you got to take advantage of them.
GERSH: Marriott is on youtube, facebook and now, text. It's a way to reach those young people glued to their cell phones.
MATTHEWS: If you're sending a message to people through these kind of relevant new channels, as a company, you look like you're relevant and new.
GERSH: For the record, John McCain's campaign doesn't text, something Republican consultant David All wants desperately to change. He also encourages corporate clients to join the conversation and sign up for text- based services like Twitter. He reserved a Twitter account featuring Michael Dell's name and offered to give it to him should the tech icon want it.
DAVID ALL, PRESIDENT, DAVID ALL GROUP: I'm a fan, but if I were Dell, what I would do is I would use text messaging to have a real conversation with people.
GERSH: A text is just 160 characters or so, not much of a conversation there, but David All says there are creative ways to keep the talk going, like using a text message to drive traffic to a web site -- say, www.pbs.org/nbr. The real question for politicians and corporations is whether Obama's text strategy sustains interest in the campaign or whether people just opt out once the big announcement is made.
ALL: Will people stick around for those policy discussions and of course, what Barack is really going after, which is turning out voters on Election Day.
GERSH: No one knows for sure, in part because text is relatively new in the United States. Video blogger and PR executive Andy Plesser expects text here to grow into the multi-billion dollar a year marketing opportunity it already is in Europe and Asia.
ANDY PLESSER, FOUNDER, BEET.TV: And if the Obama campaign can scale up and create a big database and find that that database is powerful and that it drives people to action, that will be a big milestone moment in terms of marketing.
GERSH: Plesser calls it the next step in direct marketing, another way this election could shape history. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
