David Meerman Scott, a viral marketing strategist, says that John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama is the most significant marketing news in the 2008 US Presidential election, yet virtually all mainstream media fail to understand the significance of the news.
"John Kerry brings an email list of millions names of supporters to the Obama campaign," says Scott. "This is huge news. What is absolutely amazing to me is that the vast majority of mainstream media have misunderstood the significance of this development from the marketing perspective."
The origins of the email list of supporters that Obama now has access to goes back more than five years, Scott says. "In 2003 Howard Dean pioneered the use of the Web in Presidential politics. Dean built a list of people through online marketing and blogging---people who could be counted on to donate millions and millions of dollars to his campaign at a moment's notice. When Dean dropped out of the race, his online marketing machine (in particular his huge email list) was passed on to John Kerry. Kerry built it even further through the 2004 general election campaign and throughout the past three years as he anticipated a second run for the white house."
On January 10, 2008, Kerry didn't just endorse Obama, he passed on a marketing asset potentially worth a hundred million dollars in donations (or more). In addition, the people on the list are also those prepared to contribute time and "word-of-mouse" as they tell their friends, colleagues, and family members about Obama. Obama has just inherited a marketing powerhouse that originated with Howard Dean, then passed through John Kerry to Barack Obama.
"As an online marketing expert, I am fed up with mainstream media's obsession with television advertising buys, as if that's all that exists in presidential campaign marketing," Scott says. "The real story is what's going to happen online in the coming months. Now Obama has a huge advantage."
Scott's bestselling book "The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to use news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing & online media to reach your buyers directly" is available wherever business books are sold. It is currently being translated into 12 languages. The book features a foreword by Robert Scoble, Vice President Media Development, PodTech.net, co-author Naked Conversations, and blogger at Scobleizer.com.
David Meerman Scott is an online thought leadership and viral marketing strategist. He is a popular keynote speaker and seminar leader, delivering the New Rules of Marketing course for Pragmatic Marketing. Check out Scott's ideas on his popular marketing blog.