Obama Campaign Attracts Millennials With a Cool Brand and Personalization

An article in AdAge recently delineated the way Barack Obama is appealing to the millennials.

Millennials have shown that mass marketing can work with their generation, examples being their iPods and Harry Potter books.

Quoting several experts on millennials, the article points out that Obama has personal qualities attractive to millennials and is doing several things right to appeal to this generation, such as:

• Obama's "cool" factor. Millennials like someone who is smart, funny, and with a slight edge.
• Obama's "packaging," from his logo, that echoes those of Pepsi, AT&T and Apple, to his website, which is all web 2.0.
• Obama is a uniter and not a divider. Millennials are averse to chaos and unpredictability. They are comfortable with a "smooth" brand that has minimal turmoil.
• Obama's mastery of cutting edge social media. Obama's website is my.barackobama.com with the emphasis on "my," which personalizes it for the millennials.
• Obama's campaign has leaped from CRM, or customer relationship management, to CMR, customer-managed relationship. Millennials want to be in control of their relationship with a brand, say the experts. They want to be able to personalize the way they do with iTunes, Mobile Me and YouLocate. Obama's website thus encourages tagging, discussion, photo uploads and other participatory behaviors.

Can your nonprofit capitalize on these attributes and methods to appeal to young people?

More about millennials and Web 2.0:

• Mobile Giving - How to Make it Work for Your Nonprofit
• The Young Are Wired for Social Media: Is Your Nonprofit?