Never have we seen an elected president, and maybe even any single person come into the spotlight as quickly, and with as much force as Barack Obama has over the last 4+ years.  If online search (googling) can give any indication of a person’s visibility, then Barack has shattered records. 

Google, the biggest search engine in the world, during their anniversary this year, allowed users to search their past indexes to get an idea of how different, and how relevant topics were at different times.  I searched the 2001 index for Barack Obama, and was quite surprised that it had only 800 results, considering how recognizable his name is now.  Today, 80 million pages can be found with conversations or comments about our 44th president, twice as many as now former President George Bush.  For someone in marketing, that gives me the chills. 

Today was the inauguration of now President Barack Obama, and little if anything was mentioned about how quickly he came to be so popular, or how little he was known only 4 years ago.  And perhaps it shouldn’t have been said, because it wouldn’t have sounded right among all the commentary.  The fact is, President Obama did such a good job of shaping the conversation that we see him as our president already.  People have an amazing way of taking what is happening and accepting it quickly and fitting it into our new reality when not given enough reason to doubt.  We thought he’s our President, he acted, and talked like one, it’s official, now let’s move on.  But I think it’s interesting to look at how he got here, with his current brand.  In my opinion, it was his shaping of the conversation, and by that I mean, he didn’t leave much to be discussed by others.  He took the issues himself, and brought them to his podium, or You Tube address, or radio address, or news conference, all before even being president.  This way others couldn’t decide the direction of a rumor or a headline, only he could.  He communicated like he was the president, from the moment he thought he might win. 

Chris DeNigris

Statik Group

Branding and Communications