Comments on: Favorites and Personal Branding

By: Britt

Britt — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:45:27 +0000

@Shannon: It’s not so much a question of whether celebrities or politicians can move between the worlds. My question is more about the difficulty of maintaining credibility in the original world and establishing credibility in the new world.

By: Shannon Ehlers

Shannon Ehlers — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:04:31 +0000

I have to agree that celebrity endorsements aren’t exactly blank checks of goodwill. However, I’d also submit that, at least since the mid 20th century, celebrity can often be leveraged into political success.

Three examples: Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tom Osborne. Ronnie leveraged his success on the silver screen to become leader of the free world and one of America’s most popular presidents. Arnold became the “Govinator” in California after his wide recognition as the Terminator and various other roles in movies, and he announced his intentions to run for office on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Tom Osborne, the long-time and utterly successful coach of the Nebraska Cornhusker football team, turned his wide name recognition into a congressional seat, running a campaign on a shoe-string budget and beating all opponents with very little money or effort.

These are hardly the only examples (see also Jesse Ventura, Minnesota Governor and pro wrestler; Sonny Bono, actor and can’t remember the political office; Clint Eastwood, mayor of Carmel By The Sea and actor; etc.). Is this due to our seeming constant need for entertainment and our continually decreasing attention span? Is it because we are familiar with one candidate and unfamiliar with the other? Is it a combination of the two, or something totally different?

By the way, regarding Obama: He is coming here, to my hometown of Dunlap, Iowa, this Saturday to address the voters of Iowa at our livestock auction arena. It will, of course, be widely covered by news crews, so keep your eye on CNN for a look at where I live. I may try to attend.

By: Britt

Britt — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 04:31:22 +0000

@ Shannon: I think you give me too much credit. I just enjoy dissecting our world. As always, thanks for the kind thoughts.

@ Joe T.: I’m inclined to agree with you. Very few have managed to combine personal brand in pop culture with politics or vice versa. People may trust Oprah’s opinion on loving certain gadgets, but I don’t believe she has the same credibility in the political realm. I think we tend to be skeptical about celebrities and their political opinions. While some people might pay attention to Obama that didn’t before, I’m not sure even Oprah can convert that attention into votes.

By: Joe T.

Joe T. — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 06:55:13 +0000

Oprah recently declared that she’d start making personal appearances in New Hampshire and Iowa on behalf of her favorite presidential candidate, Barack Obama. I’m not sure of this, but my gut instinct is that this would have only a marginal effect on winning over voters. True, anytime a celebrity of Oprah’s magnitude appears anywhere to endorse anything, it draws attention and crowds. But I just don’t understand the thinking that voters will trust her political advice. To me, there’s almost no transferability from being a talk and lifestyle diva or guru (or whatever she is) and bread-and-butter political decisions. Not that I dislike Obama at all – he’d make a million times better president than the “resident” we’ve got now. I just don’t see how bringing Oprah in will persuade many voters.

By: Shannon Ehlers

Shannon Ehlers — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:23:57 +0000

Wow you’ve done it again. You should install a “relevance meter” widget, because I’m sure it would be registering “high” for most posts.

I’m going to forward this to my marketing round table at work and we will then be discussing several aspects of the “Oprah method” as potential “out of the box” possibilities for 2008.

Thanks for all the good stuff and keep it coming.