Well, just as the G20 was arriving in London, I was flying out. I’d already caught the “Obama Show” live in Washington, D.C., at the inauguration. And while I was bummed to leave the city, it was time to head east to the land of my ancestors. Sort of the land of my ancestors, because when the Schwartz family was hanging in Kiev, it was part of Russia. Revolutions and machinations later, it’s now Ukraine. (And revolutions and machinations later, the Schwartzes wound up in Brooklyn, New York, City and Boca Raton, among other places.)

Back to the trip.

The flight from London is a little over 4 four hours. By the time you wake up, you can look out the window and swear you are flying over Michigan on your way to Detroit metro.

Gray skies, brown trees, white snow. Welcome to the land where they formerly sported CCCP jerseys. Welcome to Mockba!

On the ground at Domodedovo Airport, immigration is a little chaotic. 350 people. Five grumpy passport inspectors. No formal lines. Ah, the joys of international travel. By the way, if you’re looking for a taxi, this is the place to be. No less than 30 guys came up to me and simply said, “Taxi?” “Taxi?” “Taxi?”

Unlike LAX, this airport had my luggage at the carousel. (By the way, just a reminder…DON’T CHECK THE WORK. You can lose your underwear, you can lose your suit; but the creative flies in the overhead bin–no matter where you are.) Fortunately, we’re going to present everything on keynote and pdf, so we’re safe.

On to Moscow.

The drive into the city is like any drive from airport to city. You start rural, you see some scattered homes, and as you get closer, your start to see our familiar urban life come alive.

By the way, on the drive into Moscow, you’ll see some spectacular Russian Orthodox churches. Amazing, orb-like forms of cerulean blue–so distinctly Russian. There’s also your fair share of big-box stores and strip malls. If you looked out quickly, without thinking, you’d swear you were on Queens Boulevard.

Things get really exciting as you start to see the Moscow River and some amazing architecture. It’s what the Russians call the “Stalinist Skyscrapers.” Gothic, yet so uniquely Soviet.

My heart then began to skip a few beats when I started to see Red Square unfold. The brick wall around it is imposing and magnificent. I saw several soldiers parading in their distinctive olive-colored coats with red accents.

Then, out of nowhere, St. Basil’s Church just explodes with color and energy. Its truly incredible “onion” domes lifting your spirit and beckoning you to take a closer look. Hopefully, I’ll get the chance after our meetings.

Checked in and had an excellent Armenian dinner with some colleagues from our TBWA\RUSSIA team and our TBWA\CENTRAL ASIA team, which is based in Kazakhstan (not to be confused with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan.)

Armenian cuisine? Excellent. Great cheese, eggplant salad and kebabs – your choice of chicken, lamb and beef. Yummy rice too and Russian beer.

Kazakhstanian cuisine? Let’s just say TBWA\CA managing director, Shukhrat Shipulin, made a pretty interesting case for “kazy” (aka horsemeat.) Of course, if you think kazy sounds crazy, don’t try the “karta.” Apparently, it’s made with ingredients from a horse’s rectum.

Tomorrow, we learn all about the Russian market, which is critical for Visa. Lots of creative opportunity, and I’ll take copious notes, I promise.

By the way, if you want to learn more about the great city of Moscow, go here. To learn more about Kazakhstan, go here.

Thanks for reading.

Rob Schwartz is the ECD of TBWA\CHIAT\DAY in Los Angeles. 
This is the first of an occasional series of his comings and goings.

If you have any comments or suggestions please email Rob Schwartz.

10 key learnings from the fastest growing brand in 2008 and the CEO of the USA by Frank Striefler (TBWA\MAL) and edited by Mark Tungate.

The astonishing rise of the Obama brand has become a blueprint for every marketer. His campaign is a case study in marketing excellence that earned him the title “Marketer of the Year” from the trade magazine Advertising Age. 

mad-blog.com presents exclusively the ten key lessons to take away from his campaign:

7. FOSTER CO-CREATION AND GIVE UP SOME CONTROL:

Obama enjoyed a “co-creation” advantage – the passionate support of creative people. Their independent viral marketing impact was phenomenal. It’s hard to think of a political candidate who has inspired so much creativity.

The user-generated viral video “I got crush on Obama” featured a young woman breathlessly singing her love for the presidential candidate. Visitors to YouTube watched Obama Girl’s amusing and risqué performance more than 60 million times.

The “Yes We Can“ music video was conceived by Black Eyed Peas front man will.i.am and director Jesse Dylan. It featured a star-studded cast, including John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Common, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, Nick Cannon and many more. The video and song were put together out of their own volition and not in concert with the Obama campaign. It achieved 11 million views and cost the campaign nothing.

Another prominent example of co-creation was the limited-edition print created by Los Angeles graphic designer Shephard Fairey. He used the proceeds from sales to finance a guerilla poster campaign. In addition to popping up on many streets, the image made its way onto bumper stickers, T-shirts and so on. 

Was Obama happy with all this unauthorized messaging? We don’t know. But he understood the first principle of co-creation: If you want them to do a job for you, you have to accept that they are in charge.

8. USE BIG MEDIA WHEN YOU HAVE BIG TASKS:

For all his mastery of new media, Obama also used also the old-fashioned route to the White House: he out-spent McCain 3-to-1 on TV advertising. 

Obama’s estimated record-breaking TV spend of US$250 million not only dwarfs that of McCain, but that of any previous election, and even the advertising budgets of big spenders like Gap. Anyone watching television during the closing weeks of the campaign knew that Obama’s air war was dominant. Nearly seven in 10 voters said they had seen Obama ads compared to 44 percent who could recall a McCain commercial. 

One week prior to Election Day, Obama turned up the heat with a prime-time 30-minute infomercial shown across most major TV networks. The half-hour simulcast was an extraordinary climax to his media blitz. Channel flippers had a hard time avoiding the ad because it was seemingly everywhere.

If you want to read lesson one through three, click here. For lesson four through six, here.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Frank Striefler (frank@mediaartslab.com).

10 key learnings from the fastest growing brand in 2008 and the CEO of the USA by Frank Striefler (TBWA\MAL) and edited by Mark Tungate.

The astonishing rise of the Obama brand has become a blueprint for every marketer. His campaign is a case study in marketing excellence that earned him the title “Marketer of the Year” from the trade magazine Advertising Age. 

mad-blog.com presents exclusively the ten key lessons to take away from his campaign:

4. KEEP IT SIMPLE AND STAY POSITIVE:

Obama’s team understood that his message needed to cut through the clutter. “Keep it simple ” is a cliché, but it works. If you ask any Obama supporter to define what Obama stands for, you will always get the same answer: “hope and change“.

While Obama was often attacked for being vague about the details, he made sure that his brand first met the emotional needs of his customers, before providing specifics. He didn’t let the “noise” on the campaign trail interfere with the “signals” he wanted to send. 

Obama understood that politics was about more than just rational argument, it was about emotional connection. People want to be inspired. 

Obama always stayed positive, no matter the twists, turns, and psychodramas from the other candidates or the media. In that way, he stayed above his rivals.

5. THINK AND WORK BOTTOM-UP:

Obama wanted to make sure that his campaign was consistent with his philosophy of “ground up” rather than “top down”. When he was a political organizer, Obama had seen how a grassroots campaign could succeed. The internet allowed him to form an electronic grassroots, or netroots. He reached millions, built a formidable war chest and mobilized a dedicated army of supporters. 

Online communities have become the place where billions of people of every age, social rank, and ethnicity hang out, where decisions are made about what to think, where to go and what to buy. The Obama brand was the creation of the community rather than of media or advertising. 

6. MASTER MEDIA AND EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY:

Obama was the digital candidate while McCain was the analog candidate. 

BarackObama.com beat the 24-hour media cycle with dynamic updates and offered a digital toolbox that allowed users to get involved. But the social media strategy of the Obama camp extended far beyond his site. His image and messages were everywhere on the web. His team not only created content for Web 2.0 sites, they also designed it to suit each individual site and its viewers. 

Email marketing was fully integrated with these tools. “Be the first to know” was the email campaign theme, asking voters to sign up for exclusive email and mobile alerts. Obama‘s iPhone application transformed the phone into a campaign instrument to mobilize and inform supporters. Real time campaign updates on twitter made Obama the most followed person on this ever-growing microblogging service. 

On YouTube, Obama staff constantly put up hundreds of cheaply and rapidly produced videos. Footage of events was edited from multiple cameras and uploaded, often only 20 minutes later. Toward the end of the campaign, they were being uploaded at a rate of 20 or more a day. Obama’s YouTube channel became a controlled media outlet. And he continues to use YouTube for his weekly addresses – a radical departure from Bush’s weekly radio address. 

His message also appeared on billboards in 18 online video games, driving traffic to VoteForChange.com. 

In the end, Obama’s familiarity with the most advanced new media technologies provided a huge advantage over his opponents. 

For the next learnings, please come back tomorrow.

If you want to read lesson one through three, click here.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Frank Striefler (frank@mediaartslab.com).

10 key learnings from the fastest growing brand in 2008 and the CEO of the USA by Frank Striefler (TBWA\MAL) and edited by Mark Tungate

The astonishing rise of the Obama brand has become a blueprint for every marketer. His campaign is a case study in marketing excellence that earned him the title “Marketer of the Year” from the trade magazine Advertising Age. 

Over the next four days mad-blog.com will present exclusively the ten key lessons to take away from his campaign:

1. LEAD WITH HUMILITY AND ALWAYS STAY COOL

Obama exemplified a new way of thinking that meets the demands of leadership in a complex world: “Adaptive Leadership“. While a visionary puts forth a specific plan to be implemented, an adaptive leader works with constituents to devise one together. The goal is to get your employees to tell you how they would improve your company. The less constrained they feel, the more you’re going to learn and the more your organization will benefit. 

Humility is the sign of a confident leader confident. It never hurts to be friendly, informal and accessible – a touch of human warmth wins hearts and trust. 

But the indispensable quality of a leader is his cool: his calm rationality, steadiness under pressure and ability to control strong emotions. Bottom lines and share prices can depend on the leader who never loses his or her temper. 

2. BE A GAME CHANGER AND PLAY BY YOUR OWN RULES

Whether it’s in business or politics, we are all comfortable in the middle of the road. You can’t beat your rivals by sticking to the old rules. To grow, you have to invent a new game and beat them at that, too. Change the rules of the game where you can. 

Obama didn’t accept any campaign contributions from large companies or lobbyists. He tapped the power of the small time donor through the Internet and went on to win the nomination. His fundraising methods and strategy of foregoing government funding have changed the future of American electoral campaigns. 

Brilliant marketers don’t just fight for a bigger share of the pie. They expand the pie by bringing new consumers into the market. 

3. CARVE OUT AN AUTHENTIC & RELEVANT POSITIONING AND STICK TO IT

Obama made and delivered a simple, consistent and aspirational promise: “change”. He coupled that with an empowering call to action, “yes we can.” By appealing to both the rational desire for change and the emotional need for hope, Obama presented his brand as a movement.

For Obama, however, “change” was more than a political slogan. He could not have been elected if he had not embraced and embodied the change he promised. Too many companies lurch from one strategy to the next, one consulting fad to another, because, deep down, their leaders don’t really understand what makes them different, better, and special. When you understand that, it gives you the confidence to stick to your positioning and strategy.

Check for more learnings tomorrow on mad-blog.com.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Frank Striefler (frank@mediaartslab.com).