Like most people in marketing and communications, I’m captivated by the election season.  The time, money and STRATEGY thrown into creating an image for a presidential campaign is unparalleled by any other marketing and communications endeavor. 

My friend and colleague Shannon Delaney is totally immersed. Of the election season she says “THIS IS MY FOOTBALL.” I couldn’t agree more.  (Note: look for a guest editorial from Shannon in the upcoming issue of Direct Magazine; she discusses the good and bad about digital marketing in political campaigns.)

Like every other election, the candidates and their teams hungrily utilize every medium at their disposal to reach the masses.  But, in my opinion, the candidates in this election season have done an exceptional job of incorporating emerging marketing into their campaigns - LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and even mobile marketing. These are now heavily leveraged alongside other more commonplace digital mediums such as websites, blogs and email marketing. 

We all know how powerful social media can be in building reputation. As business and consumer marketers, we see this pretty much every day in campaigns created online for well known brands (and even lesser known brands – which is what makes this medium so powerful).  Political marketers understand that these same tactics can be used very successfully to build community, encourage conversation and build relationships that support their campaigns.  Both pro and anti candidate messages are fueling an election season like we’ve never seen before.

I could blog for pages about the marketing and PR strategies used to build the images of these candidates, and to deliver and shape their messages.  Instead, I’ll just say – take the time to make this election season your football.  You just might take away a few tricks to use in your own marketing and communications plans.

As the election heats up … check out these blogs for some political and marketing commentary:

• Campaign Freak: AdWeek’s political blog. 
• Campaign Trail: AdAge’s political blog.
• YouTube’s Political Vlog & their blog CitizenTube
• Campaign Junkie: by Slate.
• The Caucus: The New York Time’s political blog.
• Political Browser: The Washington Post’s blog.