Regardless of your political affiliation, if you watched Barack Obama’s victory rally late Tuesday evening, you had to be impressed. More than 100,000 people crowded Chicago’s Grant Park in a peaceful, orderly show of support for the President-elect.
It was unseasonably warm in Chicago, making it easier to weather the four-to-five hours most spent waiting for what everyone assumed would be a rousing victory speech. Grant Park, the home of the Lollapalooza music festival, was once the stage to multiple Chicago Bulls victory celebrations, and this crowd was just as diverse, and perhaps even more dedicated to Obama than they were to Michael Jordan.
In truth, the two have a lot in common. Jordan changed the way athletes are marketed. Obama is the first modern politician with his own brand name.
The two Chicago émigrés, along with Obama fanatic Oprah Winfrey, have built perhaps the strongest personal brands in the country, if not the world. The global reach of Chicago, the longtime advertising hub, has helped each of them gain international appeal, and the city never looked better than it did on Tuesday night. The United States Olympic Committee, and its Windy City champions, must be glowing, and the rival Tokyo contingent shaking.
The rise of the aspirational Obama brand will be studied for decades in colleges and business programs, and I’d imagine his “team” will make a strong, secondary income from book deals, speaking engagements and teaching posts. While the “Bush” brand has been sullied quite a bit over the last few years (I think McCain’s brand image is still strong in some circles, dead in others), Obama’s is probably as strong as any President's since JFK.
Last Tuesday, a few hours before polls closed, I was discussing brand identity with Lou DePaoli, the new EVP/Chief Marketing Officer of the Pittsburgh Pirates. With a baseball-record 17th-straight losing season on the horizon, and attendance at beautiful PNC Park near the bottom of the league, DePaoli has his work cut out for him. The Pirates brand is simply not strong in Pittsburgh. The Steelers brand is dominant and the Penguins' resurgent. In the last decade, Pitt basketball has even upstaged the once-beloved Buccos.
So DePaoli needs to create as much excitement as he can, without any control over the team on the field. The team has been marketing the ballpark experience since PNC Park opened in 2001, but after the first season there (and it was a dreadful affair), the Pirates have been hovering below the 25,000 mark. How can anyone market this team? For one, DePaoli is hiring more ticket sales executives to “hit the streets” and push the product. To bolster sales, the Pirates are cutting season-ticket prices by 25 percent in four sections that comprise about 35 percent of available seating. These packages range from $399 to $999. Other tickets are staying at 2008 pricing.
The Pirates hope this olive branch to their long-suffering fans will help bolster their relationship. DePaoli, who had most recently headed the Atlanta Spirit’s multi-pronged marketing operations, was pretty unfamiliar with the market when he began negotiations to move to the Steel City. One thing he noticed, and did not like, was the multitude of different Pirates hats worn by fans at games. That sounds antithetical to someone who wants to move product, right? After all, sports teams are famous for creating multiple jerseys and hats, and the Pirates have been one of the worst offenders. DePaoli said he plans on limiting the variety of Pirates hats, because he wants the team to push its traditional black cap with the gold P. It’s a clean look and it should reinforce the notion that the Pirates have a long and proud history, and hopefully a better future.
“I’m not a genius but that brand has been established for 122 years (the club was founded in 1882),” he said.
Here’s hoping things improve soon for the National League stalwart.
South Side Pride
One organization that was especially interested in the election was the Chicago White Sox. The Sox aren’t Chicago’s team, but they are the South Side’s team, and Hyde Park resident Obama is a self-proclaimed White Sox fan. The new “First Fan” has personal relationships with the team’s Vice President of Communications Scott Reifert and General Manager Kenny Williams, and the team has invited Obama to throw out the first pitch in the season opener.
White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf hedged his support, donating money to Obama and John McCain in the past two years, but he definitely recognizes the need to support the Chicago politician and link his brand with Obama. When a picture of Obama wearing an old Sox hat was published earlier this year, the chairman instructed Reifert, who also lives in Hyde Park (along with this guy) and whose children go to school with Obama’s kids, to send the candidate a new one.
“When I’ve dropped kids off for play dates, when he has stopped by our house or when he drops the kids off at school, he is ALWAYS wearing his Sox cap,” Reifert wrote in an e-mail. “A few months ago, Jerry Reinsdorf saw a photo of the Obama family riding bikes on the lakefront. Barack was wearing his tattered Sox hat and Jerry ordered me to get him a newer version. I delivered two new hats only to be told, ‘We doubt there is any way we can get that old one off his head.’ ”
In the first few pictures taken of the President-elect following his win, he was seen wearing a simple black Sox hat as he went to work out. On Monday, he was still wearing the Sox cap as he dropped his kids off at school and headed to Washington D.C. to meet with President Bush. Considering the White Sox don’t have a glut of famous fans, this is quite a coup for Chicago’s “second team.”
“We talk a great deal about pride in being a White Sox fan, “Sox Pride,’” Reifert wrote. “What better example than to have President-elect Barack Obama -- who symbolizes great accomplishment, new hope and intense pride for so many Americans -- speak up on behalf of ‘his’ team during the campaign and then show his passion by donning his well-worn ballcap the morning after his election.
“Can you imagine the party we will have if we are ever fortunate enough to again visit the White House as World Series Champions during his Administration?”
