Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

Barack Obama reminds me of the classic, buzz-inducing start-up enterprise wading into the market to battle the established brands.  Hillary’s the company that had a good run after an IPO, but appears to be losing market share with a one-trick pony of a product that's grown tiresome.  John McCain is an established market leader that, while not bristling with cutting-edge technology, remains the brand that makes a lot of buyers comfortable in the knowledge that buying him won’t get them fired.  Mike Huckabee?  Fervent appeal to a small, cult-like market.  

It’s interesting to hear the reactions of the established brands to the start-up. Not at all unlike the comments heard regularly in business.  Start-ups market “hope” and “change”, first to attract investors and early employees, then to go after the early-adopter category of customers.  To a certain degree, the start-up will  continue to point to "the future" to appeal to the slightly less innovative and laggard-category customers.  The established players will warn customers about the start-up's lack of experience and track record and  "untested” technology.  They will heap scorn on the start-up’s “brochure-ware” and hype -- much like Obama’s opponents will continue to dismiss his rhetoric as, well, rhetoric: “It’s all talk.” Voters and buyers may be skeptics, but they're not always unwilling to try something new. The question in the political marketplace, just as in product markets, remains how many buyers will believe that it’s different this time around?