Seth Godin says that his votes for the top two marketers of the year are politicians. Ron Paul, a Republican, and Barrack Obama, a Democrat.
Obama has an outside chance of making Seth's prediction have teeth, but Ron Paul? I think of him as the rich man's Mike Gravel.
Democrats assessing the Republican race for President point with great excitement at Paul, mainly because he disagrees with many Republican beliefs. Similarly, Republican supporters just love Joe Lieberman, the conservative, independent-minded turncoat Democrat.
I think Ron Paul will fade fast. He wasn't going to garner much support, either in 
Iowa or other states. The fact that he has raised money - significant amounts of it - online speak mainly to being outside of most of the traditional money in the race. His only option was to garner support online, and a majority of that support comes from other Libertarians (the party that Paul identifies most with, politically and idealogically).
Obama? His marketing is more about an effective and enthusiastic ground support network in Iowa. If he loses there, I'm not sure if all the creative marketing in the world can re-inflate his campaign.
I'm not that thrilled, or impressed, with Seth's choices for marketer of the year. But we'll let the caucusers in Iowa have the final vote on how effective their marketing was...
I didn't say they were the candidates of the year! Obama has raised more than $100,000,000. He's a front runner. How? Using old marketing techniques and the old boy network? Nope.
And Ron Paul has ideas far far outside the mainstream. And yet... and yet here he is, raising money and getting talked about.
Both overcame huge odds and got on the radar. That's the marketing part. The political part I'll leave to others.
Posted by: Seth Godin | January 1, 2008 5:39 AM | Permalink to Comment