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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Obama's Advertising Campaign

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Modern political campaigns are marketing Superman for president. This is not to be taken literally; however, today's political campaigns methods are radically different from methods used only a decade ago. Candidate no longer are merely people but a brand-- the newest toy that Americans must have. Obama’s methods of political campaigning marked this evolution. With a new generation of voters, Obama marketed himself as if he was a product being promoted by his corporation. Before Obama, candidates logos were similar in their conventional red and blue traditional imagery. The Obama logo was carefully created as a tool that would be used to successfully market Obama. This logo was created to symbolize Obama in a single image. Through this image …show more content…
The inclusions of a nationalistic theme in a candidate's’ logo seems to be something of a requirement. And to accomplish this, the logo has a red, white and blue color theme. However, how Obama and his team manipulate this theme in their logo is anything but conventional. This logo’s main intention is to promote the brand, in this case, Obama. This is why the logo uses the letter ‘O’. Interestingly, when pronouncing Obama’s name the sound of the ‘O’ is very distinctive. So having the letter ‘O’ as the main aspect of the logo further emphasis Obama verbally (Arnon, Ben). The next step in marketing Obama is to set him apart from his other candidates. During his first election in 2008, he had to differentiate himself from McCain. To do so, Obama’s logo appears more modern-- using solid colors and simplistic forms. Obama’s campaign angle was advertising himself as being different, as being the new face of change. So, going along with Obama’s main message of change, the order of colors is not red, white and blue-- which could be seens as “typical” and “traditional”. Instead Obama’s color theme is the opposite of traditional-- blue, white and red. From a marketing point of view, Obama’s logo illustrates that while he shares many of the good qualities former candidates also possessed, he is the new face of change for a better …show more content…
Many of Obama’s election ads also reinforce this notion of Obama being very inclusive and representing all different demographics. In one of his more well known ads, “Yes We Can”, people from various backgrounds, ages, and occupations come together in a song about hope and determination. In “Politics Meets Brand Design: The Story of Obama's Campaign Logo”, in which Ben Arnon of the Huffington Post analyzes the Obama logo, art therapist Joan Kellogg is mentioned along with his theory called "Archetypal Stages of the Great Round of Mandala." "Archetypal Stages of the Great Round of Mandala" is a series of stages that reflect the stages of human life. Ms.Cox, the writer of “Politics Meets Brand Design: The Story of Obama's Campaign Logo” sees the Obama logo as symbol of the Kellogg's model stage 6 (Arnon, Ben). Stage 6 or ‘Dragon Fight’ is pictorially represented by a circle that has been split into two equal parts. This stage marks the beginning of the hero's journey. “It is a time when tension is felt between two opposing forces; the idea behind this is to confront opposites”(Arnon, Ben). Additionally, the colors red and blue are used most frequently with Kellogg’s stage 6. With all the following information in mind, one can go so far as to compare the Obama logo to the famous Superman logo. The Superman logo

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