Logo War: McCain Makes Me Feel Like A Schoolgirl In All The Wrong Ways

Anyone who grew up in public school should immediately shudder at the sight of the McCain logo. It's an uncanny rip off of the old Thomson-Peterson's textbook logo.

Remember when you had to build the diorama of Jamestown for your 6th grade history project? Your hands all bloodied from flipping through those musty pages? Your fingers sticky from the impotent glue stick?

That's exactly what the McCain candidacy has been like: a static diorama -- rigid and lifeless with a morbid romanticism for the past.

His ill-timed jokes and P.E. coach demeanor make every press conference feel like a conscripted school assembly session. All he needs do is address us as "youngsters" and I swear the next four years will be like one long after-school detention. I don't think I need to draw out this metaphor any further: McCain is a papercut-inducing textbook of suck.

Thankfully, the Obama campaign took a different tack.

It has the feel of a corporation that has branded itself as friendly, light, and accessible. Like Apple, Bank of America or Wal-Mart, Obama's campaign is a sprawling, top-down institution that wants to give off a safe, open, user-friendly vibe. The design team has done a superior job in shaping the Barack Obama brand. Right now, no other candidate has a genuine brand-logo. Looking over candidate logos, even going back twenty years, I can't find a single other instance where you can remove the candidate's face and name and still know who the logo represents.

Every politician understands that he or she is associated with some set of values, but Obama might be the first candidate to successfully market himself more as a brand than just as a name and a list of ideals. A strong brand has a unity and consistency of approach. You expect the "Apple Experience" throughout your Apple experience, from the store to the website, from the packaging to the computer or the iPod itself. The corporation's living up to brand expectation keeps people coming back for more, and it's what turns a customer -- or a voter -- into an evangelist. Whether that's progress toward what people identify with or just a more effective marketing technique is up for grabs, but I still think it's a blast of fresh air.

* to see more on the success of the Obama brand go here.

Comments

[BushBites]

McCain's logo always reminded me of the Chrysler logo.

[unitron]

Somewhere I've seen a similar logo, with those red and whites stripes used to represent plowed furrows in a farmer's field.

But I just can't remember where.

[KELLI2L]

< Some of the best leaders were dull people - and some of the worst were talkers like Obama. I have been looking high and low for a reason to support BHO but his positions on the issues keep changing so much and so fast it seems like he doesn't have a clear enough standing on the issues. Coupled with the ways he has voted in the Senate, he really does seem more like 'The Flim Flam Man' . . . . .
< I just don't have faith and trust in him as a president -

[nonconformist2]

It's really very simple:

Take a piece of paper. Write down the pros and cons for McCain and Obama. Compare.

There is no contest. Not if you are truly honest with yourself.

Remember that the president who is elected this year will effect the demeanor of the supreme court for the next 25 years. McCain has promised to appoint right wing judges.

Some of the stands that Obama has taken, I adamantly disagree with, but I can easily see the good things he offers as well. He is far from perfect, but it a fair cry from McCain.

[BushBites]

You're wasting your time.

Look at her comment history.

[PioneerKing]

I have been looking high and low for a reason to support McCain but he didn't even have the cojones to show up and cast a vote Yea or Nay on the GI Bill.

McCain lies and flip flops so much it's hard to know what he believes in.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/the-flip-flopper-on-iraq_b_111551.html

McCain is clueless on the economy and loves voting for unfair trade treaties that cause Americans to loose jobs. McCain has a habit of voting away good U.S. jobs--not to mention overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, our freedom to form unions and bargain and more.

McCain's record on working family issues, is like peeling an onion--layer after layer of hostile, Bush-esque actions and positions wrapped in McCain's camouflage as a straight-talking maverick.

McCain was a key figure in the multi-bill­ion-dollar air tanker deal to the European company EADS rather than to Boeing. McCain pushed the Pentagon to change the bidding process in a way that disadvantaged Boeing. McCain's top advisers lobbied for the award to EADS/Airbus--one of them while serving as McCain's national finance chairman. [Time magazine, 3/11/08]

Facing recession, America lost more than 70,000 jobs last month. Had Boeing been awarded the air tanker deal, it would have supported at least 44,000 new and existing jobs here in the United States, many of them good union jobs.
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain.cfm

[MikeDu]

i believe his logo used to be on a green background (at least for an event) until someone noticed that with the spiky letters used it looked eerily like the Saudi national flag.

[BADEN]

Nailed it.

I KNEW I wasn't the only one with that creepy creeepy retro feelings

Oh, those 'good ol' days" of...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lW4s7TETtJA

[GuyRC]

McCain, and his logo, capture the essence of the Republican Party as well. Kudos to both candidates.

[jungpatawan]

McCain is a Commodore VIC-20, which was superceded by the Commodore 64 when McCain was the same age that Obama is now.

JP