Designing a president: Obama v McCain
America’s historic presidential contest isn’t all politics. The power of design, social networking and branding could all prove to be influential factors, says Paul Simpson
If designers’ votes swung presidential elections, Barack Obama, the first African-American to be nominated for the office by a major party, would beat John McCain, the 88th white American male to be so nominated, by a landslide.
Alice Rawsthorn, doyenne of design journalism, says: “The best-designed US presidential candidate is Barack Obama. Every aspect of his visual identity has been masterfully conceived and executed to depict Obama as perfect presidential material.” Such sentiments are echoed across the design blogosphere.
The historic 2008 race for the White House isn’t purely about parties or ideology, it is also a battle of brands – Obama’s crisply defined, McCain’s usefully amorphous – in which design is a potent weapon. Though this contest will hardly feature in election coverage, it may decide the outcome.
Let’s start by defining the candidates’ brands. Jon McLeod, chairman of UK Public Affairs for global PR group Weber Shandwick, explains: “Obama’s brand is clean, clear and consistent. He is the challenger brand – the Apple to McCain’s Microsoft. Differentiation is part of his strategy. The rhetoric – “dare to hope” and “change we can believe in” – is challenging but strong, with echoes of JFK.”
Obama’s brand is clean, clear and consistent. There are echoes of JFK but he’s the challenger, the Apple to McCain’s Microsoft
In contrast, McLeod says McCain’s brand is “firmly in the American comfort zone: earthy, rural, middle American, homespun, yet strong in an uncertain world. McCain’s branding resembles NATO, but there’s a bit of country and western and John Wayne in there, too.”
These stances are reflected, at their simplest, by their typography. McCain’s preferred fonts, Optima and Eurostile, were invented in the 1950s and 1960s. Obama has chosen Gotham, created eight years ago for GQ, whose cover Obama has graced. American designer Brian Collins says urban, urbane Gotham is perfect: “In [‘casual’ font] Comic Sans, the word ‘Change’ feels lightweight and silly. In Times Roman it is self-important. In Gotham, it feels right. Inspiring, not threatening.”
Picking a typeface is relatively easy. Using design to define and control a candidate’s brand is more complex. Indeed, in a campaign that must span print, broadcast and the internet, absolute consistency may be impossible.
Even so, British designer David Hillman is underwhelmed by the McCain and Obama posters, websites, T-shirts, badges, baseball caps and mugs. “There is no imagination – instead of a mug, why not an Obama memory stick? – and little consistency,” he comments. “Obama does have a red, white and blue theme, alluding to the old Kennedy posters, yet some branding makes him look like 1950s Castro and others a preacher. But he has a clever logo, with the sun rising over the stars and stripes inside the letter O.” That logo has been adapted for all 50 states and for most minority groups – from kids to lesbians and native Americans – wrapping his message of change in a patriotic colour scheme.
Hillman is even less impressed by McCain’s campaign. “They’ve boldly broken out of red, white and blue to use black and yellow on their campaign logo and some badges, but it’s just not followed through. The website reverts back to the red, white and blue.” There is a blue logo, inspired by the uniform McCain once wore as a naval officer, but the black and yellow version looks like an uptight tweak of the McCain Oven Chips logo. And black, for a candidate who is 72, is a surprisingly funereal choice.
Typography and logos can seem like so much fluff but design makes a tangible difference online. In the primaries, Obama beat Hillary Clinton on the internet. Her website treated visitors as ‘customers’, giving them a unique reference number when they donated. Obama hired Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook, and used the social networking model, inviting enthusiasts to climb a league table by earning points for hosting events or raising money.
Guided by Hughes, Obama has also launched Mybarackobama.com, the first ‘official’ social network site devoted to a political campaign. Clinton’s campaign struggled for funds. Obama raised £2.2m from his website in one weekend. And, as election day nears, he is raising more funds than McCain, despite the Republican using the league table model on his site.
The effectiveness of the campaigns’ online presence could be crucial in other ways. McLeod points out: “In 2004, Bush inspired a small, active minority, the Christian right, which made the difference with its enthusiasm and turnout. Branding, marketing and the internet are a vital way of communicating channelled nuances and messages to these groups. Their levels of enthusiasm could decide a tight election.”
Obama will try to brand McCain as George Bush III. But McCain will position himself as a safer change than Obama
As the race tightens, both candidates will try, he claims, to brand their rival. “Obama will brand McCain as George Bush III. McCain will position himself as a meaningful change, suggesting that voters don’t need to risk the inexperienced Obama and that, with economic troubles at home and uncertainty abroad, the wisest change is McCain.”
Obama will try to cast this election as a choice between the past (McCain) and future (Obama). If he wins, McCain will be the oldest US president to be elected. Consultants say that his age is a recurring worry in focus groups.
James Boys, the British historian who worked as an aide in Washington and has written extensively about US politics, says: “American voters base their decision on personality – who they’d rather go for a drink with. Every successful candidate has taken a leaf out of Kennedy’s book – to win you have to play up personality, family, wrap yourself in the flag.”
In 1960, JFK was, in Rawsthorn’s phrase, “the best designed presidential candidate.” A young war hero (with more movie-star charisma than Ronald Reagan), he was packaged as a dynamic, glamorous, intellectual alternative to Richard Nixon. The uneasy heir to popular Republican president, Eisenhower, Nixon’s shifty persona was captured by a poster that asked: “Would you buy a used car from this man?”
Because JFK remains one of the most popular presidents, Dan Quayle, Gary Hart and Bill Clinton have all tried to bask in his reflected glory. But Obama packaging himself as the new JFK, peaking with a rally in Berlin where Kennedy once made an historic speech, is an attempt to invoke a presidential precedent in favour of youth and change. Boys says Obama’s strategy isn’t new: “Sound bites are briefer today. You must convey your message faster, so it can be easier to stand in front of a flag and look like a popular president of 40 years ago. In 1992, George Bush Sr ran as the new Harry Truman, though the two had nothing in common.”
Bush lost. His campaign was defined not by a brand, but a gesture that offered a rare insight into the person behind the persona. During a crucial TV debate, Bush was caught on camera looking at his watch, as if he had better things to do than convince America to vote for him. Such a moment may yet decide this historic election.
As Obama and McCain contest the 56th presidential election, the management theory that a charismatic CEO can make all the difference is increasingly being questioned. But whatever Harvard Business Review might say about new styles of leadership, Americans expect their commander-in-chief to be branded as a ‘strong leader’.
At their most clichéd, such expectations are reflected in presidents’ physical presence: seven of the past 11 have been 6ft or above. Obama is 6ft 1in. McCain, at 5ft 7in, would be the shortest occupant of the White House since the 1840s (and the first follicly challenged one since the 1970s).
This all sounds absurd but when you’re creating a presidential brand, every detail counts.
How recessions shaped four presidential elections
1840 Harrison
The panic of 1837, in which British investors stopped investing in US banks because interest rates had risen at home, led to the closure of four out of 10 US banks and unemployment on a mass scale. Voters blamed Democrat president Martin van Buren for not intervening and he lost the 1840 election to William Harrison, who died after a month in office.
1932 Roosevelt
Incumbent Herbert Hoover won less than 40% of the vote as the Great Depression bit deep and voters, who were fed up with two years of assurances that “the worst is over”, elected Franklin Roosevelt instead.
1980 Reagan
Stagflation, US diplomats held hostage in Iran, and the Washington Post headline “President attacked by rabbit” branded Jimmy Carter as a weak leader. Ronald Reagan won with a promise to cut taxes and trim government.
1992 Clinton
In a contest with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot, George Bush Sr’s perceived indifference to ordinary voters’ suffering in the 1990-91 recession gave Clinton the edge.
Brand extension
Obama's colours and message pay homage to the optimism of JFK and Reagan.
Barack Obama: Democrat
Brand he most resembles
Apple
Other brand he evokes
His T-shirt recalls Bob the Builder: “Can we fix it? Yes we can”
Design agencies
Simple Scott/Sender
Preferred typeface
Gotham, a sans serif face created in 2000 by Tobias Frere Jones
He’d most like to be
The new JFK
At worst, he could be
The new Adlai Stevenson: 1950s Democrat who inspired millions and lost by a landslide
Actor he most resembles
Dignified, liberal Sidney Poitier
Most off-message Facebook group
“Every clueless person I know likes Obama”
John McCain: Republican
Brand he most resembles
NATO
Other brand he evokes
His ‘Integrity’ logo is very similar to the late, unlamented Intercity brand
Design agency
The Spalding Group
Preferred typeface
Optima, invented in the 1950s and 1960s/ sans serif Eurostile
He’d most like to be
The new Reagan
At worst, he could be
The new Nixon who, in 1960, stood as a safe pair of hands and lost to a glamorous young Democrat called JFK
Actor he most resembles
John Wayne
Most off-message Facebook group
“John McCain is a decrepit old turtle”
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 5, Winter 2008
Pictures credits:
Barak Obama: Joseph Foley / ABACA USA / PA photos
John McCain: Jay Laprete, LANDOV, PA Photos