1. Abstract
President Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns successful. It describes how his
campaigns achieved success through the Yale Five Step Developmental Model. His campaigns
are looked at from a marketing standpoint and analyzed as such. The Yale Five Step
Developmental Model helps to demonstrate how things like visual propaganda, commercials and
speaking rhetoric and, social media all played a significant role in the success of these
campaigns.

2. Analysis of Barack Obama’s Campaigns- Introduction
Two major groundbreaking political campaigns from this decade is Barack Obama’s two
presidential campaigns from 2008 and 2012. Both of the campaigns were heavily influenced by
social media, visual appeals and Obama’s speaking rhetoric during commercials, speeches and
YouTube video promotions. In this essay, I will analyze how closely Barack Obama’s campaign
strategies follow the Yale Five Step Developmental Model. The Yale Five Step Developmental
Model is a five step approach to analyzing marketing and political campaigns. Since I believe
that the two are closely connected, I will be utilizing this methodology throughout my paper. The
steps in this methodology are; identification, legitimacy, participation, penetration, and
distribution. Through this methodology, I will evaluate how these campaign tactics were used in
both of Obama’s campaigns. My research has indicated that three things were vital to the use of
Barack Obama’s campaigns which are visual appeals, speaking rhetoric, and the use of social
media.

3. Literature Review—Barack Obama’s Campaign Strategies
The first source which I am going to discuss is Barack Obama’s 2008 Campaign for U.S.
Presidency and Visual Design. This piece of literature dictates how important the use of logos
and visual aspects of advertising and campaigning were in the 2008 presidential election. It
discusses how symbolic the Obama logo was during this campaign and how it proved to be
effective. It also centers on other visual aspects of his campaign and even shows photographic
evidence so the reader can gain a better understanding of the article. In the article, a scene from
the YouTube promotion Signs of Hope and Change was depicted. This video is a significant
artifact because it shows Obama supporters rallying for his election while holding campaign
posters and other types of visual propaganda to promote his election into office. The video has a
positive feel and makes the viewer feel as if they can really change the state of the nation by
voting for Obama. It shows Americans of all backgrounds coming together to support the
presidential candidate and this gives the advertisement a sense of unity and togetherness.
The article From Eisenhower to Obama: Lexical Characteristics of Winning and Losing
Campaign Commercials is related to the YouTube promotional because it discusses how
effective or ineffective campaign commercials can be. Obviously, Obama’s commercials were
somewhat effective, considering his 2 terms. It discusses what constitutes what a “winning”
commercial is versus a “losing” commercial is. In A Time for Change and a Candidate’s Voice:
Pragmatism and the Rhetoric of Inclusion in Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign
Obama’s speaking rhetoric is discussed. This has a major influence on advertising because in his
advertising he tends to have an uplifting, positive sound to his speeches and commercial
advertisements. This article looks at how this was effective for the success of advertising during
his campaign.

4. This brings me to discuss Intertextuality, Parody, and Polyphony in Pepsi’s 2009
Presidential Inauguration Campaign. This article discusses how Pepsi may have had an
influence on Obama’s campaign and how the advertising techniques of Pepsi and Obama’s
campaigns are similar. For example, one of the points discussed is how Obama’s logo resembles
the Pepsi logo. It shows how Obama’s campaign strategies are similar to that of Pepsi. Pepsi
tends to market to a younger audience, as Obama did during his campaign. This is mentioned in
5 Ways the Obama Campaign Was Run Like a Lean Startup. This brief, yet effective, webpage
article illustrates how the campaign was effective. It summarizes his campaign into 5 major
points as it demonstrated why he was so successful. One of the main points (and probably the
most important one) discussed how the Obama campaign utilized non-traditional marketing
tactics. Obama’s campaign was based heavily on social media networking and was focused on
internet users, who tend to be of a younger generation.
In Obama’s Wired Campaign: Lessons for Public Health Communication, discusses the
effectiveness of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and how the same communication tactics
can be utilized in public health campaigns. This source is relevant because it provides good
examples of Obama’s communication techniques during his campaign such as the use of social
media, and advertising through the use of mobile phones. After this information is given, it
discusses how such things can be used in public health communications, but makes it a worthy
source because of the examples within it. The next source which gives further examples of the
use of social media in Obama’s 2008 campaign is Obama vs. McCain: How Social Media started
to change the game in ’08 featured on The Brand Builder Blog. This blog provides statistical
information regarding the campaign in 2008. It talks about how many times Obama and John
McCain were searched for on social media networks. It also presents information in graph and

5. chart format that demonstrates the average age for a twitter user. It also discusses how important
Twitter updates were during the campaign. Obama had well over 200 tweets, while McCain only
tweeted 25 times. Judging from this information, we can infer that Obama’s popularity has a
strong attachment to social media usage.
Related, Online Relationship Management in a Presidential Campaign: A Case Study of
the Obama Campaign's Management of Its Internet-Integrated Grassroots Effort discusses how
social media relationships with Obama’s target market affected the campaign. It discusses how
social media was a good tool for relationship management during the campaign and provides
examples. Part of the Public Relations Research Journal, this article demonstrates the importance
of interacting with your target public (voters, in this case). Following that article, Using New
Media Effectively: an Analysis of Barack Obama's Election Campaign Aimed at Young
Americans describes how effective social media was at grabbing the attention of the young
generations. It talks about multiple social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter and
discussed how exactly the campaigns were appealing to young people through the use of
advertising techniques. It discusses mobile phone advertising and how that also played a key role
in Obama’s campaigns.
My final, and most interesting source is an article from the New York Times. This source
compares and contrasts Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. Titled Obama 2012 v.s. Obama
2008, this article demonstrates how Obama catered to different demographics of people during
his election from a pictorial standpoint. Line graphs and bar graphs are used to demonstrate this.
Though the article is lacking written word about the differences of the two campaigns, it speaks
for itself by projecting the information in clear and easy-to-understand charts.

6. Methodology
The methodology behind my paper is going to be the Yale-5 Stage Developmental
Model. This model is divided up into five different steps, or stages. Identification, legitimacy,
participation, penetration, and distribution are the stages in which campaigns go through to make
up the Yale 5 Stage Developmental Model. Identification is how a campaign or other
organization differentiates itself from competition. This is done through the use of symbols,
colors, slogans, mottos and other things that assist consumers with identifying a company.
Legitimacy is how people are convinced if a candidate, product or organization is worthy of a
vote, purchase, or other type of investment. Participation is getting an audience to somehow
interact with said candidate or organization. This can be done through the use of providing free
samples, participating in contests, offering coupons, and engaging people to become a part of a
movement. Penetration is when the person, or product has “made it” in its industry. Basically,
when the product becomes more successful, it penetrates the market and becomes a competitive
and driving force in that market. Distribution is the final step of the Yale Five Stage
Developmental Model. This is when a campaign or movement achieves success and attempts to
stay true to the promises made to the public about the movement, product, campaign, etc. (Allen)
The Yale Five Stage Developmental model relates to my paper because it is an in-
depth way of looking at how Barack Obama’s campaigns were advertised and marketed. By
using this methodology, I will be doing further research on how exactly the campaigns gained so
much success. We know that Barack Obama’s campaigns were heavily influenced by social
media usage and word of mouth. This paper will use this methodology to further look into how
the Yale Five Stage Developmental Model was used as a driving force to gain success. I will also
be looking into how the visual aspects of his campaign were decipheed, as well as looking into

7. Obama’s speaking rhetoric and will hopefully gain a better understanding of how these things
cam impact the success of a campaign.
Analysis of Barack Obama’s Campaigns- Introduction
Two major groundbreaking political campaigns from this decade is Barack Obama’s two
presidential campaigns from 2008 and 2012. Both of the campaigns were heavily influenced by
social media, visual appeals and Obama’s speaking rhetoric during commercials, speeches and
YouTube video promotions. In this essay, I will analyze how closely Barack Obama’s campaign
strategies follow the Yale Five Step Developmental Model. The Yale Five Step Developmental
Model is a five step approach to analyzing marketing and political campaigns. Since I believe
that the two are closely connected, I will be utilizing this methodology throughout my paper. The
steps in this methodology are; identification, legitimacy, participation, penetration, and
distribution. Through this methodology, I will evaluate how these campaign tactics were used in
both of Obama’s campaigns. My research has indicated that three things were vital to the use of
Barack Obama’s campaigns which are visual appeals, speaking rhetoric, and the use of social
media.
Analysis
The first step in the Yale Five Step Developmental model is identification. This is
prevalent through Obama’s use of visual appeals. The use of logos, signage, and other visual
propaganda (buttons, t-shirts, etc.) were very influential during this step of his campaign. These
things helped voters identify who Barack Obama is, and who his supporters were, just by seeing
the Obama logo, a circular design made to look like a road going into the sun. This symbolizes
Americans going down the road to a brighter future. The logo is also effective because it is

8. shaped like a circle, which is the shape of letter “O”, which is obviously the President’s last
initial. According to the Journal of Visual Literacy (2010),
“The team’s final logo design was distinctive and intended to strike an emotional
chord with viewers. The blue “O” stands for the candidate, and the red-and-white stripes
symbolize flag and country. The stripes further represent farmland, identifying the
Illinois senator with the “heartland” of America. The white center of the “O,” rising over
the horizon of the stripes, appears to be a sunrise, denoting “a better tomorrow”
politically. The Obama logo was also adapted for various target audiences. For example,
those interested in investigating the candidate’s position on women’s issues on his Web
site saw the logo with a cross beneath it, making it into the female sign” (Seidman, 6).
Because of the distinctiveness of the logo, this helped Obama to differentiate himself from the
other candidate, which is what the identification process is all about. Visuals are also used within
the YouTube promotional, Signs of Hope and Change. This video showed normal, everyday
citizens rallying together for Obama’s election. The people in this video were shown holding up
signs with the Obama logo, and the video had an uplifting sense of unity and patriotism. This
also contributed to Obama’s differentiation in the campaigns.
The second step of the Yale Five Step Developmental Model is legitimacy. Obama’s
campaigns demonstrated his legitimacy as a candidate through the use of social media. Obama’s
campaigns were both heavily saturated in social media usage. I believe that by utilizing social
media as a marketing and networking tool, the campaigns were able to reach young voters, who
ended up making up the largest demographic of voters. Obama vs. McCain: How Social Media
Started to Change the Game in ’08 from The Brand Builder Blog is an article that demonstrates
how many times each candidate’s name was searched for in a search engine, and also discusses

9. how Twitter played a major role in Obama’s campaign. It states, that Obama was searched for in
Google 5828 more times than John McCain (Blanchard). It also states how important social
media usage was during this time by talking about how important Twitter updates were during
the campaign. It states, according to Blanchard (2010):
Take a look at the Twitter numbers (in blue): Only 25 updates for @JohnMcCain
vs. 262 updates for @BarackObama. Less than 5,000 followers for John McCain vs.
121,300 followers for Barack Obama. Boiled down to the basics: 10x more updates for
Obama = almost 25x more followers for Obama.
(Blanchard). Social media usage helped create legitimacy during the campaign by reaching out
to voters, and allowing them to interact with each other, and with the candidate. This helped to
give people an even stronger sense of unity, and helped to give the public a feeling that the
candidate really cares about them. This was especially important in the younger voting
demographic, who utilizes social media the most frequently. Another aspect that helped Obama
to create a sense of legitimacy in his campaign was his speaking rhetoric through videos,
commercials and speeches.
This aspect of his campaign was thoroughly discussed in the article A Time for Change
and a Candidate’s Voice: Pragmatism and the Rhetoric of Inclusion in Barack Obama’s 2008
Presidential Campaign. This article discusses how Obama created his persona through the use of
his voice, which added to the legitimacy of his campaign. (Cos & Jenkins, 2010)
“We believe that Barack Obama’s presidential campaign rhetoric, although
framed as a jeremiad, was pulled in a direction of pragmatism. It is this struggle that we
believe characterized Obama’s campaign discourse and created his pragmatic moral

10. voice. This rhetoric is found throughout the whole of Obama’s political, professional, and
rhetorical career. Starting with his personal narrative in Dreams From My Father to his
2004 address to the Democratic National Convention to his speech on race in
Philadelphia to his inaugural address, Obama has presented definitional arguments on
topics as broad as the American Dream, race in America, and his vision for America
under an Obama administration” (Cos & Jenkins, 186-187).
The third stage of the Yale Five Step Developmental Model is participation. Participation
is important to a campaign because it allows the public to become more intimately involved with
a cause, event, or campaign. By getting people to participate in the campaign, this can help to
gain supporters and to help spread the word of the campaign. This is exactly what Obama did
with his social media usage. He would contribute something to the social media network
(Facebook, Twitter, MySpace,etc.) and would urge voters to respond with questions, comments,
observations, or concerns that needed to be addressed. This was a great and an effective way to
get people talking on social media about Barack Obama’s campaign. Also, voters and consumers
purchased lots of Obama-themed gear during the campaign in order to support, and further his
campaign. The products included yard signs, t-shirts, buttons, posters, stickers, and tons of other
merchandise.
This brings me back to how important visual appeals were during the campaign. The
Obama logo almost turned into a brand logo, so to speak. Tons of people were wearing it, and
who knows who may have gotten caught up in the hype, just because they too, wanted to wear an
Obama logo. According to The Journal of Visual Literacy, Obama’s campaign was run very
similar to how Pepsi markets to its consumers. According to Booth& Davisson (2010)

11. The message of Obama’s political campaign can be seen as part of a larger
scheme of advertising built on the idea of change and a focus on youth markets,
and this focus can be seen as part of a moment of generational shift (Hollander &
Germain, 1992; Winograd & Hais, 2008). The placement of Obama’s campaign
within this larger scheme may help to explain the swift adoption of the concepts
behind the advertisements: they were building on principles with which audiences
were already comfortable. (Booth & Davisson, 72).
Through the use of visuals and social media networking, it was very easy for the public to
participate in Obama’s campaign. People attended speeches, rallies, and even supported from
home by wearing Obama gear and participating in Obama’s social media movement.
The fourth step of the Yale Five Step Developmental model is penetration. Penetration is
described as (n.d.) “…the point at which a person, product, or idea has ‘made it’ in the market:
that is, it has earned a meaningful share of the market, electorate, or constituency.” (Allen, 269).
In terms of Barack Obama’s campaigns, the penetration stage happened when Obama gained the
popular vote. Obama was able to connect with his audience in the form of social media, promote
his messages through his inspirational tone in his commercial advertisements, and the use of
visual propaganda on merchandise, and because of those things, he was able to achieve the
popular vote and win the presidency….twice.
The fifth and final step of the Yale Five Step Developmental Model is
distribution. Distribution is defined as (n.d.) “Having achieved the control, votes, or market share
they sought, the campaign or movement leaders must now live up to their promises in some way.
They must signal their supporters or customers that social change is going to occur or that things
like rebates and frequent user points will be forthcoming” (Allen, 269). Once Obama won the

12. presidency, the distribution stage began to take place. Obama’s campaign opted for lots of
different social changes such as: LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, healthcare, and gun laws,
among plenty of other things. Weather one views these changes as negative or positive, the
distribution stage of the process is taking place by putting new laws and policies into place. By
opting for change, which was the campaign slogan, Obama is trying to stay true to his word by
providing his people with the social changes they desire.*
Future Research
In the future, I can attempt to expand this research by not only looking at Obama’s campaign
strategies, but also by looking at his accomplishments. This may be done better once he is out of
office, and it will be easier to take a more deliberate approach. I am also interested to see how his
2008 campaign and 2012 campaign had similarities and differences. I would also be able to
further my research in such a way to better understand which of his two campaigns were most
effective. I could continue to utilize the Yale Five Step Developmental Model for this research,
and I could also analyze other political campaigns using this methodology.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns did in fact, follow the
Yale Five Step Developmental Model. This consisted of the five steps, identification, legitimacy,
participation, penetration and distribution. Because his two Presidential campaigns followed this
methodology so closely, I believe that the President had purposely planned to run his campaign
like a marketing promotion. Through my research, I learned that social media had played a huge
role in basically every aspect of his campaign. Things like visual propaganda were more
prevalent in the first four stages, while commercials and speeches were particularly important

13. just in the first two steps. The Yale Five Step Developmental Model was crucial to this research
and helped to further why exactly President Obama did certain things during the time of his
campaigns.

14. Annotated Bibliography
Artifacts
BarackObamadotcom (producer) (2008, September, 1) “Signs of Hope & Change” Campaign
advertisement posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcRA2AZsR2Q
Blanchard, O. (2008, November 07). [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/obama-vs-mccain-the-social-media-scorecard/
Research
Allen, H. (2004) Part 3 Applications of Persuasive Premises. Published by Thomson
Wadsworth. (Methodology paper)
Alexandrova, E. (2010). Using New Media Effectively: An Analysis of Barack Obama’s
Election Campaign Aimed at Young Americans. (Published master's thesis, Fordham
University), Available from academia.edu. (1526998).
http://www.academia.edu/1526998/Using_New_Media_Effectively_an_Analysis_of_Barack_Ob
amas_Election_Campaign_Aimed_at_Young_Americans
Baribeau, S. (2012, November 14). 5 ways the obama campaign was run like a lean startup.
Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/3002973/5-ways-obama-campaign-was-run-lean-
startup
New York Times. (2012, April 20). Obama 2012 vs. Obama 2008. New York Times. Retrieved
from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/21/us/politics/obama-2012-vs-obama-
2008.html?ref=politics&_r=1&

15. -This newspaper article compares how Obama’s presidential campaigns were run in 2008 vs
2012.
Lefebvre, C., & Abroms, L. (2009). Obama's wired campaign: Lessons for public health
communication. Journal of Health Communication, 14(5), 415-423. doi: EBSCOHost
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&sid=03867d28-b8ea-4ce8-91ac-
a528b39ed20a%40sessionmgr113&hid=120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db
=ufh&AN=43578353
Davisson, A., & Booth, P. (2010). Intertextuality, parody, and polyphony in pepsi's 2009
presidential inauguration campaign. Journal of Visual Literacy, 29(1), 68-87. doi: EBSCOHost
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&sid=03867d28-b8ea-4ce8-91ac-
a528b39ed20a%40sessionmgr113&hid=120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db
=ufh&AN=51841396 .
Cos, G., & Jenkins, K. (2010). A time for change and a candidate’s voice: Pragmatism and the
rhetoric of inclusion in barack obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. American Behavioral
Scientist, 54(3), 184-202. doi: EBSCOHost
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&sid=03867d28-b8ea-4ce8-91ac-
a528b39ed20a%40sessionmgr113&hid=120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db
=ufh&AN=54886266
Lowry, D., & Naser, A. (2010). Lexical characteristics of winning versus losing campaign
commercials: An exploratory analysis of campaign . American Academy of Conference
Proceedings, 90-98. Retrieved from

16. http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&sid=db926e5c-2a9a-4b88-9ae5-
2819d32e343e@sessionmgr114&hid=112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ
Levenshus, A. (2010). Online relationship management in a presidential campaign: A case study
of the obama campaign's management of its internet-integrated grassroots effort. Journal of
Public Relations Research , 22(3), 313-335. Retrieved from
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&sid=9af42c97-9c4b-4083-9f5f-
f5b7a545d3bc@sessionmgr4002&hid=4204&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==
Seidman, S. (2010). Barack obama's 2008 campaign for the u.s. presidency and visual design.
Journal of Visual Literacy, 29(1), 1-27. Retrieved from
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&sid=f714dc4d-70ed-4baf-82c1-
d197ea503a8b@sessionmgr4003&hid=4109&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==

17. An Analysis of Barack Obama’s Campaigns
Rachel A. Vretas
Capital University