ALISON STEWART, host:
OK, when you go to a restaurant and you say, I'll have a Coke, and they say, ah, you know what, we only have Pepsi. Do you become outraged? Or is...
RACHEL MARTIN, host:
Not outraged, but I am a little annoyed. I have a little bit of brand loyalty.
STEWART: See, there you go. Some people are colish, as to cola. Why does someone choose Dove soap over Ivory? Crest over Colgate? It's brand loyalty. Creating a brand can be one of the most important and challenging tasks for any new product or presidential candidate.
"The Brand Called Obama" is the name of a cover story on Fast Company, and win or lose, the building of this candidate could make for a formidable modern business model. Ellen McGirt wrote the story, and she is senior writer at Fast Company and in our studios. Thanks for coming in this morning. We appreciate it.
Ms. ELLEN MCGIRT (Senior Writer, Fast Company Magazine): Thanks for having me.
STEWART: There are a few key lessons that you write about that business could learn from Obama's rise in the marketplace, we'll call it. Let's get through a couple. Giving up some control online.
So he tapped into all these social networks, got involved in user-generated content. But he did it with a safety net by the name of Chris Hughes, let's say. Explain to people who Chris Hughes is and why he's been so instrumental.
Ms. MCGIRT: It was a very interesting choice. The campaign was able to borrow one of the founders of Facebook when they started out early on, which was a terrific coup for them and probably a great thing for Chris Hughes as well.
He has an unusual insight into what a social network is, what you can use it for and how to really pass that into things that a campaign would want, which would be votes and showing up at events and, of course, money and enthusiasm. They were able to do it early on and he had in Chris Hughes a person who understood how networks work.
The thing that the campaign did that was very, very smart was not only tap into that wisdom but really share it with other campaign organizers all across the country. So, immediately, they were able to, for example, in Iowa, back in the day, when he didn't have a lot of money or credibility, tap into already existing real networks of people and teach them exactly what they needed to know.
Where to go, if they were going to get a ride back, what a caucus was, and not only that, what the issues were and what was important to them. That, kind of, groundswell of enthusiasm caused a huge turnout and they were able to take that momentum to other places.
STEWART: Something that was interesting was that this Chris Hughes fellow, he wasn't one of the wonky guys on Facebook. He was, sort of, the emotionally intuitive guy.
Ms. MCGIRT: I know, I love that you picked up on that. I think that's actually important, and I think the wonky guys at Facebook who I also love probably have a tremendous, rich emotional life. But for the non-coders among us, for him to really understand the value of the social network, I don't know if you are Facebookers, he invented the poke feature which is just, sort of, a simple drive by, hey, I'm thinking about you, kind of thing which is so effective and so fun.
He was able to really teach other non-coders what was important about a real life social network and this is, sort of, cutting edge technology and how to use it and not be afraid of it. So he's not the only one there that knows how to do it, but I was really glad to give him the credit for it.
STEWART: His campaign and the candidate engage in what's called "adaptive leadership," which involves, sort of, active listening. I understand it has been taught in a lot of elite grad schools these days. What is adaptive leadership? And can you give us an example of how it might have been used in the Obama campaign?
Ms. MCGIRT: Sure, it really seems to fit very well with Senator Obama's actual personality, where he is more about consensus and listening. And as opposed to command and control which is coming in with your leadership ideas and your brand message and having it filter down from the top. It's a trusting of your constituents and your colleagues to develop part of the solutions themselves, as difficult as that can be.
And I think where that really came into play for the campaign is through the training of campaign organizers. There is a tremendous sense of respect for people who live in the zip codes where the campaign is coming in, to not only be able to tell the campaign what are the messages of the people there and the issues that the people there need to hear, but empower them to actually run the campaign there.
STEWART: And on a business level, you could do that with your smaller markets. Say you're a big gigantic company, you let your smaller individual leaders take care of their precincts.
Ms. MCGIRT: That's exactly right. You're deputizing people and we're seeing a whole new empowered consumer here. It's almost impossible to imagine a company that doesn't have an 800 number or a Web site. And it's impossible for a consumer to imagine that they're not going to be able to send a message and get a message back, and the campaign has been extraordinarily responsive from their Web site to the individual trainees on the ground.
STEWART: You also point out the recognition of the role of race, but not as a function of political correctness, as a function of necessity in the business world.
Ms. MCGIRT: Yes, well, you know, America is inheriting in Senator Obama a candidate and a potential president that is much more advanced just by virtue of himself than they are themselves. You know, we're looking at in corporate America representation of minorities and women at the board levels remains abysmal, at senior levels remains abysmal.
We're seeing small businesses having trouble getting capital. So there is - race remains an issue and the senator has been unusually good at, not only physically embodying that issue, but engaging us in conversation about it. I find that really encouraging.
STEWART: But also, if you are a business though, it's not about, I need to have a black guy and a Latino lady and an Asian guy because I need to fill some sort of quota. It's about what they can actually bring from their experience into the company.
Ms. MCGIRT: Quotas were really a methodology of the '60s and the '70s. And you could see a lot of backlash and a lot of resentment. Now you are seeing businesses talking about the business case of diversity, and not only just because it's the right thing to do because we all know that it is, but especially for a consumer-facing business, it really makes a big difference to know that, who are your customers?
It's important to have people who work for you at every level who represent where your customer base are. For some of the manufacturers or the non-consumer-facing businesses, they are able to see that value through just their supply chain. Their diversity in suppliers, which we talk a little bit about in the article, how important it is to be able to take huge chunks of your audience that may not necessarily be your quote, unquote, "retail customers," but demonstrate that you understand their needs as well.
STEWART: One top ad exec said about change, Obama is three things you want in any brand, new, different and attractive. That's as good as it gets. He sounds like an iPhone.
Ms. MCGIRT: When you put it that way!
STEWART: But in the political context, everybody has talked about change. Kucinich, Edwards, they've all mentioned change. What is it about the way that the Obama campaign has embraced change that the modern business model could take?
Ms. MCGIRT: I think, you know, Reagan was important in the '80s as we were leaving a post-Vietnam era. Where we've been through a lot, change is going to be on everybody's mind. But there was just something about what the Obama campaign has done is tap into a demographic shift. That was very hard to pinpoint actually, as it happened.
I was joking with David Axelrod as I'm chasing the campaign around and not getting any questions answered. Did I just wake up and suddenly it's OK for a black man to be president of the United States? I'm the same age as the senator, the same racial background. My mother wonders why I'm not running for president. Did I miss something there?
(Soundbite of laughing)
Ms. MCGIRT: And he just says Ellen, you've got to believe. And then he didn't answer any of my other questions.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. MCGIRT: But that is what I think, you know, the relief that someone has identified a moment in time, demographically, in terms of how the country is changing. That we're suddenly ready to move past some of our tortured past when it comes to race. Every business - anybody that wants to engage with consumers at any level needs to understand that America has changed and America's role in the world needs to change as well.
MARTIN: Ellen McGirt is a senior writer at Fast Company Magazine. She wrote this cover story. It's a great read. Thanks for sharing your reporting with us, Ellen.
Ms. MCGIRT: Thanks for having me.
STEWART: Hey, stay with us. Next up on the show, Robyn Hitchcock is going to come on talk about the re-release of some of his cataloged music and play a few songs for us as well. This is the Bryant Park Project from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.