[lbo-talk] from New Deals to New Beginnings

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Nov 30 18:54:50 PST 2008


<http://gawker.com/5100141/theyre-not-bailouts-theyre-new-beginnings>

BRANDING They're Not Bailouts, They're 'New Beginnings' By Ryan Tate, 6:11 PM on Sun Nov 30 2008, 1,171 views

Did you happen to catch Barack Obama's weekly camboy YouTube this Thanksgiving? Earnest and adorable as ever, the Office of the President Elect was unsubtle in its marketing; the word "new" appeared seven times in its 600-word speech on the economy, including two prominent instances of what appears to be the Obama administration's new catchphrase: "New Beginning." It looks like we have the much- awaited replacement term for "stimulus," "bailout" and "recovery package," all of which are despised by voters.

Packaging can be powerful, as Franklin Roosevelt learned. He included the term "new deal" as a throwaway line in his Democratic convention speech, delivered while he was trying to combine, on the spot, differing texts supplied by different advisers. But reporters immediately seized on the phrase and within a few weeks it was being rendered as the "New Deal," a powerful handle summarizing a vast array of transformative government programs in two words.

Obama seems considerably more confident in the power of branding. He is trying to convince everyone the country will have a "new beginning" with the Defense Secretary from the prior administration, a chief of staff from the administration before last, a Secretary of State who used to live in the White House and two wars and around $2 trillion in economic recovery schemes devised by the prior administration.

It's a monumental challenge, but "New Beginning" isn't a bad start, marketingwise. It certainly beats our proposed slogan, "We are still doomed, forever." Watch it in action in the video below.



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