CNN Gets Bump from Obama-bilia
A spontaneous and immediate by-product of Sen. Barack Obama’s successful presidential run is the run on merchandise that’s entering a potentially hot, post-election phase after enjoying a typically tacky campaign phase that produced lots of forgettable memorabilia.
There are those cigarette lighters with the caricature of a grinning, goofy-looking Obama, and the Lucite paperweight with a smiling, squint-eyed, far-seeing Obama peering through it, and the Obama combo pen knife, scissors, bottle opener and key chain with his smiling photo over his “Yes We Can” slogan. My personal favorite is the glow-in-the-dark Obama refrigerator magnet.
It may not be a new revenue stream for CNN.com, but the web unit of cable news network took orders for 5,000 t-shirts emblazoned with the website’s headline. “Obama inspires historic victory,” hours it was posted at 11:04 p.m. on election night. That was underscored with “I saw it on CNN.com,” along with the date and time it was posted.
So CNN.com doubled the number of similar headline t-shirts it had sold since it started the marketing move in April with an application from The Barbarian Group. The fast $75,000 CNN.com made is the leading edge on the sort of merchandising and marketing gewgaws the imminent inauguration of President Obama promises to give us, ready or not.
First editions of major U.S. newspapers were selling briskly on eBay for $100 apiece the day after they were printed.
The Obama brand of the young, self-possessed, inspirational leader telling us a new day has arrived in American politics is an echo of John Kennedy, who famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” in his inaugural address. And as Kennedy took office, a cottage industry was born, cranking out special issues of magazines, tapestries that bore the president’s stitched image, figurines and two comedy albums by Kennedy impersonator Vaughn Meader.
Like the Kennedys, the Obamas are a photogenic family with two grade school kids and a promised new pet dog in tow. And everything this president does will be the first time a black chief executive has done it.
If you act now, you can get an Obama mask for about $15 - advertised as a 40% discount - and a six-inch Obama action figure for $14.99, which could go up if he really turns out to be an action president.
It may be a short honeymoon, but the first 100 days figure to be a marketing frenzy of Obama-bilia that will transcend the mundane of mere t-shirts.
