Brand Mix

Here's my summary of interesting things I read (or saw) this last week. It's all about Obama this time:

1) The inauguration speech: (via Thought Gadgets)

Brandy Agerbeck's beautiful illustration of the inauguration speech. (Full text with some branding thoughts from The BrandBuilder here)

2) Search findings from the U.S. presidential inauguration: Google (via SmartMobs)
All eyes were on Obama's speech. Google reportd that the overall volume of U.S. Google searches dropped significantly from the time President Obama took the oath of office until the end of his inaugural speech. Something we might have expected but now actually provable.

3) When did the president lose his drawl? Grant McCracken
By drawl, Grant means: "You know that way he had during the campaign of hitting the word hard in the first syllable and then letting up as he approached the end of the world. Kind of like a fade jump shot. In like a lion and out like a lamb." He speculates that the "office makes the man."

4) Manifest Hope Gallery: DC: The Denver Egotist (via BrandFlakesForBreakfast)

Photo: Cliff/Nostri Imago

Obama's presidential campaign unleashed an explosion of art projects including the famous Hope poster from Shepard Fairey, now inducted into the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Quite a change for a guy with 14 street art related arrests (including one at last year's Democratic convention in Denver where his posters were prominently displayed).

5) change begins at home: BrandFlakesForBreakfast

IKEA's vision of a redecorated White House is on display at Union Station in Washington DC. But if you don't like this selection, this IKEA site allows you to create your ideal Oval Office. With all the affairs of state, I don't think Obama has the time to be messing around building his own IKEA furniture.

6) Other links you might enjoy
Dave Barry was invited to participate in the parade as part of the World Famous Lawn Rangers of Amazing Arcola. See his report here. Nancy Friedman pulled together a few other links in this post including a link to some word clouds created by ReadWriteWeb that compare Obama's speech to those of former presidents as well as her earlier post about all the "Barackollectibles" available (like Orange "You Glad for Change" Soda from Jones Soda). And finally a link to all 44 presidents seamlessly morphing from one to the next

That's it. See you next week for more stories from the world of brand strategy.