Obama, the ‘marketer of the year’ in 2008, caught in a marketing mess

Last year, Advertising Age gave Barack Obama the title of “marketer of the year” for his campaign’s “fast-thinking, highly adaptable machine quick to marry the best of old campaigning methods with the newest.” However, the president’s communications approach to healthcare reform is threatening this marketing royalty. “[The Obama administration] never clearly defined the message; it let surrogates control the debate; it clumsily used the wrong tactics at the …