Custodians name Obama brand ambassador

America is a terrific country. Yesterday (to me), it wasn’t. It was a terrible country. The USA was a bully, a warmonger, an irresponsible spendthrift, it was greedy, arrogant, self-centred and a country on the wane.

What’s changed?

The brand ambassador.

With Barack Obama as President (as we file this he's cross the magic number) all the virtues of Obama rub off onto the country that he has been elected to govern.
The USA thus becomes a statesman, a peacenik, responsible, caring, considerate, responsive.

The USA itself hasn’t changed; these are the qualities that Obama projects.

Qualities that the American electorate seems to have bought into.

This brand ambassador-brand relationship is more complex than we see in marketing. The brand ambassador is the tail that wags the dog; not the other way around. Once in place, the brand is clay in the hands of the potter, moulded to become whatever the brand ambassador decides it becomes.

And, as of yet, Obama has done absolutely nothing but get elected to the post.
Yet, the image of the brand has changed, instantly.

That’s the power of this particular brand ambassador – the President of the United States of America .

And the election of the new brand ambassador has deep ramifications.

I’m no economist; I know little or nothing about the stock market (I haven’t bought or sold a share in my life).

Yet, I know (and this is but one example to illustrate the point) and understand enough to believe that the stock prices of all the companies that profit from a long drawn Iraq war (or any war, if you will) are in for a beating.

Because Obama (from this moment; he's just been announced president of America ) and America will stand for a speedy pull out of Iraq , for negotiations with Iran and with N Korea , for a non-military solution to the Middle-east issues, and so on. Even if, as we file this, I reiterate, he hasn’t done a thing but get elected.
That’s the power of this particular brand ambassador. And it makes me wonder, what role does the brand play in this whole game?