You may ask “where were you?” when the Democratic Alliance (DA) launched their new logo late in 2008. Well the truth is that I  didn’t notice  it until yesterday. Then I noticed the “One Nation,  One Future” strap line which also reminded me of the Obama campaign, then DA leader Helen Zille appeared on Twitter and I thought there are too many coincidences.

I have shown both logo’s above and I am sure that you will agree that the similarities are too striking to be a coincidence, and if they are didn’t the DA or its designer notice what was happening in USA. Are the Democratic Alliance doing a copy paste of the Obama campaign and using it as their election strategy? Well I don’t know yet, it just seems to me that they may be. If this is what it is about then I think they may have missed the boat. Social media and social media tools are not ends in themselves. They are tools that can be used in marketing and building a brand and propagating an idea.

The biggest misconception that the casual observer may have of the Obama campaign was that it was merely the digital approach that did it. It really wasn’t. It started with a mobilisation of an idea, a belief that was then propagated through many channels to mobilise supporters both online and on the ground. It was the idea that was the most important aspect. The idea that The American nation was not as divided as it seems and that together we can make a difference. We are one nation “yes we can” You may watch the Yes We Can music video here.

I’ll watch the DA election campaign with a great deal of interest. Will the DA use the power of social media and mobile understanding its characteristics, or will it think that by using the technology and the medium that they will duplicate the Obama campaign?

Do they get social media?