First it was a red state strategy then it was ads during the Olympic games.  Now it’s an apearance on the cover of People magazine that the Obama’s hope will show that they are a typical American family and soften their image before the November elections.

From Ad Age.

It’s official. The Obamas are just like us. With their latest PR move — being photographed as a family for this week’s People magazine cover story titled “The Obamas At Home” — it’s apparent that Team Obama has a clear and clever presidential marketing strategy: present Michelle and Barack as the beloved Brangelina of the political world.

Like every in-demand A-list couple who concedes to allowing a peek behind the curtain, the Obamas insist this will be the “first and last” up-close and personal look at them as a family. What they don’t admit to is that this was a carefully orchestrated, well-thought out brand presentation. And it isn’t actually the first highly personal look at the photogenic family. No, it’s the culmination of a publicity campaign designed to take advantage of the couple’s charisma and Hollywood-worthy good looks. Team Obama is using popular mass-media vehicles such as People, Us Weekly, “The View,” “Access Hollywood” and “The Colbert Report” to familiarize the American public with the candidate and his wife, and to dispel myths about the couple, in a far more aggressive way than has ever been done before in a presidential election.

The Obama handlers clearly feel that their actions on this front are imperative. And it’s essential that they carry out these maneuvers as quickly as possible.

“We still have at this late date in the campaign a lot of voters who don’t know a lot about Obama in terms of his values and background,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told The Wall Street Journal in a story on July 24.

Just more style over substance.

 

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