Nancy Snow, “Brand Obama: The rise and decline of an American icon and its effect on Brand USA,” in Nation Branding – Concepts, Issues, Practice, ed. Keith Dinnie (New York and London: Routledge, 2015). So many of us who work in the public diplomacy and nation branding business bemoaned the loss of American credibility in the world during the first decade of the twentieth century. There were many symptoms of Brand America's power loss, all attached to Brand G.W. Bush: Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Axis of Evil, Shock and Awe, Hurricane Katrina. The world was left wondering what had happened to the world’s leading nation brand. Then along came a junior senator from Illinois who stepped into the media and mind space to reboot our national image in a manner of months. Barack Obama became the gold standard for how to lift up a country’s image and reputation. It wasn’t purely partisan. America wanted something new, even if that something new was untested. It didn’t matter. Eight years after 9/11 seemed twice that long. Obama’s timing was perfect, even as he and rival McCain battled a tanking national economy. Barack Obama triumphed over the presumptive next President of the United States, Hillary Clinton, and managed to convince his former rival – a woman whom he once called a cringeworthy ‘likable enough’ during a debate – to become his very likable Secretary of State. Eventually this Secretary of State would become the most popular member of the Obama administration, outshining the president. What would sustain the Obama brand for as long as it did was one part creation story and one part new media. Obama’s rise coincided with the lift-off of social media brands like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These companies were founded in the Bush years but the technology was brand new in the 2004 election. 2008 was version 2.008 in Internet years. And Obama’s origin, message, and icons were ripe for the digital politics era. The nineteenth-century author Horatio Alger novels about impoverished boys who rise up to middle-class status is a brand creation story for the United States of America, just as is the family garage of Steve Jobs in Apple’s creation. Obama’s story was Web 2.0 ready for prime time. A modest background biracial boy from Hawaii rises to Harvard law professor, community organizer, author and senator. His meteoric rise to the top was the penultimate American brand. It was American Idol meets The West Wing. In 2008, being a policy wonk from Washington like Clinton was the political equivalent of being voted off early from American Idol, into oblivion. But creation story is never enough. Voters, like consumers, need a rationale or a reason to believe in the brand. In Obama’s case, his creed was as simple as Nike’s ‘Just Do It’. Obama’s ‘Change’ and its ancillary, ‘Change you (we, us) can believe in’, was enough to win converts. He was not Bush or Bush’s successor, John McCain. Good enough. Candidate Obama was a marketing Dream Team of one who touched the hearts and minds of many. In October 2008, a group of marketers and advertising agency heads at the Association of National Advertisers annual meeting voted Barack Obama Advertising Age ‘Marketer of the Year’ (ahead of Apple in second place). Imagine Apple, the world’s number one brand in 2013, ever coming in second to a presidential candidate. But this wasn’t just any presidential candidate. This was Barackaganda. In Washington, D.C. just days before the Inauguration, the presidential product commercialism was omnipresent. As I walked through the gorgeous Union Station in downtown Washington, I came across the Swedish-owned IKEA store's replica of the Oval Office, an add-on to its ‘Embrace Change’ 2009 advertising campaign. Barack, Barack, everywhere. It was if he were running unopposed. Barack Obama was the best political marketing vehicle to come our way since the Marlboro Man, the most recognized American commercial icon in the world. The Obama rising sun ‘O’ over the horizon campaign logo and Shepard Fairey ‘Hope’ poster were the Nike swoosh bookends of his politics. Hillary Clinton was the Microsoft PC to his Mac. John McCain was the Hummer to Prius Obama. The Hawaii born was California cool. As First Lady of California Maria Shriver said about Obama when she, along with Caroline Kennedy and Oprah Winfrey, endorsed him in California: ‘The more I thought about it, I thought, you know, if Barack Obama were a state, he’d be California: diverse, open, smart, independent, bucks tradition, innovative, inspiring, dreamer, leader.’ Proximity breeds similarity. Mac, Google, and now Obama, all symbols of a California state of mind. There is no such thing as a Royal Family in America, but the second closest resemblance is the Kennedy family. Two brothers ran for president, one won, and both saw their lives cut short by an assassin’s bullet. John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were involved in the turbulent civil rights issues of the 1960s. In May 1961, seven years before his death (when he was serving as Attorney General to his brother, the President), Robert Kennedy gave an interview to the Voice of America. He predicted that the picture of America in racial turmoil would change in time: ‘There’s no question that in the next thirty or forty years a Negro can also achieve the same position that my brother has as President of the United States, certainly within that period of time.’ With some modifications, such as moving the date of the interview from 1961 to 1968 (the year he was assassinated) and dropping the thirty year reference altogether, Kennedy’s quote was popularized in 2008 as this: ‘There’s no question about it. In the next 40 years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother has.’ Obama’s DNA alone allowed his political communications and marketing specialists to present their candidate as the 2008 fulfillment of this 1968 dream. This wasn’t a candidate just being analyzed within the pages of Foreign Policy or Foreign Affairs journals. Obama was a man of the people, of People magazine, and a Rock Star, with two Rolling Stone covers in 2008 alone (eight today). At the midpoint of the second term of President Barack Obama, Brand Obama is losing membership among his core community of believers. Young Americans, who were once three-to-one in favour of the President, are not nearly as enamoured as they once were. In 2014, his youth approval rating is just over 40 percent. On April Fools’ Day 2014, a baseball power hitter named David Ortiz used the presidency for a ‘selfie’ Twitter photo to promote his new Samsung mobile phone. The White House was not pleased to have the President used for product placement. But in this White House, product placement does not end at the South Lawn edge. And just as it is for any iconic global brand, the challenge is to stay relevant. Barack Obama once captured the world’s imaginations with change we all could believe in. What was once hope for change has devolved into business-as-usual at best, and erosion of trust and respect at worst. Other global brands (Snowden, Putin, Assad) are competing with the CEO of Brand America. A president who had to plug Obamacare on a viral video program called Between Two Ferns may see his presidency wither on the vine, with potential consequences also for global perceptions of Brand USA. The problem with a nation attaching itself to a singular face is that when a downturn occurs, and it always does, so goes down the nation’s credibility. Magic bullet measures don’t exist in good nation branding, but slower, consistent patterns of predictability in behavior do. The United States of America is the original nation of branding itself to the world, from the time of the Declaration of Independence to the Statue of Liberty, two icons that have inspired freedom movements around the world. The problem today is that the United States is not the aspiration symbol that it once was. How could it update its reputation and image in the beyond Obama era? For starters, the United States does not suffer from what affects many countries: invisibility in the minds of tourists and investors. It is always on the mind of the global publics – for good and for bad. The key is to allow the good thoughts and deeds to outshine the bad. One persistent troublesome image for the United States is that it is seen as a nation of violence, an image that is perpetuated in Hollywood movies that travel well in the global marketplace where shooting and killing need no translation. Yes, the United States is a gun culture, but random acts of violence are rare. Political participation in the form of some type of public service or international humanitarian assistance is relatively high, the latter especially in the immediate aftermath of a global disaster. The United States is comprised of a nation of doers that prefers to take action over too much contemplation. This is a very positive national trait when coupled with mobilizing a nonviolent response. It is not a positive in the eyes of the world when it comes to reacting to events with overwhelming violent force. In the twenty-first century, hard power is reigning supreme, not just in the United States after 9/11 but also around the world. The world’s publics are growing weary of this business as usual and it is with the citizen ambassadors that I place my faith for moving in a more positive direction that attracts and not repels the curious.