The future's bright. The future's Obama.

The promise of change is an easy position for an opposing politician to take, especially against an unpopular incumbent of the presidency. Barack Obama fought most of his campaign under the banner ''change is coming'' which at most stated the obvious: ''W'' was on the way out, so change was coming, either in the form of Obama or McCain.

The Obama brand may, in part, be about change and the bringing about of it, but change is just the effect. We need to identify the cause to get to the heart of the Obama brand.

What Barack is trying to give the American people is the sense of optimism that a change to his leadership will bring about. He promises to lead the US out of the darkness into the light, to deploy modern thinking on the health, jobs, the environment and so on to make his country and, given its international status, the world, a better place.

Considering Obama as a brand, I'd put Optimism at the heart of it. This is the idea he wants to own in the consumer's mind and the hope he wants to give them. The future's bright.. reminiscent of another brand beginning with O that promised optimism in its category.

The Heavenly brand model uses three values to describe the product being sold and three values to describe its personality.

We believe that the Obama brand map would look like this:

Obama's product values:

Intelligence: compared to his predecessor, enough said. This is the Professor-President, the multi-book author and erudite commentator and orator.

Innovation: he promises to blaze a trail and create a culture of enterprise and innovation and 'firsts' in America, driven by his own historic success at achieving the highest office in world politics.

Democracy: a democrat with a small 'd' as well as a big one, he is pioneering a collaborative approach to decision-making, witnessed by the expertise of the team he has built around himself.

Obama's personality values:

Bravery: in many ways, he is the ultimate 'challenger brand', embodied by the fearless determination he has shown to win against the odds.

Visionary: a true visionary, with the conviction that he's making history every day.

Human: a man of the people, the antithesis of the more withdrawn nature of the incumbent administration. He wants to make the presidency accessible to the people, to engage with them at their level and take on board what they have to say.

The Daughter of Necessity

The media have coined a few phrases to describe the state we're in right now. These phrases become 'brands' that we can identify with and buy into: credit crunch, austerity chic, January blues, global financial crisis. Every day, the media are full of news of the gloom that surrounds us. If we believe that we are all doomed, that it is futile to try and prevent the inevitable, then we might as well lock ourselves in our basements and throw away the key (to be discovered by the repossession people later).

The way out of this is through collective confidence and positivity.

I'm not an economist, but the country must have been in a similar state at the end of the Second World War. The key difference between then and now is the sense of positivity created among the British people having united to triumph over evil and succeeded. There was a real sense of tribalism and a common, collective view that the only way was up.

It's often said that there's only so much bad news that you can report and my perspective is that the media are growing tired of the negativity of telling us all how dreadful everything is. For one thing, it doesn't help sell newspapers. Circulations are down -8% year-on-year as readers shun the printed word and discover that ignorance is bliss.

In the business world, it's sad to see the back of some of the retailers who have recently gone into administration but it reminds us that this really is about survival of the fittest. It's also about reinvention and evolution. Some of our greatest ideas have come about during austere times, driven by necessity under pressure. Canned food to sustain Napoleon's army on the long march to Russia; during WWII, Percy Spencer cooked up the idea of the microwave oven; aerosols, jet engines, rockets and radar are some of the many others that spring to mind.

Imbuing Britain with some of that ingenuity and positivity is what we need to get the economy back on its feet. It's great to see some green shoots being written up in the press, proving the point that every cloud, however big, black and cold it is, has a silver lining. We are simply in a state of collective shock and adjusting to the new world - as well as identifying opportunities that it presents - is something we've all been slow to comprehend. It's good to know that invention is still necessity's daughter as witnessed by some of the budding businesses that are thriving in the downturn.

Secondhand bookshops are growing in popularity as readers think twice before committing cash to new copies. The category has had the stamp of approval from Amazon who recently acquired AbeBooks.

Fractional ownership is also on the up. Why own the whole of a second home when it might be smarter to own it just for the time you want to use it? The same applies to aviation. Corporates are realizing that pay-as-you-fly is far more economical than having private jets sitting around unused. As a result, companies like Netjets and Jet Republic are thriving.

In a depreciating climate, renting is also increasingly seen as a far smarter option than buying for the consumer that greater flexibility. And not just in the property market. Brands like Fashionhire.co.uk will let you hire a handbag instead of buying it which is proving very popular with the fashionista brigade.

It's great to see businesses like Aldi, Poundland and Lidl growing their customer bases as people think twice before spending. Even more extreme is the increasing popularity of businesses like Approved Food which sells food which has passed its sell-by date to consumers online.

The truth is that we're all adjusting to life in the current climate and it's time for our faux-shock and self-pitying to end. We should put up or shut up and, in putting up, start to rediscover some of the ingenuity and optimism that has seen so many of our previous generations through similar hardships. In the words of Warren Buffett, we need to be greedy when others are fearful and, in doing so recognize that this is a time of opportunity. It's just not the type of opportunity that we've been used to in the previous decade.

The world has changed, and brands must change with it

The challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. All are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. We understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.

Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year.

Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift. What free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

We know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. That as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself. We seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history. We say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

This is an abridged extract of Barack Obamas inauguration speech given on the 20th January 2009. If brands are to be successful in the 21st century, we believe they need to reflect if not lead the new political landscape. How does your brand fare when put through the Obama filter?

The Great Post Modern Sales Fatigue.

Retailers are wearing their fear on their sleeves.

Britain's been at the sales for nearly two months now.

Window displays are permanently red and white.

A whole new retail language has been invented, better than half price, price crunch, 70% off all items...

The consumer has forgotten what he/she was shopping for in the first place.

The act of shopping is losing its meaning.

Now is the time to put the product back in the spotlight instead of the sale.

Now is the time to reiterate a fair price for a fair product.

Now is the time to offer things to buy.

Now is the time to stop selling.