Barack Obama may have decided against signing corporate sponsors to help fund the estimated $40m costs of official events around his inauguration, but brands are deploying an array of marketing techniques to attempt to gatecrash the moment.  Here’s a selection.

IKEA has led on experiential, via a mock motorcade touring Washington DC and an IKEA-furnished virtual Oval Office in Washington’s Grand Union station. The latter is replicated online at embracechange09.com, where consumers can add virtual IKEA furniture to the Oval Office and send their suggestions to both their friends and the White House.

Dunkin’ Donuts are selling red-white-and-blue-sprinkled ‘Stars & Stripes’ doughnuts in the chain’s stores nationwide from for 89 cents during inauguration week, and the brand’s blogger, Dunkin’ Dave, is pushing the initiative on Twitter.

Honest Tea, who struck marketing gold when Obama was seen drinking its Black Forest Berry tea on the campaign trail, has launched a limited-edition range renamed “Barack Forest Berry”, and will be sampling around DC all week.

And Audi of America is going seriously big with a raft of broadcast, online and print sponsorship initiatives, including an unprecedented broadcast sponsorship of the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news bulletins on inauguration evening, all to launch a year-long ‘Celebration of Progress’.

By Tim Crow on January 19th, 2009

Tags: Ambush campaign, Brand marketing, Branded content, Broadcast sponsorship, Default, Experiential marketing, Media, New Product Development, Product placement, Sales promotion, Sponsorship, Television

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