<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jun 16, 2009, at 6:21 PM, Sam Aguyo wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">A political office can only be ceremonial and nothing to do with tactical. The political office will only associate with a well cordinated outfit producing products. With not products, very difficult indeed.<br></div></div></div></span></blockquote><br></div><div>Bwana Sam,</div><div>In my opinion, branding has a lot to do with 'kujiuza'. In UK/Europe, the most recognized brands could be sportsmen and now the Obamas are emerging as one of the top selling brands.</div><div><br></div><div>In Kenya, the brand that gets all the live coverage every afternoon from Tuesday to Friday at parliament, half of the pages in any newspaper everyday and also part and parcel of our week-end entertainment is the POLITICIAN. Brandishing politicians as ceremonial and inconsequential could be the root of all the problems we face as a country. Especially now that they will be controlling about a billion bob annually for their constituency development.</div><div><br></div><div>All that is required is turning them into a more attractive brand e.g. Obama and his Blackberry.....just thinking aloud....you can imagine turning your tv set to see the Prime Minister using his blackberry and other ICT gadgets to answer questions...and that way we start getting the recognition ICT deserves....and bla bla bla.....</div></body></html>