Obama's Blackberry Endorsement

note: portions of this post are copy/pasted from a New York Times article

President-elect Barack Obama has repeatedly insisted that it's going to be very difficult for the Secret Service to get the incoming president to relinquish his Blackberry by the time he's sworn in as our nations 44th Commander-In-Chief.

“I’m still clinging to my Blackberry,” Obama said Wednesday in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

For the maker of Blackberry, Research In Motion, it's brand advertising that isn't costing them a dime.

Marketing experts suggest that the Obama endorsement would run Blackberry more than 25-million-dollars, and perhaps as much as 50-million.

Obama is an ideal marketing representative, agents say — popular, constantly in the news and explicit about his attachment to the product.

“You always want the celebrity to be a good fit with your brand, and is anybody considered a better communicator right now than Barack Obama, or a better networker?” said Fran Kelly, the chief executive of the advertising agency Arnold Worldwide, who estimated that an endorsement by Obama would be worth $25 million. “It couldn't have a better spokesperson.”

Mr. Shabelman put the value even higher, at $50 million or more, because the endorsement is worldwide.

“The worth to a company to have the president always talking about a Blackberry and how it absolutely is a necessity to keep in touch with reality?” he said. “Think about how far the company has come if they’re able to say, ‘The president has to have this to keep in touch.”

Stay tuned to see if our next president turns in his Blackberry. I guess we'll just have to let the White House IT team figure out a way for Obama to Facebook.