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YouTube Dominates Video YouTube once again proves how it's almost synonymous with video. According to AdAge, President-elect Barack Obama's victory speech has been uploaded more than 500 times and viewed more than 7 million times on the web in the last 48 hours after election night. And where did those eyeballs come from? 98% came from YouTube. Imagine that, out of the hundreds of video-sharing sites online, YouTube captured 98% of the video views. We're already big fans of YouTube so this comes as no surprise. According to Mediapost, YouTube delivers over 10 times the number of video views of its nearest competitor. What does this say to us media planners? It says that when whether we're planning and buying for a viral video campaign, a social media campaign, or a regular online media campaign, we have to remember that MAJORITY of consumers immediately think of YouTube. Of course, we also have to remember that YouTube is not the end-all and be-all of all video; other sites (MySpace/Fox interactive, Microsoft sites, Yahoo!, Hulu, etc) all have their own strengths as well. But for now, YouTube is the video giant. Happy weekend everyone! Labels: Industry, Obama Campaign, Online Media, Social Media Marketing, YouTube Gaming for PresidentsPresidential campaigning has been taken to a new level. Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts confirmed that Obama’s campaign has paid for advertising in Xbox 360’s Burnout Paradise. In-game advertising has only been around for less than 2 years so this is the first time that a Presidential candidate has paid for in-game advertising. At first I was shocked when I read about this on blog http://www.gigaom.com/, but I’m not surprised. This is not the first time that the Obama camp has embraced new media to reach the younger demographic. A recent blog posting on Driving Forward discussed how Obama is using text messaging and social media to capture the young and tech-savvy voters. As discussed, even though John McCain’s campaign is participating in paid search, he may be missing out on capturing the attention of this demographic once again in the virtual world. In-game advertising presents a huge targeting opportunity as well for the candidates, as ads can be geo-targeted to a user’s location, and to states that are under performing for the candidates. According to Brier Dudley of the Seattle Times in his blog entry from October 14th, Rockwood revealed that both Obama and McCain were approached, but Obama bought a series of ads to run on sports games, including Madden 09, Nascar 09,and Need for Speed Prostreet, in swing states such as Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. The ads, which will run from Oct. 6 through Nov. 3, will appear on games with realistic settings such as billboards on a highway.  Labels: Blog Outreach, Mobile Marketing, Obama Campaign, Paid Search, Social Media Marketing Paid Search and its role in the 2008 Presidential ElectionIf the truth is that America is shifting media usage from traditional media to online, and media does, in fact, affect voters in a national election, then Senator Barack Obama is making strides toward becoming the next President of the United States. According to many web marketing newsletters, Obama’s technology usage and internet savvy in the 2008 Presidential Election is spectacular. Obama used text messaging not only to announce his decision on a vice presidential nominee to registered mobile users exclusively, before anyone else knew; but also, to build up this list of mobile phone numbers for use in the campaign down the line. He even created his own social networking site, My.BarackObama.com. However, according to the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Obama seems to have missed the boat in one of the most vital, if not THE most vital, of internet marketing tactics behind Senator John McCain: Paid Search. In this day and age, when just about half of the Internet population use search engines on a daily basis, and around 60% of higher-income and/or more educated Internet users perform searches daily (PEW/Internet 2008), it is extremely important to utilize paid search strategies and tactics as part of an online marketing strategy for the presidential campaign. Aside from the sheer statistics of search engine users, according to a recent PEW Research Center study, 24% of Americans get at least some of their information about the 2008 political campaigns from the internet, up from 13% in the 2004 election. In light of these facts, McCain has found a loophole in Obama’s supposedly superior internet marketing strategy. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article described, "As of Wednesday, a Google search for "Joe Biden" or even just "Biden" resulted in a prominently displayed ad labeled "Joe Biden on Obama" that links to Sen. McCain's site. There, a video begins playing that shows Sen. Biden criticizing Sen. Obama during the Democratic primaries." McCain is utilizing a common strategy of paid search advertising, buying competitor’s brand names, product names, etc. (in this case- actual names). This strategy is useful not only so that a marketer can be sure to show up on the results page when a competitor’s term is searched on, but more importantly because with paid search, the advertiser has control over where to send users who click the ad. Thus, McCain’s use of a landing page with an “attack ad” video at the forefront is a smart use of competitive paid search tactics. And McCain didn’t solely focus on this “ambush” style of paid search. He also bought terms such as “U.S. economy” and “housing crisis” and sent users to landing pages explaining his platform on key issues. While Obama is ahead in the use of the extremely new, innovative, savvy technology such as social media and mobile advertising, it seems that he may have lost sight of some age-old, potentially more important tactics on the way. A spokesperson for the Obama campaign said, "Thanks to our millions of online supporters who frequently visit our Web site and other social-networking sites, unlike other campaigns, BarackObama.com already has extremely high organic search engine rankings, which helps us limit the number of terms where we need to use paid advertising to have a presence.” While this may be true, he is still missing out on the opportunity to utilize the benefits of paid search- its versatility and ability to drive users with specific messaging to a specific location and funnel them exactly where the campaign wants them to go. And with the emergence of this criticism in such a highly esteemed paper as the Wall Street Journal, and the benefit of the immediacy of paid search advertising, it will be interesting to see how the internet landscape of this Presidential election continues to play out. Labels: Obama Campaign, Paid Search, Social Media Marketing |
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