advertising

Via GigaOm:

Last week we noted unconfirmed sightings of an “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Today we’re able to report that it is, in fact, an official advertisement placed by the senator’s campaign team.

“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout,” Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, told me via email, noting that EA regularly allows ad placements in their online games. “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates,” she continued. “Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”

No word on if he'll be advertising on Fallout 3.

Also, Obama has his own channel on the DISH Network:

The satellite channel is the latest of these marginal gambits: Three readers from different parts of the country email that Channel 073-00 on the Dish Network is now labeled OBAMA. ("What is up with Sen. Obama having his own channel?" asks a St. Louis reader.) The channel plays his two-minute ad laying out his economic plan on a loop, over and over.

Patrick is right, web ads have frequently been a lot more memorable than presidential TV ads this cycle and there are a couple of good reasons for it.  The campaigns have been much more willing to take risks in web videos and fundamentally, television ads as a tactic are better suited to races further down the ballot.

TV ads also have to accomplish different tasks than a web ad.  A web ad’s two key goals are to draw eyeballs (“go viral”) and influence the press, while TV ads are primarily about defining a candidate in the absence of other information.  A voter who has met a candidate in person, heard about them from a trusted friend or read about them frequently in the news isn’t going to be nearly as influenced by a TV spot unless it includes radically new information.

This cycle we’ve seen great web videos and atrocious ones – but the successful ones have all been irreverent, “too long,” hokey or generally different from traditional spots.  In other words, they take risks.  It’s relatively easy to justify a risky web video because if no one watches you’re only out the cost of production.  Screw up a TV ad though and you’ve flushed the entire cost of the ad buy.  Even worse, if the ad really flops you’ve just paid money to drive your own numbers down.  

Ever since the "web video" made its debut in the 2004 cycle, it's been a tried and true tool used to move an edgier message into the earned media narrative without the costs or potential backlash associated with a broad television buy. The McCain "The One" web video is a perfect example of this, rising to over 947,000 views on YouTube, second only to the "Celeb" ad.

But with the noteworthy exception of "Celeb" and a couple of evocative McCain bio ads narrated by Powers Boothe, general election advertising has sucked this year. The quality and persuasiveness of web videos on both sides has easily outstripped anything produced by the safe, vanilla TV ad teams.

To underscore this, below is a grid of a representative TV ad and web video for McCain and Obama. You tell me which is more effective:

Obama will blow $5 million on Olympics television ads:

It's official. Sen. Barack Obama's campaign will be among the TV sponsors of NBC Universal's Olympics coverage. In the first significant network-TV buy of any presidential candidate in at least 16 years, the Obama campaign has taken a $5 million package of Olympics spots that includes network TV as well as cable ads.

Will the buy get people to care about politics when they're trying to root for the red, white, and blue? Or will it be a waste of money, another sign of campaign arrogance, and an annoyance to gymnastics and water polo fans?

I didn't, and still don't, buy into the Democrat-inspired blogosphere meme that John McCain is unqualified to be president in the information age because he is backward when it comes to using technology.

But you can't help but see the humor in the advertisement below by the "video professor." It uses actual video of the Luddite McCain as the poster child of online ignorance and as a sales pitch for training to educate the McCains of the world of their technological ignorance. 

It's one of the most clever and timely marketing gimmicks I've seen in a while -- and one that a guy like McCain, who has shown an ability to laugh at himself, might even enjoy.

More signs that a change is in the air. This is a good ad:

This is the kind of ad I love. Why? Because it tells a story. You can't change the opponent's message. But you can put it in a broader context that makes it a liability.

Though the left will howl about the comparison of Obama and the '60s, the ad still works, bringing everything back to McCain's service. It certainly feels as if a "reset" button has been pushed in Crystal City.

This is an important question. -Patrick

Steven Stark of The Boston Phoenix wrote an op-ed today on "Why TV Ads Are a Waste of Money".

The article was all over the place and failed to make a coherent point. He begins by saying that the "era of TV advertising in presidential general elections is over" because it is a "victim of a new media age," and yet, those ads have never been important in general elections "as opposed to the primary process." This left me with several questions:

Are ads in presidential primaries really more effective and more important than ads in a general election matchup? There are obvious differences between the two processes, and one might think that TV ads are tailored to both the state with an upcoming primary along with what the controversy of the week seems to be that needs to be responded to. But TV ads in the general can be tailored for specific states as well. Stark never explained why there is a difference in importance.

(Assuming there is a diminishing effectiveness), is the diminishing effectiveness of TV ads really a result of the rise of new media? The problems that Stark points out with presidential TV ads (lack of creativitiy, lack of "product to sell", etc.) seem to be problems associated with TV ads themselves and the medium that they are on. Sure, the Internet and TiVo have changed the way advertisers think, but Stark provides no real cogent explanation of whether new media is a cause or catalyst of the downfall of TV ads (if there is a downfall).

Are TV ads still important for down-ticket races or have they become a victim of new media as well? I guess one can answer this question by saying it matters where the race is. A Congressional race for an at-large seat from Alaska is obviously different from a Congressional race for a district in Manhattan. But using Stark's logic, the era of TV ads might be over for statewide and local races as well. Are they?

Answers? Thoughts?

- MM

Promoted by Patrick.

Yesterday, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza highlighted Elizabeth Dole and Mitch McConnell’s campaign advertising strategies, and the “vote for the incumbent who brings you goodies” message they’ve used in their early tv spots. 

They're making a huge strategic mistake.  Both candidates are firmly identifying themselves as part of Washington and part of the problem.  Jim Inhofe’s new ad on the other hand, is a strong example of how an incumbent should highlight their accomplishments without appearing too “Washington.”   (Full disclosure, I work for a media firm that didn’t produce any of these spots, even the one I like.)  

Here are the three ads Cilizza highlights: