When Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards decided to announce their runs for the presidency, they didn’t gather hundreds of supporters and stage a large event with balloons and marching bands. Instead, the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination chose to make a video and post it on the Internet. With little fanfare, their videos went up and within minutes the news and the videos spread like wildfire.

In fact, web video seems to be the new trend for 2008. The Washington Post declared on Monday that in this presidential cycle will be remembered as the “point where Web video became central to the communications strategy of every serious presidential candidate.”

What advantage did announcing the candidacy’s on the Web have? Well, first off, the announcement was much shorter than a campaign kick-off rally. Each video was about three minutes with the candidate speaking directly to the camera. Posting videos are the campaigns’ attempt to produce a viral effect that voters could share their video with their peers.

IPDI Director Carol Darr says that online web videos do two things:

“It forces all the media, but especially the broadcast media, to publicize their online campaign commercials, especially when it is the only footage available. And it draws the activists to their websites for more information, which gives the campaigns a chance to solicit them for contributions and sign them up for updates, and thereby collect their email addresses.”

Case in point: according to the Wall Street Journal, within hours of launching her bid Saturday, Clinton’s campaign site attracted 10,000 messages of support, 2,200 submissions for its blog contest and had signed up people to its email list at the rate of 100 a minute.
It’s all part of the so-called Netroots Primary, the informal Democratic Primary to gain support from the majority of the blogosphere. More online activity leads to more links on the blogs, which means more buzz about the candidate on the ‘net.

Another interesting this to look at is that Edwards’ and Obama’s announcement both used social networking video sites that allow users to link, post, and share the video. The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, chose to host the video themselves.

Laurin Manning, a Democratic blogger from South Carolina, had this take on that:

“While Edwards’ and Obama’s respective Internet video announcements could be perceived as nods to the power of the Democratic netroots, the Clinton campaign’s choice to announce via web video seems to be aimed at two things: control of the story and its timing (as was also the case with Obama’s announcement), and, more importantly, the capability to create an intimate, homey setting — one of what will be many chances for the public to become acquainted with Hillary Clinton on a more personal level.”

Republicans, on the other hand, have little online activity. When Kansas Senator Sam Brownback announced he was running this weekend (on the same day of Clinton’s announcement), he chose a rally in Topeka. The only candidate that appears to be reaching out to the small group of right-leaning bloggers is Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whose website hosts “MittTV.”

UPDATED 1/23: IPDI’s Carol Darr was on PBS’ “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” last night to discuss the candidates’ move online. Check out the video of her appearance here.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 2:32 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, Web Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.