The hot topic of discussion today in IPDI labs was the use of viral online political video by each of the three remaining major campaigns. We began the discussion after poking fun at some newly emerging viral videos from Sen. Clinton supporters, most notably this music video that was drawing comparisons to the 1972 Nixon Now advertisement.

In light of the success of three Obama viral videos (Yes We Can, Obama Girl and Hillary 1984) that combined for 15 million views on YouTube, it has become a political reality that video not originating from the campaign can have incredible effects. That being said, more often than not, political videos go nowhere (other providing fodder for Wonkette) and this Hillary video is exhibit A. A lighthearted piece that was clearly trying to take a piece of the “cool” pie away from Obama and cash in on other musical videos about the candidates, fell flat on its face for obvious reasons. The videos that have worked best for each candidates are ones that were rooted in the overarching theme of the campaign.

For the Obama camp, viral videos are easier to create because his campaign values of hope, inspiration and change are ones that resonate with the youngest cohort of voters, which are the same people who have grown up on the Internet. The Hillary 1984 ad works well for them because it is based on the idea of a radical change from the mundane, based on an old technology commercial. The Obama Girl video uses some popular culture overtones, sexual appeal and a catchy tune. The Yes We Can video is the penultimate example of a video capturing the campaigns themes, as it is the Obama campaign in lyrical form (whether or not its good for democracy is another question for another post).

All of Obama’s video play on the same messages and themes that created his movement and have propelled him into the race that he and Clinton are currently engaged in. While completely different from Obama’s theme, McCain has similarly used his campaign messages to craft the video that his campaign is putting forward. One of the better examples is an online only advertisement produced by the campaign called Courageous Service (truth in advertising: this was created by the husband of IPDI’s Director). This video is much longer than the three Obama examples, but it capitalizes on some of McCain’s key campaign themes and speaks to the online audience that supports McCain. McCain followers, like Hillary followers, aren’t going to respond as well to a scantily clad woman dancing around or a bunch of young music and Hollywood stars singing as the Obama crowd does. Rather, campaigns like McCain’s and Clinton’s that are succeeding on the basis of policy discussions should have video that reflects that, just as the video succeeding for the Obama campaign are well-rooted in the concept of hope that is driving the campaign.

Hillary started off her video strategy on the right foot with her online announcement of her intention to run for President and the online conversations that followed. The problem is that she has since strayed from that with the Hillary 4 U & Me video and prior to that this Behind the Music parody that was about 6-years too late to be funny. Clinton needs to focus on her experience and her policy prowess in her online video whether its created by the campaign or not. Otherwise, her videos will end up on Wonkette much more often than they receive the quantity of free media that Obama has.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 5:04 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, Citizen Media, Web Video, YouTube. 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.