Writing Sample - Article analysis

Campaigns Aim for You Tube Fame
The Oregonian, 2/4/08

This article deals with the role of the internet and viral advertising in political campaign strategy. Two candidates for the U.S. Senate race; Steve Novick, and Jeff Merkley have both posted quirky ads on YouTube, a popular video sharing site. These ads were completely outside of what is traditionally produced for political campaigns, which is the main rationale behind the article.

Steve Novick was the first to post an ad on YouTube, featuring him opening a beer bottle with the metal hook he has for a left hand for a supporter. According to the article, tens of thousands of YouTube viewers clicked on the ad, which initiated a viral campaign. Novick was even given time on a Fox News national show to speak regarding his ad.

The popularity of his opponents’ decision drew candidate Jeff Merkley out into posting an ad centered on his recent rollover crash. It featured a car rolling over, and the tag line “We just flipped the car…It’s just like the Bush economy. It’s gone belly up.”

The main points relative to creating ads are the idea that viral advertising and internet campaigns are definitely going to be seen in the future of advertising. You Tube is just an example of how the internet is becoming a major (if not main) source for information and media sharing. According to Adam Klugman, the creative director of a local political advertising agency; “If you have a creative idea, you can drive eyeballs to your site…We’ve been making the same horrible ads since the advent of TV. What YouTube allows you to do is reinvent the political ad.” This is an extremely important statement to understand when creating ads, in that with the new forms of media on the internet, the bounds of traditional advertising are loosening.

YouTube accounts for 60% of all videos watched online, with 100 million views per day. According to Nielsen/Net ratings, YouTube sees about 20 million unique users a month. (http://usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-16-youtube-views_x.htm) These numbers are astronomical, and are more than just empty figures. YouTube is said to be responsible for launching the careers of bands, actors/actresses, TV personalities, the list goes on. The viewers of these videos are not only seeing them, they are remembering them, and forming opinions about them and sharing them with their network of friends. In the online community, a network of friends can be anywhere from 1 friend to 2 million friends, so the scope of influence of one person can reach many.

The significance of these key points to advertisers or their agencies are that the internet is the next frontier for advertising. Though there has been some advertising online, there has not been as much widespread use of free sharing websites such as YouTube, or MySpace, whose viewers are influencers of trends, and whose likes and dislikes will prove the test for any product/service advertised online. To reiterate what Adam Klugman said, “If you have a creative idea, you can drive eyeballs to your site.” This, coupled with the staggering numbers of people who can be influenced by these new mediums, is a clear indication of where advertising is going to go in the future. TV is full of time restrictions, content restrictions, its expensive, and often times ineffective. The internet offers a freedom from these restrictions, and a new outlet for advertisers to explore and develop new creative strategies for.

This article was enlightening and informative because it was a current view of the evolution of advertising online. To me, it seemed like putting ads on sites like YouTube would be a given, with politicians today trying so hard to get the younger generation of voters involved. It really illustrated to me how much understanding your target audience is important when formulating your advertising strategies. I always knew that YouTube was an influential medium for people my age and younger, and this just confirmed my belief. The test here will be when polls come out for these two candidates. This will be very interesting to see if the number of clicks on an ad on YouTube directly correlates with votes come ballot time. It also really opened my eyes to see that there are going to always be new forms of media that advertisers can use, and the key to being successful is keeping up with these trends, even attempting to predict where these trends will go. By staying ahead of the pack here, an advertiser can really differentiate themselves or their product by being the innovator of using a particular medium, standing out from the other ads, just like Novick and Merkley have done.