Here is an interesting snapshot posted on Facebook.  If you look closely on the left side of the gas pump you can see a red and white sticker outlining the effect on the price of gas if a particular gas tax supported by Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick, was signed into law.

Despite signing the 2010 budget that imposes more than $1 billion in additional taxes on state residents, including the first increase state sales tax in 33 years, Patrick continues to strongly support raising the gas tax.

In true colonial spirit, people opposing the gas tax increase have placed these stickers at gas station pumps explaining how Deval’s proposed nineteen cent increase would put the tax at staggering 60 cents a gallon.

This is an interesting and effective approach to highlight a political issue.  The “opposition to the gas tax” sticker couldn’t be placed in a better spot with a more a captive audience. As Massachusetts motorists fill their tanks, they are asked to imagine what their bill will look like if the price were to go up even more. 

This has the potential to resonate because it addresses what’s actually on the audience’s mind at that moment - paying at the pump.  What makes it effective is the innovative approach. The sticker reads like a public service announcement rather than a partisan attack on the governor responsible for the higher tax. It doesn’t look like a political ad so people aren’t tempted to ignore it. 

Traditional political advertising can sometimes carry negative connotations with the prevalence of attack ads and partisan politics.  Thinking outside the box with strategically placed ads like this are the future of smart political advertising tactics.

Today, YouTube added a new feature to the advertising portion of their website. The addition of “Call-To-Action-Overlay” allows subscribers the ability to have a translucent pop-up ad appear at the bottom of the video linking to a third-party website.

The only catch: subscribers have to enter their video into YouTube’s Promoted Videos program. The new feature is free, per se, but subscribers are required to pay the advertising fee.

Before, sponsors had to include the website in the description of the video inconveniently off screen. As a result, many ignored these links and, thus, they were ineffective in driving significant traffic to the sponsors website.

Now, the options are endless for politicians, singers, musicians, video bloggers, interest groups, etc to dramatically increase flow to their website. The group “charity: water” was one of YouTube’s first beta tests for the project. They were able to raise $10,000 in one day for their cause of bringing clean water to developing countries. 

TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid puts it best,

Brands can link their commercials back to the products they’re selling. Publishers (like us) can link back to relevant articles. And politicians can link back to their campaign homepages or petitions. But there’s almost certainly some other kind of creative use for the new ads waiting to be tapped, just as YouTube’s annotations were used to create choose-your-own-adventure video journeys.

With YouTube making a significant mark on the 2008 election cycle, the options are endless for politicians, interest groups, and parties wanting to create avenues to their websites. Ad overlays capture the emotion felt from a video, streamline the connection between parties, and translate into dollars, advocacy, or support. A few politicians are already doing this. Senator Patrick Leahy is using an ad overlay in a video calling for investigations into the Bush administration linked to a website with a petition. Taking down this barrier has cracked the political advertising floodgates. Put your rain coat on.  

If you haven’t noticed Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube offer beefed up targeting strategies based on demographics and interests.  For example, if you’re on Facebook and you’ve recently gotten engaged, you will immediately begin to notice a plethora of ads pushing all types of wedding services.  This is what many in the advertising world believe is the future of smart advertising.

According to respondents in a recent survey this is a good thing.

A study by Q Interactive, and reposted on Mashable, offers some interesting insight for advertisers. Notably, 56.6% of US internet users between the ages of 35 and 44 would view and advertiser favorably based on online ads tailored to their interests.  56.2% of this same age bracket also prefers to receive free online services and information in exchange for the use of their data to target relevant data to them.

According to the study, while some suggest creating ads targeting a consumer’s interests would be excessive, the study found consumers welcome it.

This is just one of the many ways in which social networking sites provide advertisers with plenty of data that can be utilized to make ads as effective and potent as possible.

For political campaigns and issue advertising, this is the beginning of an important new trend. Political advertisers put tremendous stock in the ability to target audiences.  As it’s been determined long ago, voters rarely act in one mass group, voting for people based on one overarching issue.  Voters, like consumers, have niche tastes and interests, and vote according to which candidate appeals to them on the issue(s) they care about most as an individual or member of a particular demographic.

While most voters get weary of the constant drumbeat of ads touting one or two specific campaign issues, this new advertising method, based on interest targeting, may prove more welcome.

The big political battle of the summer is turning out to be on healthcare. Some interest groups have begun churning out material in support of their respective positions with video advertising. Conservatives for Patient Rights has been airing national ads in an attempt to define the debate. One of its first ads “The Four Pillars of Healthcare Reform” hones a clear and concise message with effective buzzwords like “choice” and “personal responsibility.”

CPR has also run a variety of ads with personal testimonials of patients negatively affected by government healthcare. Its most recent ad “Bulldozer” uses the metaphor of a bulldozer as the destroyer of personal choice.

Many universal healthcare advocates have reacted to their ad buys with online responses. For example, The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) responded with a witty 1:32 web video creatively mocking right wing attacks on health care.

Americans United for Change recently delivered a TV ad before President Obama’s speech for the American Medical Association entitled “62%.” Like the previous CPR ad, it is light, simple, and straightforward. Its effectiveness is manifest in the use of President Obama’s election support for healthcare reform.

These are just a few examples and will not likely be the last as the summer battle over healthcare reform heats up.

The RNC recently released a web video attacking Obama’s Government-Run Health Care Plan.
 

 
The video exposes the pitfalls of goverment-run health care. The ad hits on three major issues people are concerned with: Americans losing their rights to choose a doctor, medical procedures taking much longer to receive, and the plan prohibiting patients from paying for better medication even if it’s out of their own pockets.
 
The beginning phone call recording successfully plays on the overall decline of customer service in this country. People used to have a personal relationship with their doctor; now it looks as if health care in this country will revolve around automated answering services and civil servants rather than personal care and medical professionals. And the end, “disconnecting now, good-bye,” suggests the plan’s general disregard for the individual.
 
It will be interesting to see how the Democrats respond, but we may be on hold for a while.

“Conservatives seem so angry at their loss [of the presidency], so ready to blame Obama for all their problems that almost 400,000 more of them are watching Fox News this year than they did last year. I think they turn to Fox for comfort and confirmation. They need to hear the ranters and ravers tell them that it’s not their fault, it’s all because of those ‘Socialist Democrats.’ I have believed for years that it’s “comfort and confirmation” that drove conservatives to talk radio. Now it’s television, too. . . . Maybe it’s simply the need for an enemy, the desire to detest is greater than the power to tolerate; maybe it’s the need to blame somebody else for the bad things that are happening in our lives that drives viewers to Fox”

– Reese Schonfeld, the first president and CEO of CNN, commenting to the Huffington Post and why he believes Fox News has been the leading cable news network for the last nine years.

*Hat Tip: Wall Street Journal, Political Diary, John Fund

Looking to make your internet ad effective? A new study reveals that time is of the essence.

Internet advertising firm Lotame determined that 40 seconds is the ideal length for internet spots. This is a valuable piece of information that will allow production companies to convey their point without exhausting their viewers’ interest.

The study used a series of tune- in ads for TV programs. Participants were then asked which TV shows they were interested in viewing. “The study showed that a measurable increase in a person’s intent to view begins after 17 seconds of exposure to an ad, peaks at 76 seconds, and significantly degrades after 225 seconds, Lotame said.”

The study, however, does not take into consideration the content of the ad. Whether ad content impacts viewers’ tolerance for brand discussion, etc. is a question worthy of attention especially amidst today’s partisan political climate. Answering this question would assist in consistently delivering robust messages.

TNS-CMAG’s (Campaign Media Advertising Group) June newsletter on political advertising research shed’s light on 2009 campaign ad spending and off-year political advertising trends.

According to CMAG’S Evan Tracey,

The year following a presidential election is historically the least active in terms of political ad spending. However, current hot-button topics such as healthcare, energy issues, budget woes and job security are keeping commercial breaks full of advocacy advertisements.

To date, over $100 million has been spent on direct federal issue-related ads and even more on ads that address policy — a 10-fold increase from four years ago.

As the new political landscape takes shape, several states have already emerged as make-or-break for both parties. The importance of these must-win states is evident by the fact that a number of seats not up for grabs until 2010 are already seeing political ads, even before Memorial Day 2009. This strategy proved successful in the past as seen with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who was a big target in 2008 and began airing re-election ads in November of 2007. Just this week, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) began his re-election campaign with a new ad.

Already in 2009, we’ve seen a great deal spent on advertising for varying political and issue campaigns. CMAG points to a few spending highlights in the first half of the year:

• $15.9 million — total spent this year on TV advertising targeting mayor’s races around the country.
• New Jersey governor’s race has seen approximately $3 million in TV ad spending.
• More than $100 million has been spent on federal issue-related advertisements to date this year.
• A total of approximately $11.7 million has been spent on ads targeting ballot measures.

Here’s a chart illustrating the comparison of political related ad spending in off years.

The US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) has launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign, “Faces of Lawsuit Abuse.” The ads feature everyday Americans who have been victimized by abusive or frivolous lawsuits. The ads are running on TV, radio, the internet- and now at the movies.

The goal of the ads is to promote interest in restricting litigation hurting individuals and small businesses across the country. The series of two minute ads originally played in Colorado, Louisiana, and Washington, DC before making a national debut in theaters across the country in May.

Political advertising at the movies is a clever strategy. You can always change the channel with TV and radios ads; you can leave the website with internet ads; but you pay to be at the movies and are committed to staying for the feature presentation. The ad and its message can’t be missed. With the summer movie season’s blockbusters drawing large crowds, ILR’s ads will reach millions of people.

It comes down to finding new and unique ways to reach captive audiences. In today’s economy, businesses are much more open to political ad buys. Campaigns are always going on and candidates are willing to spend the money. Advertise at a local restaurant; Cheesecake factory sells ad space in their menus. Use the carousel monitors at the local airport’s baggage claim; people have to be there anyway, might as well grab their attention as they wait.

There are tons of other outlets for campaigning that have yet to be tapped. Movie theater ads are just tip of the iceberg in innovative tactics of political advertising.

Call the Charlie Crist hotline — 800-403-2195.