General elections in Germany are only seven weeks away and one clever candidate has found a way to draw a lot of publicity to her campaign. 
 

That’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in a somewhat revealing, low-cut dress. Across her cleavage, the slogan “We have more to offer.”
 
The picture is at the center of a new campaign strategy for Vera Lengsfeld. She is a fellow member of Merkel’s conservative CDU party running in a left-leaning district of Berlin. Being a conservative in a liberal district, and running against a popular Green Party incumbent, Lengsfeld needed a way to grab voters’ attention. And she has certainly found it. Lengsfeld hung 750 posters with the picture in her district, creating quite the media buzz. Local news stations are covering the story, posters are going missing as people take them for souvenirs, and 17,000 people have visited her campaign blog since they were posted.
 
This certainly plays into the old adage that “sex sells.” But is using sex in political ads appropriate? Advertising guru David Olgilvy’s one rule on using sex in an ad campaign is relevance. Does Merkel’s cleavage have anything to do with the candidate the poster is trying to promote? No. Will it really persuade voters that Lengsfeld is better qualified to represent them in Parliament? Probably not. Lengsfeld is a long-shot candidate needing exposure and desperate candidates turn to desperate measures to get the attention they want.
 
But with the way people view politicians in America today, candidates here need to tread lightly when crafting campaign strategies. Shock-value ads may get attention but do they pay off with votes in the end? Not if you want to be taken seriously and have your platform resonate with voters.
 
While showing Hillary Clinton in a revealing top is the last thing any American wants to see, the thing to take from this ad campaign is how to (appropriately) use new and provocative images to grab people’s attention. The same stock photos and outdated slogans need to be retired. Its time for a more creative approach if you want people to look, listen, and ultimately vote for you on election day.

Public Opinion Strategies‘ GENE ULM has a blog post up on the fairly new POS’ company blog, TQIA (short for: Turning Questions Into Answers).

Ulm’s post, titled, More Misery (Index) is an interesting analysis of mid-term election House / Senate seat wins and loss projections measured from two distinct variables; the party in power and the consumer Misery Index, an equation often used by economists to measure the positive or negative direction of public security and satisfaction.

Normally, pundits just refer to the historical data of presidential incumbency approval ratings to draw projections about mid-term elections.  Ulm’s analysis using economic data adds an important component, especially useful when economic and prosperity issues are currently top of mind for voters.

Ulm’s overall conclusion supports the opinion that the party in power typically suffers mid-term losses when the Misery Index ranks high, especially in double digits.  Needless to say, this is exactly where our current Misery Index rating is headed.

Read Ulm’s post here to view his findings: http://blog.pos.org/2009/03/more-misery-index/

(Sorry: linking tool appears to be disabled so I opted to post the full URL)

Here I stray from the business of politics:

Recently, I joined twitter.  And like the many other people using this online social networking / information pushing platform, I have an opinion.  

I was hesitant at first to join twitter.  My first taste of this online platform was not inspiring.  I read a colleague’s cross twitter posts on facebook, covering all details of personal travel, fast food preferences, home supply store visits and what they were serving for breakfast and dinner.  Not only could I care less, I was quickly becoming annoyed.  

While I appreciate online social networking for the ease by which I can follow friends, family and colleagues’ lives personal and professional, I really don’t care to receive a running commentary on their every move or the minutiae of their daily decisions.  I was reluctant to join twitter, as I believed this was another online place encouraging useless and time consuming social commentary.

It wasn’t until recently, on an outing with a small group of new media specialist friends of mine, did I get a taste of the type of important and interesting information being produced on twitter.  

I was encouraged so I joined.

At first, admittedly, I was a bit lost.  While, I take pride in my understanding of a vast array of online platforms and new media technology, I was perplexed by the almost bare bones format and feel of twitter.  I was eager to figure out how I fit in with all the other twitterers.  What did they gain by their participation and who cared to read what I was doing?

I turned to my friend, Liz Mair, who gave me a quick tutorial on twitter’s most relevant features and characteristics.  I was making my entrance and I sure didn’t want to trip onto the main stage.  If you do join, I recommend calling someone you know who is on and ask them a few questions…I’m sure they’ll be happy to guide you.

So here’s what I learned.  I hope these tips on initial steps help some of my other friends considering joining twitter.

1. When you join twitter pick a recognizable handle (meaning: one that best displays the closest recognition of your name)
2. Allow twitter to rummage through your contacts, like facebook friend finder, so you can view who else is on twitter that you know.  This will allow you to instantly begin following what others, who you know, are saying.  By doing so, you can quickly pick up on the lingo, etiquette  and culture of the twitter platform.
3. Use the “find people” feature to look up your favorite news sites, blogs, websites, celebrities and anyone else of interest to you  professionally or personally.  You might be surprised to see who is on.  Follow them.
4. Set your preferences on how you would like people to view your tweets (messages).  Some people are open others are more private, choose what fits your personality.
5. Start writing tweets.  These are short messages that allow you to convey anything to the world or to your “followers” (people who have shown interest in seeing what you write). The more you write, the more comfortable you get with the platform.
6. Use good judgement on your posts.  I liken information sharing on social networks to behavior you would expect in any public square.  Most people in a public setting would not choose to say wildly inappropriate or offensive things.  Also, in public settings people tend to not take interest in every minor detail of your existence.  These same truths tend to hold true in the online social interactive domain.  Often times this behavior leads to a lonely online experience…and who wants that?

From my short time on twitter, I’ve found it to be, not only interesting and fun, but very helpful in getting news and information at a very fast  pace.  I always enjoyed learning from collective wisdom.  As a political operative and consultant, I rely heavily on collective wisdom for better understanding news, people, events and cultural implications.

Twitter allows you to be hand fed information, commentary and links to articles on the many things you may find interesting and moving.  I chose people and entities to follow, whom I already knew and trust.  I now surf the web less, because these respected sources are gathering and sharing much of the information that I would normally hunt for on bulky websites.  

I’ll leave this last example of a recent event that really hit home twitter for me.  Earlier this week, I found out about the US Airways flight going down in the Hudson river, by the many tweets of the people I’ve been following.  I quickly went on news sites to find out more details and information.  The news didn’t even make most of the sites I quickly scanned.  The ones that did report that quickly, had no photos and little information.  Then I saw someone on twitter post a link to guy whom they knew, also on twitter, who was on the ferry closest to the plane in the water.

This guy had posted up close and personal pictures that he took from his handheld.  His quick comments also provided a feeling of excitement and concern as he was first on the scene to the crash landing.

See my twitter post: defining moment in twitter history ***http://tinyurl.com/8hj3ru***

This guy, whom I didn’t know had scooped all the media – in NYC no less!!!  It was then, an hour later, did I see his very images on the homepage of drudgereport.  

Not all posts are this exciting or interesting.  Some are funny and some are boring.  But my conclusion: tail is starting to wag the dog.

Find me on twitter…..http://twitter.com/BrianFDonahue.

An old friend of mine, Bryan Cook, is an editor, producer, technical director, and writer based out of CA and NYC.  He just started a new blog, Signal Through Noise, which examines the nexus of technology and contemporary communication mediums. 

Recent STN posts covered new interactive television technology being developed by TIVO and a company called Backchannelmedia.

This technology bridges the gap between passiveness and activeness, when it comes to the relationship between programming and viewership.

According to Cook, TIVO announced a deal with Domino’s Pizza, which will allow viewers to order Domino’s menu items for delivery with the click of the remote.

A deal between TiVo and Domino’s Pizza…will allow TiVo subscribers to order pizza through their TiVo boxes.

Orders can be placed whenever the consumer wants, but the exciting thing is clearly the thought that if a couple of guys are watching a game on Sunday, they will see an ad for Domino’s and without ever having to get up and find a phone, order a pizza for delivery. Subscribers can order Domino’s Pizza from various entry points on the TiVo user interface, including via “tags” spotted during live ads.

Backchannelmedia appears to have somewhat similar interactive technology.  Here is a brief overview of how their technology works:

Backchannelmedia’s technology allow viewers, through one click of their remote, to forward links related to specific television content – whether it’s an entertainer performing a song they like, a news story they may be interested in learning more about, or a product they may be interested in purchasing – to a Web portal of their choice, such as an email account, a Backchannelmedia portal or a television station’s own Web site; the viewer simply clicks on a small icon at the bottom of their screen.

The icon is rendered by Backchannelmedia’s Client set-top-box software when it detects a unique identifier encoded in the metadata of the program or ad’s digital transmission. On clicking ‘OK’, the viewer’s request for more information is automatically recognized, recorded and sent via an Internet return path to the viewer’s designated site. The users “clicks” can later be conveniently accessed via their personal computer.

On the face of it, I really like this technology.  Allowing TV viewers to directly respond and act on an advertisement or product placement is very convenient for the consumer and very useful for the marketer.

This type of interactivity could revolutionize the TV commercial and advertising experience for all parties.  I’m also excited by what this could mean for political advertising, as it could stimulate a drastic amount of direct response for candidates for office or organizations pushing a particular issue agenda.

Imagine if a voter who watches and inspiring bio ad about a candidate can use their remote to sign up for email alerts from the campaign or learn more about the candidate’s schedule or how to contribute.

Or imagine if your watching TV and an organization brings a major legislative issue, about to be voted on in the House, to your attention.  Then you would be able to use your remote to contact the organization about your interest and how to contact your congressman about your position.

Such interactive media, like other web platforms, will continue to place democracy at the viewers fingertips.

Very interesting posts, Cook.  Keep it up.