Millions for issue advocacy are being spent on all sides of the healthcare debate. The ability to separate oneself and message is key to rise above the chatter and get noticed. Online videos have become a tool for all as groups try to get their voice heard. Using humor, sprinkled with sarcasm, and a bit of irony can’t hurt.

In a humorous sketch on funnyordie.com, Will Ferrell and other celebrities do a mock-serious critique on health insurance companies.

A video entitled “Overpaid Celebrities” came out soon after as a response to the Funny or Die spoof.

The group Catholic Vote Action put out another video mocking the Ferrell skit.

The Dwight Drake (D) for Governor of South Carolina campaign put this creative web video out over the weekend. It has so far received extensive coverage. For a later entry into the race, Drake is looking for an angle on his opponents. He is connecting the video to a call to have Sanford’s removal from office brought before the Legislature in the next 30 days. A petition is linked to the video. The strategy to gain recognition and momentum seems to be working.

We’ll see if Sanford finishes his last 500.

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.

August is here. Members of Congress use this much awaited recess to go home, listen to their constituents, and reconnect before the fall session. The recent controversy surrounding the cap and trade bill and the looming health care reform legislation has made this time interesting for Members of Congress as they go home and check the temperature of their constituents.

Recent media accounts have shown that the response back home is downright angry. Traditionally, during this time, Members of Congress set up town hall style events where they speak about current legislation and field questions from the audience. Americans have been showing up in droves to these ‘town hall’ events holding signs, yelling, and causing discomfort for their respective members.

Much of the raw footage of these events has made it to the internet. The most notable clip was from a town hall hosted by Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius over the weekend. Senator Specter was hastled and booed over a response he made about the speed at which legislation is passed. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was noticeably irritated by the audience’s reaction. Close to 825,000 people have viewed the two and a half minute video since it was posted last Sunday.

Over 500,000 watched Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) as he was hounded outside a grocery store by irate constituents yelling “just say no” (referencing healthcare) over the weekend.

366,000 viewed a town hall with Representative Tim Bishop (D-NY) as he was taken to task over a variety of issues including his support for cap and trade and the current healthcare reform.

These are just a few examples of what has happened as Members go home and meet with the people they represent. The declining support in the polls for a public option for healthcare rightly suggests that these episodes are an illustration of the feelings of many across the country.

While those taking the brunt of this anger consider these individuals plants and not representative of what Americans are truly feeling, it is clear Members of Congress are walking on thin ice when it comes to healthcare. Whether the protests are orchestrated or organic, they still represent growing concern with the legislative agenda put forth by the Obama Administration.

From a political communication perspective, there are deeper implications that continue to arise from this trend.  Video technology’s effectiveness was first highlighted in the 2006 cycle during the VA Senate race, when George Allen was caught on film calling a videographer a racially incentive slur.  Now, with Flip Camera and video technology on mobile phones, citizens have the power and ability to capture politicians and events en masse. With the widespread popularity of YouTube, people are able to watch these raw videos online, almost immediately. With more social media platforms being utilized for distribution, these videos have a much greater chance of going viral, reaching thousands, even millions of people.

This drastically increases the number of participants in the political dialogue. In the past, one was required to physically attend these events to get the true feeling because news accounts were heavily edited. Now, citizen journalists are everywhere capturing real-time events and posting them, largely unedited, on the internet for millions to view.

The political brush fire over healthcare is well under way.  New videos of public outrage at Congressional town hall meetings have fueled this fire tremendously.

Stay tuned for more from your fellow citizen journalist.

A new trend, in what Politico’s Eamon Javers calls “fickleness” among consumers and voters, is causing grief among advertisers and pollsters alike. Javers suggests the American people are now, “less beholden to old attachments and more willing to make dramatic changes in lifestyle and preferences.”

Javers points to a series of examples ranging from switching cell phone providers to the increasing divorce rate among marriages of 50 plus years to the overnight popularity of Barack Obama and his administration. The implications of such trends are unclear, but such a drastic change in the collective social behavior could be threatening to the traditional American political system.

There are indicators that the erratic nature of public thought and opinion has forced those invested in political outcomes to be more creative and innovative, in order to maintain an edge.  This has lead to a push for politicians to create an active presence on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.  These outlets have allowed politicians to speak directly to their constituents and voters on pressing issues – providing immediate feedback and opinion before they even vote on a piece of legislation.

Javers uses Apple’s destruction of the iPod (with the introduction of the iPhone and iTouch) as an example of a corporate strategy that encourages the death of loyalty to a flagship product for another newer and better product. Political trends often ride in the wake of private sector trends.  If such movement is as rampant as Javers claims, and companies are feeding into this rapid change trend, political behavior and political tactics are sure to follow. Could loyalty to a party or cause become a thing of the past?  Could voters’ never ceasing hunger for new issues and new leaders change the way parties and political movements operate?

The concept of voters looking for the next big thing, could effectively weaken a long-term party or political agenda.  This could make it difficult for legislators to collaborate and make actual progress. A major effect could be the increase in ever-changing interests leading to the decentralizing of coalitions and parties (i.e. the current healthcare debate).  This also raises the question: will today’s issue matter come November?

Politicians’ careers might become endangered if they stick to principles.  They might find longevity by becoming dependent upon keeping up with fast evolving voter opinion. This is in the same vein as obsessing over polls or following the wind.

Be on the lookout for parties rolling out agenda’s as fast Apple operating systems.

The Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) convened last week in New York. Industry leaders, pundits, bloggers, writers, and others descended on the Lincoln Center to discuss and share ideas about technology’s effect on politics.

Technology has had a tremendous effect on how politics is conducted in this country. Dramatic changes have already occurred in how money is raised and ideas are disseminated. The bottom line: better understanding and use of technology is the wave of the future. Successful campaigns will adapt, while campaigns that don’t will be left behind.
  
One interesting presentation from the PDF was given by Ning CEO Gina Bianchini. Ning was created in 2005 as a social networking service that allows users to create their own network for a specific purpose. Since then, it has become the primary social network aggregator with 1.3 million created.
  
Gina Bianchini discussed Ning’s potential for interest groups and political campaigns. Under the concept of a ‘hub-and-spoke’ model, she championed the idea of having one location (Ning) as the epicenter and using other social networking sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc to focus traffic to this central location.

She used the Picken’s Plan as a successful model of the ‘hub-and-spoke.’ Ms. Bianchini explained how they were able to have a centralized network (the hub) and incorporate Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube, and Linkedin (the spokes) to effectively promote their cause. This service brought their public relations, media, and social media together in one place. The result was 200,000 active members that were able to amass 1.1 million people to take a specific action on behalf of the campaign like sending an email or making a phone call to a public official. Picken’s Plan was able to organize their members based on Congressional districts leading to 60% of active members having a direct relationship with their representative. She also noted that other methods like email lists and text messaging can be integrated to make this service more inclusive.

The site has expanded in the last few years with new features that have streamlined users’ connectivity with their followers. Other politicians like Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) and Chad Johannesen (candidate for Florida state representative) are also using this site. Ning brings multiple platforms together in one easy-to-use place. The fog of the campaign can be daunting so having one hub to generate material allows for the message to stay coherent and cohesive. Yet, questions arise regarding the uniqueness of this service compared to a campaign website. Can service provided by political new media firms utilizing the ‘hub-and-spoke’ model perform equally or better than a Ning network? Time will tell whether this service transforms how political campaigns and interest groups operate.

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.

I love this billboard campaign on behalf of Audi and BMW sent to me by a colleague.  Goes to show competitive advertising doesn’t have to be overly negative or scathing to be effective.

I’ve been posting a number of new web videos here to draw attention to this relatively new medium of political persuasion.  I’ve written in the past about the effectiveness of web videos, but now they seem to be really taking off as a tool for disseminating information, adding extra benefit to the audio / visual format of political communication.

Here’s why Web Videos work:

• The spread of broadband, coupled with the genesis of easy navigable social network sites, has allowed for greater mass distribution and attention of such video pieces.
• The popularity of the media site You Tube has created a simple place for message delivery vehicles to point to, for all online users to see the video, without having to download or worry about having to interact with media players.
• The longer format allotted, mitigates the restraint media producers and editors are under to crank out a spot at :30 or :60 seconds.
• The stretch in format timing allows for arguments and plot lines to be better developed, resulting in heightened effect and interest.

As a consequence, we are seeing a lot of new fresh video pieces on the interwebs.

Campaigns, movements, associations, issue groups, party organizations and think tanks are putting greater resources into web videos and testing new projects through this art form / message delivery system.  It’s great to be apart of and watch this growing field of political activity, as it opens up an entire new creative platform for sharing ideas and beliefs in the political space.

Below is a great example of a web video, that is well done and interesting.  It’s a piece written and narrated by author/screenwriter, Andrew Klavan and produced by Pajamas Media.  The piece features Klavan discussing his view on the liberal approach to countering conservative culture and ideas, which he defines as a strategy as “shut up.”

While this piece does not encompass a wide array of production effects and mechanics, it does the job of making the argument that Klavan makes more interesting.  The visual accompaniment and the timing of the effects definitely enhances Klavan’s well structured argument and serves to strengthen the overall point, which is the truest measure of success for any politically driven web video.

The ultimate benefit of creating this kind of web video is that it’s execution in video format is more effective  than if Klavan just wrote this argument down and posted it somewhere.

I found this gem on Twitter today.  It is an audio / video illustration, titled, “The Crisis of Credit Visualized.” It walks the viewer through the financial components that brought on the current credit crisis that’s gripped our nation.  It’s produced by Jonathan Jarvis, an interaction and media designer.

According to Jarvis, “The Crisis of Credit Visualized distills the economic crisis into a short and simple story by giving it form. It is also argues that designers have the ability to see a complex situation, then turn around and communicate it to others. By giving graphic form to the credit crisis, it becomes comprehensible. Not only do economic activities take shape, but new relationships can emerge between these shapes.”

This type of work epitomizes smart media – defining an important and complex issue in a clear and easy to understand format.