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.

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.

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.

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.

Today, two political video media pieces were sent to me, which could not be any more different from one another.   One is an example of interesting and thought provoking, while the other is an example of stodgy and standard.  

The first piece was produced by CatholicVote.org, a faith based educational program dedicated to informing all Americans about the critical issues in the public policy arena.  

According to their website, “Life: Imagine the Potential™ is our newest campaign designed for sharing on the Internet, and for use on broadcast TV. ” The campaign is focused on reaching beyond staunch pro-lifers, Americans who are either indifferent, or who have not yet thought about the great potential of every human life.”

The second piece is a spot released by Terry McAuliffe’s campaign for VA Governor.  It’s the first television ad in the race, five months before the state’s June primary.   He is truly defining ’slow burn’ strategy, this far out with TV.

While neither media piece appears to be edited using high end graphics or cinematic techniques, the catholic spot has much more value in terms of appeal.  The music grabs your attention, while the chyron graphics keep you guessing with questions.  It creates drama and makes the viewer think about the spot after it’s played.  

As much as the Catholic piece provokes interest, The McAuliffe spot provokes boredom.  It’s chyron graphics are tired and the look and feel of the spot equally passe.  The spot could have been shot for a candidate in 2002 – really.  It’s surprising, for a guy who has and can raise millions of dollars.  With the amount of money McAuliffe is spending on the buy, months in advance, I would imagine much more would have gone into producing a much better spot.  

Yes its bio, and yes it’s for  raising name ID, but that still doesn’t mean all creativity is lost.

Two spots. Same day. Different effects.

I’ve dedicated today’s space to a cross post from Patrick Ruffini.  Ruffini first posted this piece, on his conservative blog THENEXTRIGHT.com, under the title, Stop Talking About “Technology”.

Ruffini, who is a top Republican online strategist has posted several pieces since last November’s Election, providing constructive strategic input on best methods for getting the Republican Party back on track and  in position for regaining strength in the future.

This particular post is an interesting take on Ruffini’s views on new methods and the future of party building.  I agree with most of his assessment of the changing way people view and react to media and information, however, I disagree with his strong negative view of traditional advertising methods.

I am an ardent supporter of digital marketing and online message dissemination, especially through social platforms, but I believe traditional forms of communication are extremely powerful in connecting with and impacting most audiences.

My belief lies in full multi-media integration, with targeted audience behavior dictating communication methods, not selecting one method over another for blanket communicating.

One area where I completely agree with Ruffini is in message delivery.  Effective messaging, that is compelling, delivered by a strong messenger has a major role, if not the most important role, in creating intended impact, despite technological advantages or medium selection.

Here’s Ruffini’s Post

The Rebuild the Party plan has often been characterized as a way to remake the party through technology. Though we’ve sometimes slipped in using that word to describe certain elements of the plan — I generally feel uncomfortable with it being pigeonholed as a “technology” plan. I’ve generally struck “technology” from my vocabulary, taking instead about “new media” or simply, the “Internet” or when talking about a generational shift in fundraising or a 435 district strategy, wholesale party reform. Why? Because the word “technology” reinforces old siloed habits of thinking and implies that the solution is spending money on cool tech toys, rather than a quantum shift in approach.

If there is one thing the Republican Party is actually pretty good at right now, it’s investing in “technology.” From Voter Vault to the tools on GOP.com, the Republican Party has invested millions of dollars over the years in building the best political data-mining, microtargeting, and GOTV applications in politics.

This is vitally important. And it must continue. But the Rebuild plan focuses for the most part on something wholly different than these vital campaign technologies (where the GOP has to date held an advantage): getting the warm bodies who will actually use the technology and volunteer and donate.

The difference between the Bush ‘04 campaign and the Obama ‘08 is simple: the Obama campaign did the same thing, but with ten times more people. Technology was the instrument, but message was the impetus behind this shift.

Getting people to participate by the millions is the biggest job of the next RNC Chairman. That will require a wholesale overhaul in our message and how we communicate. First, the leadership and the grassroots will have to collaborate to shape the message. However one felt about the immigration debate, imposing change from the top as an elite project hatched at the White House was never going to fly politically. Ditto for spending, Medicare Part D, and to a lesser extent, education. The days of a leader deciding a message in a vacuum without grassroots input are over. There has got to be some buy-in from the grassroots — or else you’ll have a hollowed-out party with no boots on the ground. This is a pragmatic matter of survival as much as it is one of principle.

It also means changing our style of communication in a new era. Leaders have to be accessible, open, aggressive, and willing to throw the playbook out the window when necessary. Technology has made it easier to filter bottom-up input so that the good ideas rise to the top, so there is no excuse for at least some personal engagement with new media. Unless you’re the guy with the nuclear launch codes, you’re not too important to Twitter or blog at least every now and again.

Some of these reforms are substantive (changing the message) and others are meta (making people feel invested by applying a personal touch). And none of them are really dependent on technology — I consider the Internet, blogs, Twitter, and YouTube to be media not technology per se. Here are a couple of other paradigms to think about in evaluating this fundamental shift in politics:

 Push vs. Pull

By far the biggest mindset-change the RNC Chairman must — and I reiterate, must — wrap his arms around is that media is moving away from “push” to “pull.” An inordinate amount of time at the committee — and by political conultants everywhere — is spent on shaping, testing, and coordinating messages that are pushed out to voters. As in, how many pieces of mail can we push out there? How many phone calls or volunteer door knocks can we push out there? And ultimately, how much media can we buy — which is the push equivalent of the magic sin button. The messages themselves don’t always have to be very interesting, as long as they’re proven and poll-tested.

(more…)

Obama’s Change.gov is already at it with the beginning of it’s part II branding campaign….The Presidency.  Democrats and Republicans alike tout the Obama branding operation as nothing short of masterful.

Already, Obama’s communications team has produced a series of videos showing Obama at various events leading up to the inauguration.

These videos are shot on a high end / HD camera and are edited with excellent skill, as they reveal what appears to be a glimpse  behind the scenes of the Obama’s movements.  The best videos so far feature the Whistle Stop Tour and the Sunday concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

The Obama Team’s emphasis on video coverage, with almost instantaneous posting to their YouTube channel, conveys a greater sense of access that is in line with their message of change through transparency.

Kudos….The videos look great.