MICHAEL CONNELL,

Connell was instrumental in the early and ongoing development of online and new media strategies utilized by major Republican campaigns.

Connell was one of the lead online technology strategists for both successful Bush 43 Presidential campaigns, and he served as an advisor to John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign. 

Many online political operatives and consultants consider Connell a pioneer in the new media and technology field.  Connell and his firm, New Media Communications, also worked closely with Becki Donatelli, another online political consultant and leader in the online technology field.

Author’s Note:  This sad news strikes the Republican operative and political consultant community very hard.  While I did not know Connell personally, everyone in the political community held him in highest esteem.  Mutual colleagues and friends always had kind words and deep respect for Connell.  I know his family and close associates will be in the prayers and thoughts of the entire political community.  

Connell’s untimely and tragic death also, unfortunately, serves as a sad reminder of the loss of another highly respected political operative / consultant and dear friend, TOM BLAKELY.  Tom, also in his late forties, was struck down down earlier this year.  He was also survived by his loving wife Debbie and two daughters, Brielle and Maggie.  Tom was a mentor, friend and respected strategist to many people in politics.  He is also sadly missed.

Like Nielson for TV and Arbitron for radio, Hitwise has become the leading online ratings service. Hitwise provides an analysis of online user interaction with a broad range of competitive websites.

The first interesting weekly report Hitwise provides is the top 10 news and media category websites ranked by US market share of visits

Rank | Website | Domain | Market Share | 12/06

1. Yahoo! News news.yahoo.com 6.82% 1

2. The Weather Channel - US www.weather.com 3.70% 3

3. CNN.com www.cnn.com 3.42% 2

4. MSNBC www.msnbc.msn.com 3.23% 4

5. Google News news.google.com 2.43% 5

6. Drudge Report www.drudgereport.com 2.10% 6

7. Yahoo! Weather weather.yahoo.com 1.77% 10

8. Fox News www.foxnews.com 1.77% 8

9. The New York Times www.nytimes.com 1.75% 7

10. People Magazine www.people.com 1.69% 9

The next report lists the top search terms for the week ending 12/13/2008, that resulted in traffic to websites classified within the ‘News and Media’ industry. For example, the most popular search term was ‘cnn’ representing 0.69% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise within the ‘News and Media’ industry.

Displaying 1 to 20 of 119,317 search terms.

Ranked Search Term Clicks

1. cnn 0.69%

2. weather 0.68%

3. fox news 0.31%

4. drudge 0.28%

5. drudge report 0.27%

6. weather.com 0.20%

7. msnbc 0.18%

8. weather channel 0.18%

9. cnn.com 0.17%

10. news 0.17%

11. caylee anthony 0.15%

12. huffington post 0.14%

13. tv guide 0.13%

14. noaa 0.12%

15. people 0.11%

16. accuweather 0.11%

17. national weather service 0.10%

18. yahoo 0.10%

19. jennifer aniston 0.10%

20. new york times 0.10%

Search data is becoming a critically important tool for better understanding online behavior and marketing, which ultimately affects advertising at-large.

The more experts pay attention to this data, we can figure in online behavior in better understanding people’s (ie consumers and voters) habits. 

Political organizations especially, will be much better served when there is a deeper understanding ofwhich websites and what web activity affects varying voter demographics.

For more information about Hitwise’s sampling or up to date analysis of online trends and statistics, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.  Based on Hitwise United States data

If you read my post: Top 50 books for Political Operatives,

The book, titled, Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work (Click here), is a must read for anyone interested in political media communications and advertising.

Author, TED BRADER, provides an in-depth analysis of varying political advertising strategies, with specific attention to non verbal cues, an aspect of political media rarely touched by others in academia.  He references and discusses well-known and obscure political advertising campaign tactics, which played an important role in recent and historical elections.

In his thorough examination, Brader makes a strong argument; that carefully crafted audio and visual elements used in political advertising effectively create an emotional appeal which has an intrinsic dramatic effect on viewer/voting audiences.

In 2006, I wrote a piece for Politics Magazine (aka Campaigns & Elections), which I similarly argued that emotional appeals are the strongest form of political communications and advertising.

While my piece dealt more specifically with the use of images and symbolism related to September 11th in political advertising, I held that content and techniques used to create emotion is critical for maximizing moving voter opinion and creating action.

Here’s some relevant highlights from my piece:

Provoking emotion is one of the most important aspects to any political activity. 

Successful campaigns usually create a situation or series of situations that draw emotion from audiences – constituents or voters.  Emotional connections made in speeches, press releases, direct mail pieces or television spots are fundamental to controlling the message and the issues in an election.

Emotional appeals almost always trump rational appeals when attempting to gain political support or create negative views about an opponent.  Voters are more apt to create positive or negative feelings about an issue or candidate through emotions and sentiments rather than rational or logical arguments.

Campaigning for Hearts and Minds goes into much greater depth in making this argument.

Below, I’ve included a few well crafted reviews, by other readers as posted on Amazon:

Ted Brader’s “Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work” drives yet another nail into the coffin of academic wisdom that voters are either rational decision-makers or complacent habit-following creatures by providing compelling evidence for the role of emotions in political campaigns… In sum, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in learning how emotions influence politics by substantially advancing our understanding of how emotions drive our political thoughts, decisions, and actions. (Patrick A. Stewart)

The general audience may find the statistical discussion somewhat slow going, but this is not a turgidly written academic tome. At the same time, it is a solid academic work. His takeoff point (page 2): “. . .the motivational and persuasive power of campaign advertising depends considerably on whether an ad appeals to fear or enthusiasm.” He contends that emotional appeals built into campaign ads makes them more effective–the mixture of a political message plus emotion can be powerful if crafted well….The book is also worth looking at because of its notice of the relevance of psychology and the neurosciences for understanding why emotional elements in political ads can have such an effect. This demonstrates powerfully the importance of cross-disciplinary research.

As you know, I can’t enough Nielsen stats lately.  Here’s some interesting new information Nielsen produced illustrating TV viewership and online activity on Election Day.  This information was used to generate an understanding of where individuals got their Election coverage and gathered their news.  

According to Nielsen, “By combining television and Internet samples through a process known as fusion, Nielsen provides new data showing how the two media worked together to meet the demand for election news updates.”

Nielsen’s Total Estimate of Individual Activity

A total of 163.6 million adults sought election coverage from either television or the Internet — or both. This shows the unduplicated or cumulative audience that used one or the other medium for at least one minute.

158.3 million watched Election Day coverage on television. Of those, 134.8 million only watched TV coverage.

28.8 million used the Internet to get Election Day coverage from major news websites. Of those, 5.2 million only used the Internet for election coverage.

23.6 million got Election Day coverage from both TV and the Internet. Of these, 48% of these accessed online Election Day coverage only while at work; 42% got their online coverage only at home; and 10% checked online coverage both at home and at work.

Demographic Breakdown

From an overall reach perspective, adults aged 50+ were more likely than younger adults to seek Election Day news from TV or Internet — 80% of these adults were reached by one or the other medium, compared to 60% for 18-34s and 76% for 35-49s.

The demographic difference between the TV audience and the online audience wasn’t “younger” versus “older” — but rather, “middle-aged” versus “older.”

Younger adults between the ages of 18-34 made up about a quarter of the audience for both television and the Internet, but from there online coverage skewed younger than television:

-Adults 18-34 were 24.8% of the TV audience and 24.4% of the online audience.

-Adults 35-49 made up 40.7% of the online audience, but only 29.5% of the TV audience.

-Adults over the age of 50 made up 46% of the TV audience and accounted for 35% of the Internet users.

In addition, there are decided differences in demographic composition, based on whether people accessed election coverage online only, on TV only, or both on TV and online:

-Internet Only Users were the youngest: 34.5% were aged 18-34, compared to 34.0% for 35-49 and 31.5% for 50+.

-TV Only Users were the oldest: 25.3% were aged 18-34, 27.3% were aged 35-49, 47.4% were 50+.

-People who accessed Election coverage on both TV and online skewed 35-49: 22.2% were aged 18-34, 42.2% were 35-49, 35.6% were 50+.

Convergence Panel Results

A new Nielsen sample tracks both Internet and television usage with a single sample, making it possible to see how people used the two media simultaneously to check Election Day results.  This “convergence panel” shows that while simultaneous use of TV and Internet for Election Day coverage was limited, TV and online news outlets drew larger than average audiences:

-Only 1% of TV viewers on Election Night were simultaneously searching news websites — three times greater than the prior Tuesday night.

-On the other hand, 25.5% of news website visitors on Election Night were also watching TV election coverage — 2.5 times greater than the normal simultaneous traffic.

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.

In a recent post titled, How Obama’s Local Buys Added Up, Nielsen examines all the ad buys by the 2008 Presidential candidates.  The conclusion: local spot TV was the principle component of the Barack Obama TV buy strategy.

Spot television is all advertising time that is available from local TV stations.  Local Spot advertising is selectively buying on one or more targeted stations in each market separately.  These are purchased through the individual stations.  This is different from National Spots, which is advertising handled at a larger scale, where an advertising will cover several markets over a large region or across the country. 

Acoording to Nielson, “President-elect Barack Obama placed one-and-a-half times as many spot TV ads than John McCain during the general election season (6/08 to 11/08), and almost twice as many ads dating back to the beginning of January when the primaries were just heating up.”

The local numbers show a much bigger discrepancy than those for national cable and network buys. Sen. McCain kept pace w/ President-elect Obama in those categories, with Obama edging out his rival by just 136 ad buys in the cable and network combined, dating back to January.

Other notable campaign facts from Nielsen’s research

• Obama’s ads were on the airwaves over twice as much as McCain’s in the final month before the election (210,245 vs. 97,023 ad buys).
• McCain took early advantage of Obama’s long primary battle with Hillary Clinton, which ended on June 3rd. McCain bought over three and a half times more spot TV ads than Obama in June (26,594 to 7,251), the only month that McCain beat his opponent in that category.
• McCain made a major push with national buys in September, out placing Obama 10 to 1 in cable and network ad buys.
• The two candidates alone combined for almost 850,000 total ad buys dating back to January.

Complete Ad Spends: Jan-Nov 2008

A recent Nielsen Homescan analysis on the shopping habits of Obama and McCain supporters was reported in a article titled, Retail Politics: Shopping Insights For Obama & McCain Voters

The analysis shows notable differences in the shopping habits and holiday spending expectations of the American voter. The panel’s voting intent (55% Obama / 45% McCain) was similar to the actual nationwide election results (53% / 47%) and mirrored the state-by-state victories in all but three of the 48 contiguous states.

According to Nielsen Homescan, voters who favored Obama, tended to make more frequent trips across all outlets combined and in traditional retail channels.  While McCain voters may have made fewer trips, they visited the retail giant WalMart at a higher rate, and tend to outspend Democratic voters in terms of per-trip dollars.

Interestingly, despite massive electoral losses and concern about the prospect of higher taxes, the report also showed that McCain voters are slightly more optimistic about holiday spending. McCain voters also expressed more optimism about spending on entertainment inside and outside the home.

Nielson has a more in-depth presentation of these findings, with bar charts and all, here

I will not cede quality in any case.  And there is a tremendous amount of low quality web videos that get shopped around political circles.  The only good argument that I hear in response, when the quality is criticized, is that’s how web videos should be - not highly produced like TV spots.

This argument is weak and apologetic for bad product.  User generated media is becoming extremely important, it has been a main component of web 2.0 and the growing interest and reliance on the internet for entertainment, news, information and art.  

However, I argue there is an unmistakable difference between funny home videos and true dramatic or choreographed video pieces.  Again, both have their place, but one is much more suited for message delivery and persuasion.

The hidden cam scaled down video is good for grabbing content -  a la “Macaca.”  But a good video piece that grabs attention, drives emotion and causes action is important for modern campaigns.

Below I show a recent Barack Obama video that illustrates an effective high quality web video, which does not look like a TV spot.  This video piece uses all the good production techniques with high end transitions, well timed speed footage and well selected music.  All mixed well.

This piece clearly demonstrates, that good web videos can be made, which do not look like a made for television spot.

Signs of Hope & Change (Barack Obama for President)

It’s really quite amazing how one man can wake up one day, meet Barack Obama, ask him a question about taxes, and then instantly get shot onto the national stage of presidential politics.  Joe, the plumber from Toledo, instantly filled the role of average American worker perfectly for both candidates, as their poster child on a range of issues from taxes to healthcare and everything else in between.

But in my book you really haven’t made all the history books until you’ve been immortalized in a political TV spot.  Well, Joe the Plumber” did that one too.

But what we rarely ever see are companies or corporations on the attack.  Aside from the comparative ads that used to run between Coke vs. Pepsi and McDonalds vs. Burger King from 20 plus years ago, it seems that defining your competitor has become taboo in the private sector.  

However, I just stumbled across this little spot recently produced by FOX News Channel that takes direct aim at CNBC’s Jim Cramer.  I guess it takes a former political operative like Roger Ailes to change the game of the cable news wars - once an operative always an operative.

The thing that I like best about this spot is how closely it resembles a traditional political campaign attack ad in style and production feel.