Among all the mediums that the Obama campaign seemed to dominate, YOUTUBE is one of the newer media outlets that the Obama campaign successfully capitalized on. This election has made a huge impact on the political world by using interactive Web 2.0 tools which changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks and communicate with constituents (Miller, 1). YOUTUBE was a major advertising tool for Obama. The Obama videos offered on YOUTUBE were more effective than TV ads because viewers who watched the YOUTUBE ads were doing so by choice, not because their television program was interrupted by a commercial. At the conclusion of the Obama campaign, an estimated 14.5 million hours of "Obama youtube" had been watched. This amount of hours equates to a whopping $47 million of broadcast TV. Obama's 37 minute "Race Speech," has been viewed over 6.7 million times (Miller, 2).
Youtube is just another example of the Obama campaigns effort to target generation y. Between all the Youtubes, facebooking, tweeting, texting, and emailing, election 08 had it sites set on generation y to lock in votes from the biggest states. Clearly this tactic worked since Obama, who happened to be the candidate dominating the social media, leading up to and during the elction, successfully one the votes of most major states, Florida and California for example.
Miller, C. C. (n.d.). How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com. Retrieved October 30, 2009, from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed-politics/
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Obama definitely capitalized on the viral video aspect of his campaign. I think that through his efforts on sites like YouTube and facebook had a major impact on younger voters. Which, I believe, what a major reason he won. Young adults have always been a difficult age group to identify with, however Obama was able to do just that.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, that statistic about the amount of Youtube viewing equates to nearly $50million spent on advertising is astounding. Maybe he should pay Youtube.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me that President Obama also jumped aboard the YouTube frenzy! He clearly spent millions if not billions of dollars in Advertising him and his campaign, so it only makes sense that he would also be so publicized on YouTube as well. This tactic, along with several other technological outlets, will potentially have a huge effect on elections in the future.
ReplyDeleteUtilizing YouTube was the smartest thing Obama did in the election I think. I researched this same topic and found that his ads were viewed for over 14 million hours. To me that was an incredible amount of time! And to think, those who watched for that long chose to watch the advertisements! I think it definitely succeeded at broadcasting his message clearly.
ReplyDeleteI think they need to be careful not to exclude those who have been voting for many years. Not everyone is tech savvy and not everyone twitts!
ReplyDeleteObama did a very intelligent thing utilizing new technologies. I think that really helped gain him a lot of cred, especially amongst the younger crowd.
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