advertising

As Game Politics broke last week, and Gigaom confirmed yesterday, Barack Obama is buying in-game advertising on X-box Live. The ads are photo-realistic and announce the start of early voting and promote Vote for Change, Obama's one-stop-shop for registration and voting information.

So far, the ads are appearing in the following games:

• Burnout Paradise
• Madden 09
• Nascar 09
• NBA Live 08
• Need for Speed Carbon
• Need for Speed Prostreet
• NFL on Tour
• NHL 09
• Skate

According to the Seattle Times, the ads were sold by Massive, a Microsoft-owned ad agency (Microsoft makes the X-box, for the non-gamers here). The ads are also highly targeted and are only visible to gamers in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin.

There's no word as to how much these ads are costing or whether or not the Obama campaign pursued similar deals with PlayStation or Nintendo. I spent a good chunk of time yesterday trying to get someone at the Obama campaign to answer some basic questions, but ran into the PR wall. Here's all that the campaign is saying:

"Voters have a clear choice between Barack Obama and the change we need, or John McCain and more of the same failed Bush policies. These ads will help us expand the reach of VoteforChange.com, so that more people can use this easy tool to find their early vote location and make sure their voice is heard."

Over at ePolitics, Colin Delaney is skeptical about the efficacy of such ads:

Now let’s be realistic: these ads are in the middle of a racing game and are going to blow right by players, though they must be up long enough to register if people are going to bother paying for them. And they’re aimed at a shiftless-young-male demographic notoriously resistant to political messages, unless delivered by the Swedish Bikini Team. But thinking about it, the Obamans have probably bought about as many battleground-state TV commercials as they possibly could by now, so why not try using games to try to break through? What do you possibly risk? They certainly have the cash.

More broadly, this tactic reminded me of what folks from the abortive Mark Warner presidential campaign said a couple of years ago about his appearance in Second Life: very few people actually saw Warner there, but many more talked about it, and they talked about it on tech sites and gaming sites that are normally tough to break into. In the case of Obama’s gaming ads, besides the usual political suspects, they’ve now been covered in tech blogs, gaming sites AND car sites like this one. Multiplier effect!

I'm much more optimistic about this. Yes, it's true, that racing games like Burnout Paradise and Grand Turismo might not make the best vehicles for these ads, but sporting games offer much less hectic game play where ads could be more visible. Imagine little cartoon Obama ads in Wii tennis. Or imagine playing Gears of War II and seeing a faded-out, ravaged Shepard Fairey poster of Obama on the wall of a shelled-out building. . .

I also grate against the Second Life comparison. I was never on the Second Life bandwagon for a lot of reasons - janky interface, absolutely nothing interesting to do except attack people with penises, and lack of critical mass of users being some of the biggest. Above all, Second Life was a dead end. You could walk around a virtual campaign office, but you couldn't do anything. You had to leave Second Life if you wanted to take action. None of these are the case with XBox Live.

With users numbering in the millions, XBox Live certainly has the critical mass of active users to make such advertising attractive. In comparison, Second Life never had more than a few thousand active users at any given time. And thanks to their partnership with Rock the Vote, it's possible for any XBox Live user to actually start the registration process right on their XBox. As more states like California and Arizona pass laws allowing complete online voter registration, it's going to be possible to go from seeing one of these in-game ads to registering to vote before you put down the controller for the night.

The opportunities for reaching an audience and inspiring action are even greater on a platform like Nintendo Wii, which has a much more social element to its games than PlayStation or XBox. Imagine hosting a dinner party and busting out the Wii to play some tennis or Dance Dance Revolution, and seeing an in-game ad. We know that peer to peer is the surest way to get someone to register and then vote. So maybe one person at the party then asks if everyone is registered to vote. Those who aren't face some intense peer pressure, and with online registration through the console, everyone can register to vote right then and there. We aren't too far off from being able to do that and this is one of the first steps towards getting there.

Most of all, what I like about this ad buy, is that it shows some cultural respect for a growing and important constituency: gamers.

We know that all the stereotypes about gamers are false. Video games don't cause violence, and violence among youth has declined since the advent of games like Mortal Kombat and Halo. We know that young gamers are not civically challenged introverts, but are just as likely to vote as any other young person. And we know that most gamers aren't even teenagers. By PEW's reckoning, 35% of adults play video games, and the average age of a gamer is 33 years old.

Despite that, the Democratic Party of the last 15 years is rife with politicians who have used gamers and violent video games as their own personal Sista Souljah to navigate the culture war and appeal to "the center." It is in part thanks to Holy Joe Lieberman's crusades against video games, and the well-intentioned but misguided efforts of Tipper Gore and Hillary Clinton to regulate video games, that gamers are now an oft-maligned constituency in America, more likely associated with Columbine than with civic participation.

In reality, gamers are be a valuable, and sizeable, constituency to be courted by politicians on both sides of the aisle. What the Obama campaign is doing with this ad-buy is reaching out a hand to recognize gamers as an important piece of American culture and a group that needs - and deserves - to be brought into the public debate. That's what I love most about this move by the Obama campaign. It shows a cultural fluency with 21st Century American life that most politicians lack, and a willingness to reach out to all Americans in the places they live and socialize. I can't wait until the campaign is over and we can get some real data on what this cost and how effective it was. I think this is just scratching the surface of something that will grow to become a common occurrence in politics.

The Obama campaign just released a new two minute ad responding to the crisis. Still nothing in it specifically addressing the economic concerns of young people, but I do dig the language about helping the middle class. I think it does a pretty good job of framing Republican economic policies as anti-middle class.

I agree with Kevin that Chris Bowers' latest post outlining how he's running his own online advertising campaign using Google Adwords is awesome, and you should all go read it.

I also want to add that it's a super-cheap strategy. Bowers is spending essentially $10 a day for thousands of impressions arguing against McCain/Palin. With only 50 odd days left before the election, that's peanuts for an organization, and at that price point it's even feasible for college students to run ads for a few days or a week.

I think Bower's claims are a little over-blown about this being the equivalent of a decentralized, grassroots 527 (but hey, maybe I'm wrong). TV and Web Video are probably way more effective than Google Adwords, so I don't think this can have nearly the impact of a Swift Boat or Vote Vets ad campaign, no matter how many people participate. But I think this is still significant and incredibly doable.

If you are volunteering as much as you can but want to do more, or if you are frustrated by the Obama media strategy, as Bowers is, this isn't a bad alternative for doing something useful.

I promise, last time I'll post about Britney Spears and/or the MoveOn MTV ad buy. There's no solid data about whether or not humorous and/or pop culture heavy ads are effective, but Peter Levine has some interesting thoughts on the matter and it's worth it for everyone to be on the same page wrt best practices:

I am not aware of research or public data that would allow us to compare the effectiveness of a sarcastic or silly ad versus a serious and information-rich one. Nor have I seen evaluations of games that are designed to promote voting, whether the games are silly and parodic or challenging and educational. (The campaigns may have tested games and various broadcast messages, but they never share the data from such experiments.)

My hunch is that anyone who tries a very light approach is making a mistake. Remember that less than half of the youth population will vote. Heavily represented in that group are young people who are seriously concerned about issues, from their own economic prospects to the future of the planet. Voting is not much fun, but it is rewarding if one feels one can make a real difference by casting a ballot. Potential voters are likely to be people who believe they can make a difference, or at least are open to the argument that the election is important. This is true of all citizens, but young people are especially likely to say that they need more information and explanation before they can vote. Often, in focus groups and polls, they say that the main reason they may not vote is that they feel inadequately informed to make such a serious choice. Thus I suspect that an information-rich, explanatory ad or game could be very effective. But a jokey approach is likely to make young people feel that the election is unimportant (thus lowering turnout), or may offend them by patronizing them.

This doesn't rule out some use of humor and amusement in various media. But one should always take the audience seriously.

And just in case you haven't seen this yet:

• MTV is finally running its first paid political ad - and it's an attack on Senator Obama run by a third party organization. Classy. In a conversation I had with an MTV rep, they said that third party ads would be reviewed and accepted on a case by case basis. If newfangled swiftboaters can get their ads placed, I assume MoveOn or other progressives will have no trouble getting their own ads on TV, right?
• EJ Dione at The Washington Post pens the Best. Op-Ed. Ever. on the youth vote by a professional political pundit.
• McCain is getting ready to roll out new social networking features on his website to attract young voters. Because McCainspace was such a smashing success last year, right? I think Bondelli has the right take on building new social networks, but I've got no problem with McCain competing with the College Republicans to see whose social network can suck worse. Divide that tiny potential audience up and doom them both to failure.
• Jason at the Sentinel posted slides from his two excellent Netroots Nations panels on how to monetize, popularize, and all around make your blog more kickass.
• MSNBC has an interesting story about the role that nonprofits play in our elections. If you want to know about the differences between 501c 3, c4, and 527 organizations, it's not a bad place to start, even if there are some questionable assumptions about issue advocacy and ideology in the piece.
• Youth to Power made Micah Sifry and Andrew Raseij's "political beach-reading list."
• Facebook has plans to take over the rest of the interwebs . . .
• Over at his other blog, Kevin reports that Kanye West and MTV are teaming up to welcome home veterans and shed more light on the situation of our soldiers as they return home.

Update II: MTV staffers wrote back to me saying that they do not place local advertisement and will only be accepting spots from the Presidential campaigns. So the whole idea of local politicians making use of this is moot. Another lost opportunity. So what's my final answer to the question "what are these ads really workth?" Not a whole lot unless you are MTV raking in the cash.

Update: So apparently there is one study looking at the efficacy of political ads targeted at young voters. A study by Green and Vavrek on the efficacy of 30 second cable ads by Rock the Vote found a statistically significant increase in youth turnout in the target areas:

The average intent to treat effect for voters between the ages of 18-24, for which the ads were designed, was 2 percentage points with a standard error of 1.37.

Not a huge bump, but a bump none the less. Still, it is worth studying more this year and this is more evidence that it can benefit candidates. However, peer-to-peer organizing is still far more effective at reaching younger voters. Contrary to Devine's message, that should remain the primary method used by campaigns to engage Millennials.
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I want to talk a little bit more about MTV's recent announcement that all of their cable channels not directed at children will now accept paid political advertisements.

This was prompted by a discussion amongst a few youth vote colleagues. Some of the ideas expressed were not originally my own, but I agree with them and don't have permission to quote the person who suggested them. Nevertheless, I think they're really important and deserve to see the light of day.

At the heart of the problem is the simple question "what are these ads really worth?" According to Tad Devine, the Democratic strategist quoted in the piece by Ad Age:

"I think MTV's decision to accept advertising is an important indication that the youth vote this year will have a real impact on the outcome of the election," said Tad Devine, a Democratic campaign strategist who handled Sen. John Kerry's campaign four years ago. "Now campaigns have the opportunity to reach young voters in a venue where they congregate, and I'm sure Obama's campaign will look seriously at advertising there, given his advantage with young people."

Not quite. While the Nielsen numbers for MTV might still be quite high, young people are far more likely to "congregate" online or in their communities: at bars, coffee shops, concert venues, barbershops, etc. Studies consistently show that peer to peer interaction is the surest way to encourage someone to vote. Democratic candidates would be far better served reaching out to young voters in these venues than in airing expensive spots on national television.

Reaching young voters is not magic. They are out there, in your community (for real!) and candidates and campaigns don't need MTV to magically open the door to those young voters.

However, this does present us with an opportunity. As far as I can tell, no one knows how effective targeted cable TV ads are at reaching young voters because no one has ever been able to test it out. This was tried in 2004, when the Rappaports tried to air ads on MTV through the organization Compare Decide Vote, but those ads were not accepted.

While I seriously doubt any national political advertisements on MTV will have any direct impact on increasing young voter turnout, it could potentially do a lot at the state level to increase name recognition for down-ballot candidates, move young people onto candidate websites, and turn them into online supporters. If a Senate candidate like Scott Kleeb or congressional candidate like Darcy Burner could (relatively cheaply) purchase some time only in their local markets, that might do a lot for getting their name out there among young voters and moving that support online. From there, a smart campaign should be able to move some of that support offline or collect enough information to increase the effectiveness of their voter registration and GOTV work.

One final caveat. According to Ad Age:

"MTV Networks will accept political advertising that is national in scope, sponsored by a legally qualified candidate, a candidate's official campaign committee, a nationally recognized political party, or the official congressional campaign committee(s) of a nationally recognized party."

My reading of this leads me to believe that issue advocacy organizations will NOT be allowed to purchase air time. That is a shame. This could be truly useful for a group like MoveOn or PowerShift in raising awareness about anti-war or pro-environment actions. Yes, it would open up MTV to conservative messages as well, but that's what the open market of ideas is about. This seems like a big missed opportunity to get more young people actively involved in the national policy discussion.

Something I've been meaning to highlight further is Voto Latino, a non-partisn voter registration outfit targeting Latino voters. They are one of a number of organizations targeting Latino voters this election cycle.

In the 2006 midterms, young Latino voters were one of the least likely ethnic groups to go to the polls (along with Asian-Pacific Islanders). Yet they are also one of the fastest growing groups in the youth demographic, and thanks to the GOP's handling of immigration, they are increasingly leaning democratic.

Voto Latino has a fairly novel approach to reaching young Latinos. They are using a combination of MySpace outreach, and targeted PSAs satirizing the popular "telenovelas" that so many 1st and 2nd generation latinos grew up watching. Here's one staring Wilmer Valderama and Rosario Dawson:

This is actually a great segway to a post I read earlier this week about best practices for creating successful advertisements to reach young voters. A study by Survey U asked students to rate what they look for in an advertisement and these were their responses (h/t Ypulse):

Be truthful
60 percent said extremely important
30 percent said somewhat important
7 percent said important nor unimportant
2 percent said not very important
2 percent said not important at all

Show the functionality
41 percent said extremely important
43 percent said somewhat important
11 percent said important nor unimportant
3 percent said not very important
2 percent said not important at all

Show me the value
38 percent said extremely important
43 percent said somewhat important
13 percent said important nor unimportant
3 percent said not very important
3 percent said not important at all

Be current
30 percent said extremely important
49 percent said somewhat important
14 percent said important nor unimportant
4 percent said not very important
3 percent said not important at all

Be funny
32 percent said extremely important
46 percent said somewhat important
16 percent said important nor unimportant
3 percent said not very important
3 percent said not important at all

Speak to me in my own language
35 percent said extremely important
38 percent said somewhat important
19 percent said important nor unimportant
5 percent said not very important
4 percent said not important at all

Be cutting edge
20 percent said extremely important
43 percent said somewhat important
26 percent said important nor unimportant
6 percent said not very important
5 percent said not important at all

Be stylish
15 percent said extremely important
42 percent said somewhat important
27 percent said important nor unimportant
10 percent said not very important
6 percent said not important at all

Exude cool
8 percent said extremely important
26 percent said somewhat important
42 percent said important nor unimportant
15 percent said not very important
8 percent said not important at all

This seems like best practices for any advertising, not just youth targeted, but after this debacle of a PSA from Pizza Hut, I figure it is good advice for any organization looking to target young people. Applying it to Voto Latino, I can't say that the mock-telenovela really speaks to me (it feels super long), but I'm clearly not the target demographic, and I'd say it hits at least half of the guidelines above.

Hillary Clinton has posted a new set of responses to the questions of young voters. This is part II of the "Ask Hillary" series, an attempt by the Clinton campaign to reach out to younger voters after their dramatic loss in Iowa. As Josh Levy points out at Tech President, it's got a pretty top-down, and wooden feel to it, like many of Hillary's "spontaneous" events:

I applaud the effort, but would offer this advice: if programs like this are going to succeed, they need to feel much more authentic, and the campaign needs to have way less control. It would be much more exciting if this was a live web chat with viewers submitting rapid fire questions, or if the questions were determined via some sort of vote on the HillBlazers home page or Hillary FaceBook page.

I'm really interested to see how Clinton does in that kind of environment. We'll find out on Saturday when she and Huckabee appear on the MTV/MySpace Candidate Dialogues.

The Washington Post is reporting that Barack Obama is the first candidate to purchase national TV ad time in the Super (Fat) Tuesday contests. So far, Obama has purchased air time on CNN and MSNBC.

This is a new phase in the Democratic nominating process, and one that most of us are not used to seeing. The campaigns - at least Clinton and Obama - are now in a position where they need to run a national contest between now and February 5th. The crazy thing is that because of online fundraising and the growth of small-dollar donors, they actually have the cash to do this well.

For Obama, this has to mean one of two things - and most likely both. First, he's got to cede control and totally decentralize his field operation. He can't focus all his resources on one place and the candidate can't be in every state holding events and making his case. His supporters - online and offline - are going to have to be the standard bearers of his message.

Second, he's going to need to take the advice of the New Politics Institute and use cable TV ad-buys to target young voters. In Iowa and New Hampshire, the Obama campaign focused a lot of attention on young voters. They did hundreds of rallies, shook thousands of hands. The candidate was a real presence in those states. And the youth vote turned out in big numbers for Obama, even driving him to victory in Iowa with a massive turnout that was equal to 22% of the total electorate.

In Nevada, the candidate was much less of a presence until the final week. There were other mitigating factors as well, but this was in part one of the reasons for low youth turnout (compared to the rest of the electorate) in Nevada. That in turn was a primary reason why Obama lost the popular vote in the state.

If he's going to win on February 5th, Obama will need to find a way to reach out and speak to those voters; to make his presence known and impress upon them the importance of voting in their local primary/caucus. Cable buys can be a cheap and efficient way to do that by targeting young people who watch prime-time and late-night shows on Comedy Central, Cartoon's Network's Adult Swim, and MTV's reality series (yeah, trust me, a lot of 20 somethings still tune in).

Buying cable isn't as sexy as grassroots, decentralized organizing facilitated by the web. Nor is it a replacement for those activities. But it is one other weapon in the campaign arsenal that can help the candidate reach out and speak directly to younger voters at a time when the retail politics that helped him win in Iowa are just not possible.