The upcoming presidential election has become a media battle, which the Internet has been playing a huge role in. Video distribution via YouTube, Google Video, MySpace and other online channels has been a dominating factor and a key component for presidential candidates.
Case in point, we’ll look at two videos of candidate Hillary Clinton which have sparked great buzz from TV and Radio media outlets and have received the most attention from potential voters.
One video was not produced by the Clinton camp, on the contrary it was connected with the Obama campaign, had a negative take on Senator Clinton. The video, which portrayed Hillary Clinton as the dictator role in the Apple 1984 commercial spoof, was well produced, seen by millions and sparked an early online interest in Barack Obama.
Most recently, Senator Clinton porduced her own video spoof of the Sopranos finale that had everyone talking. I thought it was pretty clever actually, especially with buzz that was around that finale of the Sopranos. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:
Beyond online video distribution, how are the candidates marketing themselves online and what is the end result?
Let’s look at a Nielson Media Research study conducted on the activity of the candidates online.
Online Advertising
- Republican Senator John McCain leads overall online paid advertising, followed by Republican Romney and Democrat Clinton. McCain had 12 times the exposure of other candidates as a result of online advertising in April, generating nearly 26 million unique impressions. However, McCain only placed fourth in the number of unique visitors to a candidate’s Website in April.
- Senator Clinton’s campaign, which appears to have spent much less, generated the second most Website traffic, behind Democrat Senator Barack Obama. Obama, with no online advertisements, dominated the page views of all candidates, with the Obama’08 Website generating nearly 4 million page views from almost 650,000 unique visitors in April.
Site Traffic & Impressions
- Senator McCain generated over 40 million unique impressions utilizing paid Internet advertisements in April and May from both image- and sponsored link based ads; followed by Mitt Romney with 5.8 million unique impressions and Friends of Hillary generating just over 2 million impressions.
- Senator McCain’s nearly 26 million impressions in April generated the fourth rank in online traffic to the a campaign Website, with Clinton’s 1.4 million impressions contributing to second overall unique visitors to a campaign site; and Romney’s 877,000 unique impressions coming in a distant sixth.
- Senator Clinton scaled back online advertising significantly in May, with under 1 million impressions compared to Senator McCain with nearly 15 million impressions and Romney with nearly 5 million.”
Overall Traffic Rankings from April 2007
| 2008 Presidential Campaign Websites for April 2007 |
|||||
| Website | Unique Visitors (000) |
Page Views (000) |
Active Reach % |
Sessions Per Visitor |
Time Per Visitor (hh:mm:ss) |
| Barack Obama for President Website |
647 | 3,797 | 0.45 | 1.41 | 0:06:21 |
| Hillary Clinton for President Website |
498 | 1,616 | 0.34 | 1.17 | 0:04:16 |
| John Edwards for President Website |
385 | 1,744 | 0.27 | 1.32 | 0:04:59 |
| John McCain Presidential Website |
212 | 766 | 0.15 | 1.20 | 0:04:09 |
| Tom Tancredo Presidential Website |
142 | 454 | 0.10 | 1.10 | 0:03:58 |
| Mitt Romney Presidential Website |
111 | 447 | 0.08 | 1.12 | 0:03:08 |
| Ron Paul Presidential Website |
103 | 602 | 0.07 | 1.09 | 0:05:05 |
| Bill Richardson for President Website |
72 | 138 | 0.05 | 1.06 | 0:02:37 |
| Dennis Kucinich for President Website |
70 | 329 | 0.05 | 1.56 | 0:04:57 |
| Rudy Giuliani Exploratory Website |
65 | 562 | 0.04 | 1.17 | 0:02:43 |
| Mike Gravel for President Website |
N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Joe Biden for President Website |
N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Duncan Hunter for President Website |
N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Chris Dodd for President Website |
N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Tommy Thompson Presidential Website |
N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| John Cox for President Website |
N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Tom Vilsack for President Website |
N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Blog Popularity
Looking at the Blog Buzz Trends reporting from IceRocket, we can see who is getting the most buzz from blogs for the Democrats:
For Republicans :
Has any candidate got your attention online yet?
Pablo Palatnik is Managing Partner of eTrend Media Group, which specializes in Pay-Per-Click Management & Social Media Optimization.
