Political Advertising and Video

by Brian Reich | 29 Jun 2006, 2:00am

Every political cycle some new innovation catches fire.   In 2004 it was the blogosphere.   In 2006, it looks like web video will be the ‘next big thing.’   Candidates are putting video on their sites, sending them out via email, even posting them on YouTube and MySpace.

Online advertising venues/providers are starting to realize the power of video as well.   PointRoll announced today that it had created a special suite of ad formats to appeal to political campaigns and organizations looking to use video on the web.   Klipmart, Unicast and others have also provided political campaigns with their video ad offerings recently.

I was quoted in an article on ClickZ today about this.   My quote is below:

Speaking generally about online video advertising, Brian Reich, director of Boston operations and senior strategic consultant for Mindshare Interactive Campaigns, said that he recommends the format to his clients. Still, he’s skeptical that those clients will achieve a significant return on video ads until all technology providers recognize the differences between political and commercial ad objectives. “Selling consumer goods is very different than selling issues,” he asserted.

Now go read the whole article.   The other consultants they talked with, most notably Michael Bassik from MHSC Partners (disclosure: he is a friend of mine)  make some excellent points.  

TAGS : Advertising Campaign Web Review politics Shameless Self Promotion