Social Mode

No matter how you slice this election, old school political media plans just got schooled.

The Obama campaign altered national campaigning in a major way during this election.  Forget whether he wins or loses or whether you are this political part or that one, the fact is fundraising and political marketing is forever different.

Some key insights:

• Logos will no longer be just stars or flags or letter marks – campaigns will spend the money on a real logo
• The candidate’s name will be backseat to the key word or phrase
• Media plans will have digital/online as the center piece
• Real time editing of video (live + highlight) is essential
• New creative every day is required
• Network TV can be bought, cheaply
• Video game advertising will grow in importance
• YouTube (and other online video sources) are more important than they seem
• Spamming is effective
• Robocalls are less effective than humans
• Cell phones should be issued to all campaigners (or pay for their data plan)
• The network effect can raise a lot of money
• HD TV requires good looking people
• Nothing can be hidden, everyone is an investigative journalist. Plan for exposure.
• Campaigns will never be shorter than 13 months
• Polls get press
• dotcoms generate real traffic
• programming is a required skill of some of the campaign staff

I can’t wait to see the final tally on campaign spending and the break out by media type.  Also, the voter turn out and correlation to media should be fairly interesting.

Again, stand where you want on the issues, the media plans and marketing campaigns involved are bigger than the biggest brands on earth.

I see a lot of RFPs, IOs and agency plans in my line of work.  None of them come close to the brand integration of the campaigns, and Obama’s in particular.  None of these RFPs have near the coverage or depth or scope of these campaigns.

The coordination required to pull of these campaigns is beyond what you can imagine, even if you work in advertising.  And to be raising the budget as you need it makes it more impressive.. or maybe that’s what makes it possible at all.

Welcome to the digital, on demand age.  It’s here.