Make It Quick

Due to the total lack of entertaining shows on television right now (and the ones which are good are all on at the same time), I often find myself on YouTube searching for a clip from the movie or program I would rather be watching at the time (when people can easily figure out how to do this on their TVs, networks are going to be in some serious trouble). Anyway, the other day I was looking for a particular clip but before it could start I had to sit through a mini-commercial. This is nothing new, but I was kind of surprised that the commercial featured Mitt Romney's smiling face, asking me to vote for him for President. For some reason it just surprised me that politicians would be using this kind of marketing. But, it appears that it has become commonplace because two or three clips later the commercial before the video was for Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. Now, you don't need to explain the benefits of internet marketing to me and I would honestly rather have this than 20 cold calls a day playing me some poorly-recorded message. Still, I just couldn't help but notice that while it appears these campaigns are starting to catch on to the new ways of marketing they still haven't quite figured it all out yet.

First off, I would advise these people that their commercials are way too long. Most internet sites, especially YouTube, only make you watch the first 10 seconds of the commercial before you are given the opportunity to skip the rest of it. I'm pretty sure 99% of people watching videos take this option and that decision has nothing to do with product, but everything to do with the length of the commercial. Most people barely plan to watch the entire clip they clicked on, so to expect them to sit through an entire ad is poor planning. This isn't even like a typical TV commercial in which people may fast-forward thanks to DVR but they at least will see most of the images and subtly input them into their brains. Also, these commercial directors need to be aware of how long the clip people may be about to watch actually is. Most of the time they are incredibly short and no one will sit through a minute-long ad just to be able to watch a 10-second clip of a panda sneezing. The smartest companies are the ones which have already figure out to make their commercials as short as possible. If you can't say your whole message in the time before people are given the option to skip the rest of the ad than most of your message is never going to be seen. You can tell this philosophy hasn't sunken in yet because when I clicked passed both the Romney and Warren ads they had barely started into their messages. If they want to appear tech-savvy than they need to considerably tighten things up.

The other flaw in this YouTube marketing strategy is that you are blindly attaching yourself to the site with no kind of control of which commercials appear before which videos. Considering I watched several kinds of videos (music, comedy, news clips) and saw political ads before all of them, I'm not sure they get any input into when the ads appear and that can be a little dangerous. Sure, YouTube has done a pretty good job of cleaning the really offensive or dirty stuff off their site, but things can still slip through for a little while. These candidates need to ask themselves if they really want to risk being associated with a clip of a hobo fight. This apparent lack of knowledge about viral media also leads me to wonder if these guys have ever even seen the commenting section on YouTube. I know that every website which allows everyone to weigh in on a subject is just an open invitation to be as nasty and politically incorrect as they want because they can hide behind a fake name, but YouTube's comment section takes it to an entirely new level. It doesn't matter what the video is, there will still be at least one person making an insanely offensive statement about the people in it. The only good news is that most of the comments are so poorly written you can't always tell what demographic they were trying to insult.

I appreciate the effort to bring campaigning into the new millennium, but this effort has the feel of someone in a strategy meeting piping up and saying, "Are the kids still into the YouTubes? We should try and put ads there." before then handing responsibility over to the interns. It is a stark reminder that just because you can put ads in front of people it doesn't mean you should. After all, advertising is only effective when seen by people who it might actually influence and even then it helps if they see the entire commercial. I'm not sure the guy looking for a "Family Guy" clip is really in the mood for a frank discussion about politics. So, while it is nice to see political campaigns take on a few new tactics I just wonder if this isn't a giant waste of money and effort. (Then again, it is probably very easy to buy this kind of advertising when you aren't spending your own money.) If these campaigns want to keep doing this going forward I would suggest focusing the ads a little more and shortening them. Just a simple, "Hey, I'm [Candidate's name] running for [office]. Don't forget to vote for me on November 6th." Not snazzy, but at least you know everyone will get your full message. Besides, if "Taste Great, Less Filling" taught us anything is that advertising only needs to be catchy, not wordy. When you only have 10 seconds before people can skip your ad time is not on your side.