Political Humor in Trying Times

Guest this week on Digital Politics was Stu Kreisman, Emmy award winning writer/producer and blogger on HuffingtonPost and MediaCurves.  Stu reminds us that we gotta laugh in the tough times and that politicians who show a good sense of humor will come across as more engaged in their jobs of trying to solve the problems.  Stu also takes us through the different kinds of political humor that work and we both agree that we haven’t seen any funny health care ads yet.

This interview with an entertainment industry insider made me laugh.

Enjoy.

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Role of Visionaries

The Digital Politics podcast this week focuses on those with a passion for looking into the future. This seemed like a good week for the topic as we note the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon, the passing of Walter Cronkite, the tragic death of Nicholas Givotovsky at 44, and the ComicCon event being held here in San Diego.  What combines all these elements is the fact that those who look into the future are often seen as ahead of their time or just plain crazy.

My guest on the podcast is Read Scott Martin, senior consultant to The Media Trust Company.  Read not only worked with Nick on some recent ad tracking projects but also knew him in high school.  I had known Nick since working with him in 1991 on a project with AOL and the Library of Congress.

How do visionaries influence the rate of change in society?  Can those with an eye on the future help us better manage risk in the short term? What role do accidents play in how it all turns out?

Listen to the interview with Read. Post your comments about Nick.

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Candidate as Comedian

Digital Politics podcast today with Larry Ward, president, Political Media, looks at the public perception of political humor and what kinds of funny ads and videos are most likely to go viral. Parody, cartoons, and self-mocking humor all might work in the right situation to get across a message.  Nasty jokes fall flat.

Larry has real world experience with candidates and advocates–some funnier than others.  He predicts that candidates will need to be better at making fun of themselves as well as responding appropriately to humorous attacks.

Check out the Colbert Nation in Iraq videos from this week for some political humor that is sure to offend and amuse just about everyone.

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Future of Political Advertising

The focus of the Digital Politics podcast today with Ira Teinowitz, freelance writer and former Washington bureau chief of Advertising Age was on the future of political advertising.  With his years of experience, Ira was quick to point out that the web is not the best way to reach all voters.   In his own words, “the question is whether web advertising actually brings new people or instead harvests people who are already likely committed –but committed because of advertising or actions somewhere off line… Within limits it works. But there are definite limits to web ads.They ain’t gonna replace TV.”

Many of my guests have been web-centric in their views of how the Internet is changing campaigns.  Ira reminds us that the traditional media still has the upper hand.  Is the future of political advertising more of the same?  Check out the entire interview.

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Emergence of Ad Networks

Podcast on Thursday with Jeff Dittus, CEO and co-founder, CampaignGrid, got into the details about targeting voters using online ads.  CampaignGrid worked with a range of Republican races in 2008 and is working with a number of advocacy groups.  They have also developed expertise in helping non-profits take advantage of the Google Grants program to raise money and awareness, and are growing the number of sites in their network.  Jeff has some great price comparisons between online and traditional media for reaching voters.  They are also using NING to manage their site—eating their own dog food as Jeff puts it.

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A Turning Point for Digital Media

Podcast today with Kate Kaye, Senior Editor, ClickZ, and author of the just released book Campaign ‘08: A Turning Point for Digital Media available from Amazon. I recommend this book because it reveals the behind the scenes struggle between the traditional media advisors and the Internet strategists.  It tells the story of both the Obama and McCain campaigns as well as those of some of the Primary contenders.

A Turning Point for Digital Media

Kate is optimistic about the lessons learned in 2008 and sees the traditional media political consultants significantly more interested in web strategies than in the past.  She has also written 2 recent stories which illustrate where these political strategists are seeing some real advantage to using the web:

In the special New York 20th District Congressional Campaign, Kate describes the Google Network Blast that was used in the last 36 hours by the Scott Murphy campaign.

Reviewing how the Yes on Prop 8 Campaign took the Web by Storm, Kate gets into the details about how the protectmarriage.com coalition used voter files to target relevant online ads and to get out the vote.  Not surprisingly, they found conservative, older and Hispanic voters online who contributed money and voted.

Kate is also speaking on Friday April 10 in DC at an IAB sponsored session on Political Behavioral Advertising in 2008.

Check out her book and tell me what you think.

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Harnessing the Power of Social Networks: Campaign 2008 Taps Into the Virtual Grid

Social Network Grid

Report from E-Voter Institute looks closely at the 44% of the survey respondents from the 3rd Annual Survey of Voter Expectations who use online social networks.  Compared to average voters, social networkers are 78% more likely to click on an online political ad, 56% more likely to read a political blog and 53% more likely to submit an email in order to receive information from a candidate.

A nearly equal number of active social network members (63%) say that television and cable ads are as effective as the official candidate web site (62%) to get their attention.  The most active social net members tend to use traditional media significantly less than the average voter.

Included in this study are details by age, gender, party affiliation and level of political activism of these social networkers.  Surveys conducted with the support of HCD Research, with analysis from Chris Borick, Muhlenberg College.

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