The Obama girl might be an example that bolsters your response about the McKay-Hilton ad being an ‘everyman’ production, but it doesn’t fit with having any real substance. In fact, as a Republican I feel it is my duty to note that the Obama Girl phenonmenon merely enhances Obama as Celebrity rather than Obama as Statesman.

Furthermore, unlike the Obama Girl phenomenon, this Paris ad (and the countless thousands of less well produced ads) haven’t risen out of the cybermuck. The press continues to focus their reporting on what happens on television and what comes from the official campaigns.

So here is a crazy hypothetical that hopefully frames what I am trying to say: If the Federalist Papers had been distributed via Facebook, would anyone have even noticed? Allegorically speaking, the Founding Fathers would have had to mount a T.Boone Pickens/Ross Perot style “We can do it” advertising campaign.

Despite viral events, the Internet is still very much a ‘PULL’ oriented medium. To communicate with the undecideds and the uninterested (where the lion share of votes are) you need to push, push, push. The internet has a position within that market, but it is much smaller (and likely to remain so) than television and radio (though I do think it has eclipsed print advertising in terms of ROI).

I agree with your point that there’s a new game in town and it’s we the people. The idea that a guy with a cheap Flip camera or even camera phone can make an impact in the discussion (Obama - bitter gun clingers; Clinton - put me up for nomination, voices to be heard) is very promising. It’s like a perpetual town hall where the public can now impact the conversation regularly and sometimes in a very large way.

But in the new world, they MATTER — in this case, they can outshine a candidate and present a message that millions will see. Of course it helps to have a talented producer and a famous subject, but the point is that there are A LOT of talented producers out there and a fair number of famous and/or hot people to focus a camera on. Who’d heard of ObamaGirl before she was seen millions of times? She had the hot but not the famous, but the former combined with good writing and editing to lead to the latter, at least for a while.

Think of how many of these videos we’ve seen this cycle — 1984, Yes We Can and ObamaGirl are the three that pop to mind, but there have been hundreds or thousands of others. The cream will rise to the top of the bucket, for sure, but the bigger the bucket, the more cream you get.