After the Debates: Using the Internet to Win at the Water Cooler

Archive for September 26th, 2008

After the Debates: Using the Internet to Win at the Water Cooler

Way on back in 2007, we used to talk about how the internet fit into a presidential debate, that hallowed (and effective) tradition of the televison era. We even had two YouTube debates — remember them? Talking snowman and all that? Didn’t make a lot of difference in the end, though they were certainly entertaining.

But here’s how the internet REALLY interacts with the presidential debates — it’s going to help shape the collective water-cooler discussion tonight and tomorrow, and the campaigns are going to be fully in the fray from the start. McCain and the Wall Street Journal might have jumped the gun with victory ads today, but surely both the McCain and Obama campaigns have online search/display ads, videos, emails and text messages ready to launch. During and after, they don’t want to miss a beat in trying to shape the public’s perception of what happened and what’s happening.

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Friday Fun: A Treasure Trove of Political Campaign TV Commercials, with a Social Media Twist

Here’s something to keep you busy for a couple of hours on a dreary Friday afternoon: a comprehensive collection of political campaign television commercials dating back to the 1950s. Revealing for more than just political reasons, since they also capture the aesthetics and pacing of the televised culture of the time. The best stand apart: if you’ve never actually seen the LBJ/daisy ad from 1964 in its entirety, watch below. Even forgetting its political/communications significance, it’s a fantastic piece of design.

Note that like a lot of current YouTube “commercials” (i.e., campaign videos), it ran only once as a paid ad, but was amplified by being shown to the huge audiences then watching the network news shows. For a good introduction, check out John Dickerson’s playlist — terrific stuff (in the G.H.W. Bush one, notice how funny the words “In a world where…” sound — too many movie promos…). Or, create and annotate your own, a nice social media touch.

– cpd

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