e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Rebranding Sarah Palin via Google Ad

October 14th, 2008

This weekend saw a fascinating juxtaposition on e.politics — Sarah Palin branding ads on the same page as the fairly frightening Sarah Palin art article from last Friday. The ad (reproduced below the break) was a skyscraper banner running at the bottom of the right-hand column of the page, and it linked to a Sarah Palin bio page complete with a couple of video clips.

The clear goal was to insert the campaign’s preferred campaign image of the vice presidential candidate alongside other discussion of her on the web (let’s guess the keyword buy: “Sarah Palin”), and as such it’s a classic example of how to use the ‘net to spread your message independent of traditional filters. Although the visual effect was jarring in this instance, the ads did provide a chance to put the McCain/Palin talking points in front of a reader who had chosen to click on an article about Palin (or, at least they would have if they were high enough on the page to be visible…).

The landing page itself is disappointing, by contrast — it has some decent photos and clips of Palin in action, but the bio is long and book-reportish, and the overall effect feels lacking. Obama landing pages tend to be cleaner and more focused, and they often feature a video of the candidate or someone else speaking directly to the reader. By contrast, the Republican effort feels though it’s missed a real opportunity — if you’re trying change how we feel about a person, let us hear it straight from her.

BTW, those ads are no longer running on e.politics: at least for today, they’ve been replaced by a more generic McCain/Palin ad that leads to a slick TV-style video splash page declaring that the two are “mavericks” — and asking you for money.

– cpd

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