As our nation looks at the election results this evening - and now this early morning - there are many statements about who won and why. There are many answers to this questions - certainly from a social media perspective I noted on Content Nation the transformation of politics through the collaborative efforts of citizens and the use of easily embedded content helped to change the landscape of American politics - but for the major television networks clearly it was data and visualization tools that carried Election Night.
Election Night is The SuperBowl of politics, so it's not surprising that many of the high-tech content tools that make that sporting event enjoyable were present on major television networks - and then some. Many Americans are already familiar with CNN's John King mastery of the "Magic Wall," the two-handed touch screen that enables him to analyze election data at any number of levels with remarkable ease and clarity and to activate embedded graphics and videos. It's a toy that nobody else really has, a coup that gives CNN a technology advantage that is hard to find oftentimes in broadcast media. Not to be outdone, MSNBC tried to deal with an electoral map that hovered in mid-air and resembled a video action game display. Clearly a somewhat generation was on this network's mind, less focused on data and more on the landscape of content.
CNN slammed back an interview with video and musical artist Will-i-am, who had produced popular election videos circulated on YouTube and other outlets. Wil-i-am was blue-screened from two angles at his remote location in Chicago and made to appear as if he was standing holographically in the CNN studios as he was interviewed by correspondent Wolf Blitzer. John King came in with a hovering "Virtual Capitol" display that allowed him to analyze the impact of House and Senate races on the balance of Congressional power.Take that, SuperBowl field overlays!
In addition to these on-air twists of technology were the many online maps, charts and data tables that were updating throughout the night with remarkable reliablity. While the Internet was a little wobbly at times through the night for the most part every major political Web site was easily accessed and provided oodles of data to pore through on national and local elections. The embedding of many of these graphical tools in social media outlets emphasized how much major media outlets are moving towards content with data and user interaction features as a way to build their brands in the places that audiences appreciate their content the most.
The real question is, though, why more publishers aren't producing such content on a more regular basis to bolster their brands. Clearly data and data visualization tools are providing content that really engages audiences and provides major opportunities for sponsorship and co-branding. Some outlets took advantage of these opportunities on election night, but more publishers need to think more proactively about how to develop content that brings people not just text but data and visualization capabilities that tell a compelling story anywhere that people want it. Perhaps this election night has been very revolutionary from a political standpoint, but the real revolution in enabling highly engaging content through data and visualization tools for mass audiences has only just begun.
Currently I am working on Chapter 6 of Content Nation, which focuses on the impact of social media on politics. It seems only appropriate to be doing this on our nation's Independence Day. Below I share you a video that celebrates how content was such an important part of the story of that fabled day in 1776. For those of you celebrating today, have a great day!
The 2008 U.S. Presidential election is expected to attract more than a billion dollars in spending by some estimates, with the lion's share of that funding being funneled into media buys. But as noted by the New York Times the 2008 election is also likely to be the first election in which freely available content from candidates in social media portals will play a key factor in their media strategies. In addition to MySpace pages for candidates the presence of candid clips of candidates on YouTube turned out to play a pivotal role in key 2006 U.S. elections, providing an outlet for content that major news outlets had to cover and by doing so shape the dialogue. The New York Times today whines that all of this openness makes it difficult for candidates to shape their messages.
Yet what could be a better channel for getting your message out to the masses? Already one of the more interesting clips of the still-young 2008 campaign was concocted by an amateur, playing on a 1984 ad for Apple's Macintosh computer to the detriment of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton:
While the eventual impact of this clip is still hard to determine, it has already been viewed more than 900,000 times, not too far from the number who viewed the original Lyndon Johnson "daisy" anti-war ad in 1964's presidential campaign. If this is what one person with only the most nominal technology at their disposal can create, what could a campaign with sophisticated production equipment and messaging goals do on YouTube? Unfortunately for the campaign consultants whose fees rely in large part on placing ad buys in traditional media outlets the best buys in the 2008 may turn out to be free placements on outlets such as YouTube where the message is the star of an ad-supported show. The "daisy" ad, after all, gained most of its impact not from its original airing but from the coverage that it received as content in other ad-supported shows.
In the YouTube era it can be as important to get your message into the flow of conversation as much as to push it down people's throats with endless repetition. Services like YouTube that monetize the conversation as much as the content itself allow the "push" to come from the audience instead of the media outlet, providing a peer-level endorsement through voting and distribution that's difficult if not impossible to replicate via traditional media channels. It means, of course, a whole new spin on marketing in general: instead of creating messages that can't be questioned or voted upon YouTube and other social media outlets require marketers to create value in the midst of conversations that supply an implied endorsement far more powerfully than interrupt-driven advertising has done to date. Content finds its own level in these conversations, favoring multiple small engagements rather than high-risk big engagements.
I think that we'll see the "daisy" effect in 2008 via YouTube and other social media outlets far more than we have in past elections. Smart candidates will use their own producers to create a forest of interesting "quick-hit" messages for audiences to wade through online, and will aim their loyal followers through weblogs and email campaigns to the most popular of these messages as well as to amateur messages that seem to be resonating with voters. The most popular of these messages may wind up being promoted to broadcast media usage, reversing the flow of clips in a Current-style editorial process that allows tried and tested content to work its way towards broader audiences. The implied endorsement of these born-online broadcast ads is likely to be far more potent, as their airings will capture the attention of people who have already seen them and discussed them online and who are ready to tell their family members or friends, "Watch this, this is cool."
Ultimately this may mean lower budgets for traditional media spends, but I don't think that we're going to see a great lessening of spending in 2008 - only a more well-targeted spending that focuses more on creating online endorsements through social media more aggressively. In the long run, though, established media outlets will have to come up with new ways to make money off of political campaigns than can compete more effectively with outlets that use political ad content as free programming that can attract other ads. Politics in an era of user-driven distribution is certainly going to be a different animal.
UPDATE: The creator of the "Hillary 1984" video has been identified as Phil de Vellis, a Web developer associated with Democratic campaigns, including the Barack Obama campaign. He has resigned his position, but in an interesting post on The Huffington Post de Vellis notes "This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed."
