The Year of YouTube Advertising
The wildest crop yet of online campaign commercials
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Google2010 has been the liveliest year yet for online campaign ads, as one low-budget clip after another draws enormous audiences through the sheer power of being different. And by different, we mean weird. Some of the ads that took off online originally aired on television, but others took the opposite route: They were posted to the Web first, sometimes at a length far too long for a TV spot, and then appeared free of charge on political talk shows after they picked up enough buzz to qualify as news. Some never left the Internet at all, achieving the sort of fame reserved for dramatic chipmunks and Star Wars kids.
There are two distinct but related phenomena going on here. One is advertising that was carefully designed to go viral: deliberately off-kilter commercials like Carly Fiorina’s “demon sheep” ad in the California senate race. And then there are the outsider artists whose ads simply reflect the fact that it’s easier than ever for anyone to create and post a video for the whole world to see, whether or not he knows what a conventional campaign ad looks like. The most extreme example is Basil Marceaux, a perennial crank candidate in Tennessee, whose bizarre homemade commercials got attention from the likes of Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Colbert Report.
The new wave of online ads has provoked a wide spectrum of responses, from praise to derision to fear. The most overwrought reaction came from MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, after the Alabama congressional candidate Rick Barber released an ad that invoked the American Revolution. It was standard-issue populist iconography, but Olbermann attacked it as “a call to treason” and declared that the candidate should be jailed.
Here are some of the most memorable clips of the season thus far:
Debut Date: January
The Candidate: Dwight McKenna, Democrat
The Office: coroner, Orleans Parish
The Setup: The incumbent has abused his office to advance a lucrative trade in human organs. To illustrate the scandal, here is a 30-second Frankenstein movie.
The Defining Moment: “‘Igor!’ ‘Yes, Doctor?’ ‘I need a heart, a spleen, and a liver for tonight’s sale!’”
Debut Date: February
The Candidate: Carly Fiorina, Republican
The Office: U.S. senator, California
The Setup: Tom Campbell claims to be a fiscal conservative. Actually, he’s a big-spending, debt-swelling, tax-hiking wolf in sheep’s clothing.
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YouTube has an enviable business model. They don't spend a dime on advertising because the whole world does it for them, for free. But are they making any money yet?
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Always wondered the same thing about Amazon.
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How much does it cost to have one of those ads popup when you watch a youtube video?
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I thought Basil Marceaux was awesome. If I lived in TN I would have voted for him.
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I'm thinking that Basil got a little help from his friend Jack Daniels before he shot that bit.
Who can't get behind a campaign to rid our government of gold fringed flags? Commies, that's who.
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That's what I always use to wash down a Happy Meal...
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I think gold fringes on flags are a waste of taxpayer money.
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Before anyone asks: This went to press over a month before the election. So yes, we missed some good ones from the final stretch.
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Dale Petersen FTW.
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Still gotta give it to Basil Marceaux, if the category of 'weird' is the measurement.
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The Rent Too Damn High!
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Correction - in Dale Peterson's ad, the weapon he is holding at the end is clearly a lever action rifle, not a shotgun. It looks like a Winchester Model 1894 to me, but they only show it for a few seconds.
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Check out his other ad where he fires into the air to scare off someone taking a sign off the lawn.
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Hahah, I remember that guy in the "?" shirt from those crazy "get money from the gov." infomercials. What's his name?