One of the hallmarks of this US Presidential Election has been the incredibly effective use of the internet by the Obama campaign. This particular video, by moveon.org, lets you send a customized message out to your slacker friends… the ones who might not be planning to vote.
Viral video is nothing new of course. However, this one is spreading like wildfire. Why? MoveOn encourages you to load your Yahoo, AOL or Hotmail address book into their site and send custom messages to ALL of your friends. As I was watching the site, the counter online seemed to be sending out 100 new custom videos every 5 to 6 seconds. Over 13.5 million videos sent so far.
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Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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This is brilliant.
Every bit as powerful as the original Dove Beauty campaign that first put viral video on the map (at least to me).
The use of overlayed images throughout the video is impressive – and I wonder how long it will be before custom audio can be inserted without seeming out of place. Not long I expect.
You'd never get that level of personalization on any other medium – and that means that marketers will increasingly turn to online video to tell their stories.
The risk is that without the deft handling that evident in this case (a call to action) or the Dove example (brand building) that online video will lose a lot of its cashe.
Still as an example of what is possible – and how it can affect outcomes – this is incredibly effective.
This is amazing, Alec. Do you think it is effective? To me, it is so offensive that I might well stay home or vote for the other guy. Dad
yes we can!
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