2008 Election Cycle as Case Study for Social Media Marketing
The 2008 election provides a useful insight into the rapidly evolving dynamics of the United States’ current media environment. It is, arguably, the first major media event to take place since fundamental Internet-related changes have occurred in how the media operates. Deloitte has turned the election into a case study for businesses that wish to be on the true cutting edge of the marketing industry.
At the heart of the report is a study of how campaigns are “shaping messages and candidate ‘brands’ by effectively leveraging a wide array of new media tools.”
The report focuses on three developments that have had a significant impact on the election that weren’t prevalent in the last presidential election:
• Social networking websites
• Video sharing websites
• Smaller, more portable communications tools
Each of these aspects of a quickly-changing Internet are expected to continue to fundamentally change. “As corporate use of Facebook groups mature,” for instance, “and more research on the effectiveness of new media marketing is conducted, we expect the content to grow and become even more innovative.”
Meanwhile, video sharing sites such as YouTube create opportunities to disseminate a candidate’s message but also enable external messages to get to consumers without the traditional editorial filters applied.
…as an unregulated medium, YouTube limits the control candidates can have over their own public images.
One needs only to look at the past week’s news, where Barack Obama felt compelled to respond to questions about sermons offered by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to see YouTube’s impact. Prior to YouTube, a story like this would have been unlikely to receive media coverage. But the ability for online users to view the videos generated tremendous interest, which was then picked up by the mainstream media.
Advances in mobile technology have acted as an accelerator for social media and online video. The ability for users to upload images or videos from mobile devices, as well as the growth of instant messaging and short message services like Twitter are further transforming the political media landscape.
Delloitte’s report lists seven factors business should consider when thinking about new media:
1. Know how customers collect, create and collaborate.
2. For better or worse, YouTube is egalitarian.
3. Facebook provides many plausible functions for markets,
none of which is clearly dominant yet.
4. Not responding is no longer an option.
5. Brand terrorism may be right around the corner.
6. Your media plan may need shredding.
7. Your organizational structure may be an impediment.
To a certain extent, these trends point to a partial democratization of candidate — and company — brands: “Candidates and corporations may be entering a new age where their brand is no longer their own—a time of collaborative, de-centralized brand management… New media have effectively ushered in the age of political and corporate brands as part of the popular culture, where they can be built-up, torn-down, dissected, analyzed and re-disseminated without the planning and vetting that goes into messages more formally devised for target audiences.”
The full report, New Media and the 2008 Campaign Season: Valuable Lessons for Business About Being First, Fast, and Nimble, is available for free download.
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