Obama Campaign Geeks Out
Sen. Barack Obama has broke a new barrier last week: he became the first presidential candidate to place campaign ads in online video games.
Advertising in video games has been garnering increased attention in recent years, and it comes as only a slight surprise that Obama’s campaign would take advantage of the medium.
Obama’s campaign has been no stranger to the tools of the Web during the past couple years. Besides his well-built Web site, Obama has also leveraged the power of Twitter to keep his supporters updated on his whereabouts and doings.
In addition to its fondness for the Internet’s social networking and viral aspects, Obama’s campaign has been granted incredibly deep pockets, and it has not been afraid to dip into them during these last few weeks preceding the election on Nov. 4.
A campaign spokesman said ads would be placed in 18 Xbox Live games in order to raise awareness of online voter registration and early balloting in 10 battleground states.
The ads will appear as billboards or banners in video games such as “Guitar Hero 3,” “The Incredible Hulk” and “NBA Live 08.”
These ads will target males between the ages of 18 to 34 years of age despite the fact that Obama has a lead in this demographic.
Obama also plans on running a 30-minute ad on October 29 on CBS and NBC, the first time that a candidate has used this method of advertising since Ross Perot in 1992.
The Obama campaign has also decided to integrate Facebook Connect with its Web site, My.BarackObama.com. This will allow users to find their Facebook friends who are also on Obama’s site.
“In addition to that, each time that you attend a campaign event or make phone calls for Barack, that information will appear back on Facebook,” a representative from the campaign said.
“Your friends will know exactly what you’re doing to help elect Barack Obama our next president.”
If Obama wins, so does the intense, expansive Web strategy he has used.
Sources:
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20081017/tc_nm/us_usa_politics_videogames
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10070299-2.html
