Saturday, May 03, 2008

Obama "pops up" on Indiana newspaper websites

As I was poking around some of Indiana's newspapers to get a sense of election coverage, it gradually dawned on me that I was seeing Obama's smiling face a lot. In ads.

Obama ads, focused on getting out the vote, pop up (sometimes) in the Indianapolis Star, South Bend Tribune, Post-Tribune (Gary), The Pilot News (Plymouth), Journal Courier (Lafayette), Courier & Press (Evansville),NWI Times (Northwest Indiana), Star Press (East Central Indiana), and doubtless many other papers. Hillary has none -- though she is favored with a ubiquitious AP video of her post-Pennsylvania "game-changer" speech, which turns up on many home pages.

Obama's online ads start with the sun rising in the Obama logo and move quickly to a headshot paired with a "find your polling place application"-- another tool in Obama's across-the-board focus on getting out the vote. Also included: poll hours, i.d. requirements, and eligibility.

I'd be interested to see the click-through totals for "find your polling place." And I wonder whether engaging people in this manner favorably disposes any undecided voters.

An outfit called Web Guild, tallying February spending by the two campaigns, posts this comparison of online ad spending in other venues by the two campaigns:

Spending Category        Barack Obama       Hillary Clinton
Google $1,000,000 $67,000
Yahoo Web Ads $99,341 $9,186
Yahoo Search Ads $58,000 $0
Facebook $4,900 $0
Web Consultants $93,162 $0
Ad Consultant n/a $997,000
Media Consultant n/a $2,540,000
To that tally, add (in May, at least) : local newspaper online buys: Obama something, Clinton nothing.

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