by OnSight | Apr 2014 | Campaign, Hickenlooper, politics, video
The Hickenlooper for Colorado 2014 campaign is up and running! We worked with our friends at Putnam Partners to create a fun new video showing off John Hickenlooper and Joe Garcia’s campaign workout routine as they get ready for 2014. It was first screened to cheers and laughter at the Democratic Party Assembly on Saturday. From cycling around the state, to meeting thousands of Coloradans, and not to mention answering countless phone calls, all of Team Hickenlooper is busy getting ready for the campaign!
Lynn Bartels mentioned the video in a post on The Spot, and with hundreds of views on YouTube and dozens of shares on Facebook, the video is already launching the campaign into the spotlight with its characteristic positivity, energy, and self-deprecating charm.
by OnSight | Apr 2014 | Campaign, Graphics, politics, Press and Media, Trends
They call it “The Eye”…
Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group — a global PR research and analysis firm — has been collecting campaign ads. And now that they’ve got 10 years worth (upwards of 50,000 ads from the federal, state, and local level), they’ve done something amazing with them.
This stunning (and initially kind of overwhelming) interactive graphic breaks down the ads by party, topic, race, and relative airtime. It’s a stunning piece of datavisualization, and it links to every single one of the ads it has tracked, providing not just a graphical representation of an almost ungraspable amount of data, but an actual live database of the component parts (in this case, each unique ad), as well.
In addition,
Filtered by “President” and “Taxes”.
What’s this a reflection of? A smaller battleground in 2012 meant those presidential ads aired across fewer markets, which held down occurrences. But beyond that, the 2012 Obama campaign targeted many of their ads more narrowly, keeping as many as 20 unique commercials on the air at any one time. Many 2012 presidential ads also aired for shorter periods of time than ads in previous races because they were produced to either drive, or take advantage of the news cycle—a growing trend for political ads.
by OnSight | Apr 2014 | Beer, Press and Media, Print Communications
Earlier this month, OnSight assisted Anheuser-Busch and the Anheuser-Busch Foundation in hosting a press conference to announce a $250,000 gift to Colorado State University’s Fermentation Science and Technology program in Fort Collins. This program, launched in the fall of 2013, is the first of its kind in the region, and only third in the nation. Anheuser-Busch has worked to foster a partnership with the department since its development with in-classroom visits, an inside-look at the brewery, and now this sizable donation.
Despite some uncooperative weather, CSU students, faculty, regional public figures and Anheuser-Busch employees joined us for the conference at the A-B Brewery in Fort Collins and enjoyed snacks and beers after the check presentation.
Here’s a roundup of key coverage from the event:
FORT COLLINS – The Anheuser-Busch Foundation today donated $250,000 to Colorado State University’s Fermentation Science and Technology program, to fund the renovation of academic space and the hands-on lab at CSU.
A bachelor’s degree program in Fermentation Science and Technology was launched in 2013 as part of the school’s department of Food Science and Human Nutrition in the College of Health and Human Sciences.
Brewing giant donates $250,000 to help improve academic, lab space for the fledgling Fermentation Science and Technology program.
The gift will fund the renovation of academic space and the hands-on lab at CSU. Before a crowd of university and local officials, representatives from the brewery emphasized Anheuser-Busch’s commitment to community involvement, and praised the accomplishments of the university and its new program.
The Anheuser-Busch Foundation has announced that it will donate $250,000 to CSU’s new Fermentation Science and Technology program.
“Anheuser-Busch and Colorado State University have a shared commitment to excellence and the desire to always keep moving forward,” Kevin Fahrenkrog, general manager of A-B’s Fort Collins brewery, said in an email. “We’re excited to extend our community partnership and look forward to sharing additional details next week.”
by OnSight | Mar 2014 | Campaign, Press and Media, Strategy, Trends, Web Communications
“For political campaigns, reaching younger, more diverse, swing voters through live TV advertising alone is problematic.”
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It’s a multi-layered challenge for political campaigns: TV is still the best way to reach the biggest audience, but media markets don’t necessarily map on to Congressional districts. In a cash-conscious campaign (and aren’t they all?), spending money to advertise to people who can’t even vote on your issue or candidate is bitter pill. Add to that the declining TV audience (or, better put, the increase in non-TV audiences) and the growth of “micro-targeting” on social media, and it raises the question about how best to allocate advertising dollars to reach the most relevant audience.
WaPo goes into more depth in this March 15 article, citing a bipartisan research effort from earlier in the year:
Live TV isn’t going away; it’s just not as dominant as it once was. Seventy percent of those surveyed said they had watched live television in the previous week. But fully 30 percent said that, other than live sporting events, they had watched no live television in the previous week. For younger voters, it’s closer to 40 percent.
Video on demand, streaming, smartphones and tablets have changed viewing habits. In the past three years, according to the survey, the percentage of people watching streaming content — think “House of Cards” on Netflix — has roughly doubled, to 27 percent of the population. Viewing content on smartphones has about doubled to roughly the same percentage of users. Tablet viewing has jumped from 14 percent to 26 percent in less than two years.
These changes in viewing habits coincide with the dramatic growth in the prevalence of smartphones and tablets. Today, two-thirds of the population has a smartphone; more than half said they have a tablet.
The bottom line is the same, political campaign or consumer marketing campaign — reach the people most interested in or persuadable by your message, with the least waste. Or as put by Obama media advisor Jim Margolis, ““The objective is reaching voters where they are. Content is content and whether you see an ad or video on your iPad, your TV or on your smartphone, our job is to get in front of your eyeballs and get your attention. That means looking for gaps in TV penetration, and finding targets someplace else…to do it right requires more work and sophistication than when people were watching four local stations and we were bombing them . . . with ads. The advertising world has changed in powerful ways and reaching voters is more challenging than ever before”
by OnSight | Mar 2014 | Campaign, Romanoff
Former Secretary of Interior (and former Colorado Senator) Ken Salazar congratulating Andrew Romanoff on his campaign kickoff.
Andrew Romanoff officially kicked of his Congressional bid last week in Aurora.
More than 500 enthusiastic supporters, including State Rep. Rhonda Fields and Hon. Ken Salazar, gathered at Dora’s Mexican Restaurant in Aurora for the official launch, because what better way to launch a campaign than with delicious Mexican food?
The race for Colorado’s 6th district will be one of the most-watched races nationally, as it is one of the few congressional seats in the country with a chance of flipping parties. Andrew Romanoff — energetic, committed, and charismatic — has been a strong fundraiser, bringing in about $2 million in 2013, and edging out his opponent in cash on hand.
Andrew Romanoff speaking at his campaign kickoff.
With a national approval rating of 12%, the Republican incumbent in a Republican-controlled Congress looks vulnerable, and all eyes will be on this race.
Read more: Mike Coffman, Andrew Romanoff begin battle for Colorado’s 6th Congressional District – The Denver Post
