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 | 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
by OnSight | Mar 2014 | Campaign, Ed Perlmutter, politics
No matter which side of the marijuana legalization issue you’re on, we all recognize the changes made to the Colorado Constitution by Amendment 64 created some unique conflicts between state and federal law – including access to regular banking services. Because marijuana is still a controlled substance under federal law, banks may face criminal and regulatory penalties if they engage with these marijuana businesses.
Ed Perlmutter ran for Congress to be a voice and represent the needs of Colorado, and when he saw this banking conflict arise, he wanted to fix it. That’s why he introduced a bill to allow banks to provide services to marijuana businesses in states with a legal and regulatory structure in place.
It’s simple: legal businesses (including marijuana businesses and banking businesses) should have the freedom to operate just like any other business in the state.
Running a small business is hard enough without the additional challenge of being limited to a cash-only operation. Bottom line: denying entrepreneurs access to banking is a dangerous and costly gamble. It makes shops easy targets for robberies, is a logistical burden for shop owners and employees, and is tremendously inefficient for government offices which end up counting piles of bills when collecting taxes.
It’s time for Congress to take this issue seriously and bring up my bill for a hearing in the House Financial Services Committee. Please sign Ed’s petition, and join him in working towards a common-sense solution to a real public safety problem in Colorado.
Last week, President Obama’s Justice and Treasury departments issued guidance to banks about dealing with changes in states like Colorado and Washington. But that’s not enough. We need a real, permanent solution updating federal law. Many of Ed’s colleagues – Democrats and Republicans – agree and are cosponsoring his bill
Please sign this petition if you want Congress to stop arguing about old ideological battles and start focusing on tackling the everyday problems.
by OnSight | May 2013 | Campaign, Social Media, Strategy, Web Communications
Some ups and downs in 2012.
Veteran politicos will tell you there is no such thing as an “off year,” but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some natural ebbs and flows.
With that in mind, we are using this relatively quiet time to reflect on some of the ups and downs of 2012.
Here are the post topics we’ll be offering up:
- Metrics and Goal Setting
- Data and Analytics
- Email List Growth
- Email Subject Lines
- Email Content and Click-through
- Social Media
- Fundraising and Appeals
