Master EMarketer: Ron Paul???
I’ve previously written about Barack Obama’s Emarketing problems (despite the high praises many give his web site)…and then I read the following:
From Wired: One Candidate Mastered Online Campaigning. Too Bad It Was Ron Paul.
Pick any Web 2.0 phenomenon and you’ll find Paul’s supporters exploiting it. Digg? In just two months, a user-generated campaign video picked up more than 16,000 diggs, making it the sixth-most popular video of 2007. Flickr? A group photo pool offers a profusion of grassroots agitprop. (My favorite: a Star Wars-inspired logo declaring Paul “A New Hope.”) Facebook? 5,589 fans and counting, baby. For 24/7 Ron Paul, junkies can sign up for his Twitter feed or check out the campaign lifecast on Justin.tv.On Guy Fawkes Day, he set a record for one-day fundraising by a Republican, pulling in $4.2 million in online contributions. He outdid himself just six weeks later, tapping the Internet for more than $6 million in a single day. Hey, if the presidential run doesn’t work out, maybe Paul could join Al Gore with the VCs on Sand Hill Road.
Two things:
1. Regardless of what we think of the candidates, the Web is dramatically changing campaigns and elections. We’re still barely out of the crawling stage, but who knows? One day we may have a system that enables easy, accurate voting online; real,debates that take as long as needed (you can drop in and listen, come back as you want); and the IQ-insulting old-style commercials are rendered obsolete. (Wiki Power! No, you can’t retroactively change your position; five million people will correct you.)
2. The online marketing of Ron Paul wouldn’t have gone anywhere - no matter what technology - if he didn’t hit an emotional chord with people. The “gotcha” is that he didn’t hit that chord with enough people.
And so it goes with any type of marketing. Before people “digging” you does you any good - you’ve got to offer something good.
Related Posts:
Marketing Lessons From The Primaries
Marketing Lessons From New Hampshire
“There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.” - Kurt Vonnegut
Tags: Barack Obama, Ron Paul, 2008 election, politics, emarketing, marketing troubleshooting
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February 26th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Actually, I think the “gotcha” is that while he had tech savvy supporters, Ron Paul’s campaign staff (especially it’s managers) are completely inept at virtually everything.
Add that the fact that the campaign was really in the “name” of Ron Paul, and that he himself was never really interesting in achieving office, and you have a pointless campaign that will by and large turn those masses of RP supporters into cynical, apathetic non-voters in future years. (And this will be especially so when the campaign finally and officially “ends” and the staffers shift the blame onto those supporters in a classic CYA — for which they are already prepping).
IMHO the only thing that could prevent the blame-shift is an audit or full-blown investigative media exposure of how the campaign staffers bungled every opportunity and squandered away all those millions. But THAT would also likely make the RP supporters cynical and apathetic. So it’s basically a lose-lose scenario.
Good job RP staffers! You somehow managed to completely blunt the biggest libertarian movement since Barry Goldwater.