Web video: the biggest epolitics innovation of 2004
Author: Campaigns & Elections

Just as President Lyndon Baines Johnson's 1964 "Daisy" ad ushered in a new era of negative political television commercials, a Web video sent by the Bush/Cheney campaign is the signal that a new, important form of political advertising has arrived.

The ad, "Unprincipled," was sent by e-mail in February 2004 to six million supporters. It casts U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, as beholden to the special interests he regularly denounces.

The ad had a major impact; Bush/Cheney supporters cheered it and forwarded it to friends, the news media gave it substantial coverage, and the Kerry camp felt compelled to respond with a Web video counter attack. This Web war ensured further media coverage.

Web video had arrived.

The best-funded political campaign in history used a Web video ad, which cost a few thousand dollars, to generate free media equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars of paid advertising. Compared with the multimillion-dollar television ad blitz Bush/Cheney '04 would launch just days later, the Web ads were incredibly cost-effective.

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