A new era of marketing politics

For thousands of Portland State students, Facebook is an easy way to keep in touch with friends and classmates. As the world becomes increasingly digitalized, the social-networking site is becoming a more common outlet for functions other than chatting with friends.

Candidates for national and local campaigns have been using Facebook and other websites as a new strategy for spreading the word about their platform objectives and candidacies.

Steve Novick, U.S. senatorial candidate in Oregon, recently used Facebook to release a political video advertisement in which he mimics the game show To Tell the Truth. The video circulated on Facebook and received attention on Internet blogs and in local newspapers.

Political videos have been surfacing on the Internet across the nation. One example is Black Eyed Peas singer and songwriter will.i.am’s new song and accompanying music video, which he produced to support Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy.

With further advancement of technology, many political marketing experts believe–as the prevalence of the aforementioned videos illustrate–that the Internet is becoming an increasingly more effective medium for campaigning.

“Marketing has always been a function of the technology available,” said Len Bergstein, a long-time public affairs consultant and president of the consulting firm Northwest Strategies Inc.

Bergstein said he believes the Internet will continue to become more and more important with each election cycle. Features such as blogs, e-mail, social-networking sites, online video networks like YouTube, and the ease of creating websites are a few reasons the Internet has been brought to the forefront of political marketing campaigns.

“The Internet is more of a player now than before,” said Tim Hibbitts, a political analyst and researcher since 1978.

One of the primary reasons the Internet has become an effective source for candidates to share their thoughts, opinions and platform objectives is because the messages can be tailored to a particular audience, Bergstein said.

The tailored messages give interested parties an opportunity to control consumption of political messages more than in the past because viewers have the liberty to find information of their choice on their own time.

“It puts the excitement in the hands of the voter,” Bergstein said. “Consumers of messages are now more in charge.”

Since those who surf the Internet decide the specifics of what political messages they consume–and often times create the message themselves with blogs, videos and other web content–the dissemination of political information is less centralized.

Before the Internet’s prominence in political marketing, information flowed from the top down, where campaign managers and candidates completely controlled the creation and dissemination of content. However, individuals are now encouraged to support candidates using person-to-person politics, which spreads information through word of mouth.

Jake Weigler, campaign manager for Novick, agrees that much of the power has been taken away from his position and given to the public, as he calls the current political marketing landscape “much more of a conversation” than before. Weigler said Novick’s campaign has a full-time position devoted to Internet content.

Another aspect of the Internet that has given it a more significant role in the current political marketing realm is the speed at which messages travel. Saying “speed kills,” Bergstein emphasized how the rapid spread of information on the web has also altered political marketing drastically.

“As more and more people become literate and used to using (the Internet) as a medium, it becomes more important,” Bergstein said. “It links people immediately and is an empowering medium.”

There is a downside to the speediness with which information is delivered. Frequently, information surfaces on the Internet without analysis, and viewers are sometimes flooded with an abundance of information they struggle to make meaning of, Bergstein said.

Gerald Sussman, Portland State urban studies and planning professor, said he believes the Internet’s impact will continue to grow as the computer-literate generation ages. However, Sussman said, the Internet is still not as influential as television.

Currently, two-thirds of all political advertising appears on television, Sussman said. Television is also the major financial player, as, Sussman said, political advertising typically represents one-third of a station’s total revenue.

While experts say the Internet’s influence in the political world is growing with each election, there is a possibility its impact may lessen in subsequent years.

Hibbitts said he believes a law of diminishing returns principle will soon apply to the Internet’s effect on political marketing. This would essentially cause the impact of the Internet to decrease over time, but Hibbitts said he is unsure when this may occur.

Whatever the future holds for the Internet’s impact on political marketing, some are still amazed by its capabilities and influence.

“To see something that happens in a millisecond is the thing that I think is so awesome and energizing,” Bergstein said.