Campaigns and consultants are using the web for the simplest of reasons: it's where the voters are. But with widespread use come demands for protection - or at least the same degree of transparency - found in other mediums.
The issue of disclosure is already making headlines.
In 2007, the Federal Elections Commission ruled that bloggers are not subject to its regulations when it comes to payments. So an interesting conflict over "blogging for bucks" - the practice of adopting bloggers as a political campaign's online spokesmen and women - may well be in our future.
The Food and Drug Administration is also hold hearings on the use of search ads - those text ads down the right-hand side of your search results page - for pharmaceutical companies. That's not politics, of course, but it's another indication that regulatory agencies are looking at online with a new set of criteria.
And it's not just the federal government. In Florida, as this Wall Street Journal story details, there's been a dispute over disclosure on Google ad buys in a local race. Here's a link to the WSJ story (subscription may be required). And here's further discussion.
The Association of American Political Consultants has suggested that text ads are akin to campaign buttons and shouldn't require disclosure. They may well be in the right but there's still plenty of room for this debate to continue. One solution for campaigns may be to follow the drug companies and put disclosure statements on the landing page for the text ad; some advertisers require this for banner ads as well.
Not all online outlets require disclosure statements for display ads - that's particularly true for those unaffiliated with "real world" media outlets. But Spot-on's advice to all our clients is the same: Disclose, regardless of placement. And as you move forward with a campaign, make sure your online ad placement folks know - and abide by - the rules. And, of course, we'll keep you up-to-date on any changes we anticipate as well.
June 4, 2009 - Spot-on's earned a little media - from a well-regarded industry publication - and we're doing some speaking gigs so we thought we'd spread the word.
This month's issue of Campaigns & Election's Politics magazine has a nice feature on the the Pollie-award winning campaign run by Whitehurst Mosher Campaign Strategy and Media in San Francisco last fall. The "Save San Francisco General Hospital" campaign combined online ad buys with a Facebook application to do some innovative voter awareness.
We talk a lot about that campaign here on the site because we think it's a great model of how online can be used to attract voter attention and interest across a range of online outlets. If you haven't seen the piece, "Mixing Old and New Media" by Mark Mosher you can download a .pdf version here. Or you can read it on the Politics magazine's site here.
As a follow-up, Spot-on Founder Chris Nolan will be appearing on a panel at Campaigns & Election's "The Art of Political Campaigning" conference in Washington, D.C. on Friday. Nolan and her fellow panelist Josh Koster, managing partner of the award-winning and well respected Chong and Koster, are going to talk about how voters can be found and targeted on the web. If you're at the conference, plan to attend!
Team Spot-on is jumping for joy! Two of our clients, JKW Consulting and Barnes, Mosher, Whitehurst Lauter & Partners have had their online campaigns recognized by the American Association of Political Consultants. Both won Pollie Awards! And it was our first year election cycle!
JKW Consulting was recognized for "Best Use of Facebook" for its "Save JROTC" campaign in Novmber. Spot-on built a Facebook "Doorhanger" application to help JKW leverage the Facebook platform to generate real world support for a San Francisco ballot measure on the public school's JROTC program.
"With so many current and former JROTC cadets online, Facebook became a critical part of our effort to organize volunteers and raise money online," said JKW founder Johnny Wang. Spot-on's Facebook 'doorhanger' was an exceptionally effective tool for organizing, communication, and outreach. As voters become more tech savvy and connected, it would be unthinkable to disregard the value of these applications in a campaign."
If you haven't noticed something new about our website then, well, we're doing something VERY wrong. Some of you loyal readers and visitors might have a few questions. So here goes with the answers.
Spot-on has launched an on-line ad buying service - we're calling it Pinpoint Persuasion - to serve a select and demanding group of clients, political consultants and campaign managers. We know they're out there and we know they want to buy ads - hey, who doesn't want to be like Barack Obama? But there's a lot of confusion over where to buy and how to buy. Pinpoint Persuasion aims to clear that up - for all advertisers, regardless of party affiliation, orientation or cause.
For details about what we do and how we're doing it, you can check out two brand new sections of our site. The "About Us" pages give you the low-down on the new team, our skills, background and how to find us. The "FAQ" and "How it Works" pages will tell you pretty much everything you need to know for on-line ad buying.
Our syndication business - the start or our on-line efforts - is no longer our only public face to the world but it remains a strong part of our business and a key element of our commitment to help readers better understand their world. We'll be renovating that section of site later this month, adding some writers, some new features as well as demos and links to our existing (and growing!) editorial clientele.
As always, you have our thanks for reading. And yes, you really should get a copy of our newsletter. If you're an editorial client, click here and we'll sign you right up.
For a few months now, we've been telling you that Spot-on's a syndication service. And we've been saying our writers are available for little or no cash. Today we demonstrate that our talk is not cheap.
Spot-on's pleased to announce the beginning of a syndication relationship with the East Bay Express, a weekly based in Emeryville, CA serving much of San Francisco's East Bay. We started this a few weeks ago - in the quiet holiday season - but the kinks are worked out and we're ready to go public.
And if you edit a news web site, produce a TV or radio show you might think about adding any of our fine writers to your editorial mix. Our syndication fees are reasonable - no cash needed - our writers responsible and our editorial as sticky as fly-paper. Interested? Drop Founder Chris Nolan a line. She's got all the details about pricing, availability and delivery.
We have a few other deals like this in the works as well as other changes in the new year. We'll keep you posted.
Our newsletter - it's free, it's fun and we won't sell your name to anyone - is also a nice way to stay in touch with what we're doing with all phases of our business. You can sign up here.
In a July post from New Delhi, "Living with Terror" Gopika Kaul wrote the following sentence: "This year is proving to be deadly for India - literally."
Yesterday, with a series of violent attacks in southen Mumbai - the city you may know as Bombay - her fears and those of many other India citizens were realized. And while regular Spot-on readers may be shocked by the attacks in Mumbai you are probably less suprised than others. Gopika's been telling us about "India Mujaideen" since mid-summer.
For the past few months Gopika Kaul has been chronicling the growing sense of dread in her country. She's spelled out some of the roots of the conflict between the region's Muslims and Hindus in "It's Happened. Again" and she's wondered, with others, about the Indian police forces responses to the attacks in "A Constant Presence."
A year ago, Christopher Allbritton wrote a smart and prescient piece about piracy, terrorism and the Somali Coast. Today, the international news, a little less worried about U.S. automakers and Obama's cabinet than the U.S. papers, has the capture of a Saudi oil taker on the front pages.
With that in mind, a look at Chris' post "Piracy 2.0: Deadly and Dangerous" is in order. And you bet there's a terror tie-in. What do you think they're going to do with all that oil anyway?
There's more, plenty more, where this came from. If you edit a news web site, produce a TV or radio show you might join us out here ahead of the news curve and think about adding any of our fine writers to your editorial mix. Our syndication fees are reasonable - free in some circumstances - our writers responsible and our editorial as sticky as fly-paper. Interested? Drop Doug Page, Spot-on's syndication guru a line. He's got all the details about pricing, availability and delivery.
Our newsletter - it's free, it's fun and we won't sell your name to anyone - is also a nice way to stay in touch with what we're doing with all phases of our business. You can sign up here.
Every week, eVoter Institute president Karen Jagoda takes to the Internet to talk about technology and politics. The show "Digital Politics" looks at a broad range of issues. This week, it was Spot-on founder Chris Nolan's turn to talk with Jagoda about our recently launched Pinpoint Persuasion ad service.
The show - a breezy hour that also includes a talk with SunRun COO Nat Kraemer - is here. Give a listen.
Like pretty much everyone else out there, Spot-on's writers have spent a bit of time thinking about what an Obama presidency would - could - look like.
So today, we'll give you a short review of who said what.
Matthew Holt, ever the cynic, said that Obama wasn't serious about making changes in the health care system. Judge for yourself if his predictions are still accurate. President Obama's Health Care Head Fake.
Chris Nolan didn't get as excited as some in Silicon Valley when Obama first started talking about a Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. of A. Obama "Gets It".
Kevin Weeks added his voice to Berkeley writer Michael Pollan's insistence that food policy - that's right, food policy - be an action item for the new president. Eating Oil.
And while it's not exactly a column addressed at the new president, Jeanne Jackson had a few observations about how she'd like to see justice meted out for the current financial mess and the folks who caused it. Accountability.
