While he is down in the polls now, it appears that John McCain’s supporters were disillusioned on YouTube much sooner. McCain’s average video rating (i.e. users give this video “4.2 stars out of 5″) has been steadily declining over time, taking a precipitous fall in the beginning of September, perhaps coinciding with his selection of Sarah Palin and uptick of visceral attack ads.
Barack Obama’s dominance in online video views is a cliche by now, but the overall figures mask the fact that John McCain packs more punch per video, especially recently. I pulled this for AdAge, but was sufficiently amazed that I thought I would re-post here.
McCain and Obama’s average views per video from their official YouTube channels for the month of September:
With success, John McCain’s campaign is stepping up production of visceral attack ads against Barack Obama. History has a sense of irony, I guess (below, the iconic “Daisy” ad run in 1964 against another Arizona Republican Senator running for president, Barry Goldwater):
In terms of online video strategy, the current candidates could not be more different: while McCain produces mostly attack ads, Obama launches mostly speeches, interviews and vlogs. Which strategy works? On an individual video basis, McCain currently leads with 62,378 average views per video, compared with 51,515 for Obama. Obama leads overall, however, largely because he launches far more videos (1,299 total, compared to McCain’s decidedly humbler 269).
UPDATE (9/19): John McCain launched six attack ads in the past 24 hours (although one was removed due to a copyright claim by Fox, McCain’s third infringing clip in as many months). As noted, this rapid pace is rare for McCain, whose campaign has only launched six or more videos in one day twice in 2008. Here is the most incendiary of the recent additions:
Daily viewership numbers, for reference:
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Sphere: Related ContentThe original John McCain “Lipstick” ad was pulled from YouTube today due to a copyright claim from CBS. In any case, here is a “fair use” version (while it lasts), along with Barack Obama’s response:
Sarah Palin’s celebrity power is rising quickly, especially when measured by online video views. Of the top 100 most-viewed videos across sites this past week, 13 were Palin-related, totaling 4,255,591 views (compare with McCain’s official YouTube channel views for the entire month of August: 7,568,064).
UPDATE: At over 337,544 views on YouTube (and that’s not including the many pirated versions), Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech has three times the number of views as John McCain’s speech, which has 113,072 views.
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Meet and network with fellow online video creators. Share ideas, find collaborators, promote your work and enjoy a few drinks on us!
If you plan to attend, please register on Tilzy.tv.
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