If you are a busy college student, too consumed in video games like "Guitar Hero" and "Madden 09" to watch presidential advertisements on television, Sen. Obama has found a way to get to you, the young male and often hard to reach voter.
Mr. Obama is the first presidential candidate to buy ad space in a video game, which comes as no surprise as he is just days away from breaking the spending record set by President Bush in 2004.
The ads, which remind players early voting has started and includes a plug for VoteForChange.com, appears in not one, not two, but 18 different video games.
According to Obama campaign officials, the ad will appear in only the 10 states in which early voting is allowed: Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, and Colorado.
The ads began earlier this month and will run through Nov. 3, according to Holly Rockwell, a spokeswoman for Electronic Arts, Inc.
"It reaches an audience that is typically hard to reach - young males, roughly 18 to 34," said Rockwood. "That's very appealing to our advertisers."
The ads are able to be embedded in the game because the Xbox 360 console connects to the Internet for live updates of any sort, which now extends to Obama ads.
In terms of overall advertising mediums, both Obama and McCain are aiming to get their messages across and do a little mudslinging along the way. However, Obama is completely eclipsing McCain when it comes to the amount of money he has to spend on ads, and therefore, the amount of ads he airs.
The reason Obama is able to spend so much on advertising is because he opted out of the federal campaign finance system, which gives candidates $84 million in public money and restricts spending any more than that from their party convention until Election Day. McCain opted in.
And since Obama raised $100 million in September alone, he is able to saturate the markets with his message and face, day and night.
The University of Wisconsin did an analysis of presidential advertisements during the period of Sept. 28 to Oct. 4. The analysis revealed that almost 100 percent of McCain's commercials included an attack on Obama, while only 34 percent of Obama's featured attacks on McCain.
The Wisconsin Advertising Project also found that since June ads have been a mix of negative and positive, either attacking each other, focusing on their own campaign, or blending both tactics. The graph below illustrates the numbers.
Obama seems to have the advertising advantage since he has enough money to play his own good cop and bad cop. 
1 comment:
Meriah,
This blog incorporates two stories - one about Obama advertising via video games and one about overall presidential ads.
I included a picture of what the ad looks like in the video game and a bar graph displaying information from the NY Times.
I also included links to both of the full stories and links within the copy.
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