Obama harnesses the mobile - Mobile Marketing and Politics
By Shaun Zelber, Monday 1 September 2008 :: General :: #129 :: rss
The last US presidential elections discovered the full potential of the web as a tool and a necessary communication channel. It seems a safe bet that from now on the mobile will also be a critical channel for political candidates to communicate with the voters.
Barak Obama’s presidential campaign made history last weekend by sending out 2.9 million SMS messages announcing Joe Biden as the Vice Presidential choice. It is the first presidential campaign to make a major announcement via SMS, and it is also perhaps the largest mobile marketing campaign ever in the US.
They also have a full and well designed mobile web site that is much like a commercial mobile web site in its thoroughness and complementarity to the web.
They also provide such things as wallpaper download, ringtones, mobile videos and viral tools like send-a-friend.
Obama is the first campaign to actively use the mobile channel to communicate with supporters on such a large scale in the USA. There have been other political organizations outside of the USA to use the mobile as a channel such as Sri Lankan political parties, politicians in India, Europe and even in Africa. Even the Taliban have resorted to using wallpapers, ringtones and SMS messages and the Israeli Army used with success psychological warfare via SMS messages during their last war in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
Although exact numbers were not released by the Obama campaign, Nielsen Mobile estimated that 2.9 million people received the text message.
In another example of how Obama has made good use of mobile, the campaign was able to alert its supporters to the August 7th AFL-CIO Presidential Forum and broadcast on MSNBC. During and following the event they also used mobile to solicit feedback and get questions from supporters about the Senator’s position on issues that were debated.
According to Nic Covey, Director of Insights at Nielsen Mobile, “The value of the message goes far beyond the 26 words and 2.9 million recipients. Here, Obama branded himself as cutting edge, inflated the already enormous press attention paid to his VP pick and further established a list of supporters’ most coveted form of contact: their cell phone numbers.”
Barak Obama’s presidential campaign made history last weekend by sending out 2.9 million SMS messages announcing Joe Biden as the Vice Presidential choice. It is the first presidential campaign to make a major announcement via SMS, and it is also perhaps the largest mobile marketing campaign ever in the US.
They also have a full and well designed mobile web site that is much like a commercial mobile web site in its thoroughness and complementarity to the web.
They also provide such things as wallpaper download, ringtones, mobile videos and viral tools like send-a-friend.
Obama is the first campaign to actively use the mobile channel to communicate with supporters on such a large scale in the USA. There have been other political organizations outside of the USA to use the mobile as a channel such as Sri Lankan political parties, politicians in India, Europe and even in Africa. Even the Taliban have resorted to using wallpapers, ringtones and SMS messages and the Israeli Army used with success psychological warfare via SMS messages during their last war in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
Although exact numbers were not released by the Obama campaign, Nielsen Mobile estimated that 2.9 million people received the text message.
In another example of how Obama has made good use of mobile, the campaign was able to alert its supporters to the August 7th AFL-CIO Presidential Forum and broadcast on MSNBC. During and following the event they also used mobile to solicit feedback and get questions from supporters about the Senator’s position on issues that were debated.
According to Nic Covey, Director of Insights at Nielsen Mobile, “The value of the message goes far beyond the 26 words and 2.9 million recipients. Here, Obama branded himself as cutting edge, inflated the already enormous press attention paid to his VP pick and further established a list of supporters’ most coveted form of contact: their cell phone numbers.”
Comments
1. Monday 1 September 2008 at 10:55, by Shaun Zelber
2. Monday 1 September 2008 at 10:56, by Shaun Zelber
Add a comment
Comments are closed.