So, this is my first blog and I’m hoping it is my first of many, but we’ll have to see about that. I am, you see, a self-proclaimed technology dinosaur. Sure, I know what a blog is. But in order to write this contribution to The Stackpile I began with a little research. In my spare time this week, I’ve departed from my usual surfing among mainstream news sites and read loads of blogs and online news feeds instead. The one that struck me the most was an item in adotas.com, an interactive newsletter, loftily titled, “Internet to Transform American Political Discourse.”
Now, how can you not stop and read an item like this? “Transform” political discourse — I needed to learn more. The article references an e-mail tracking firm that reported, “the top Democratic and Republican candidates…[sent] from 3 to 17 e-mail newsletters each in May and early June.” Interesting, I thought — good use of email marketing, particularly in the early stages of the campaign when fundraising is critical but platforms aren’t quite ironed out yet. Ongoing, one-on-one communication with your target audience is a very strategic use of the medium for those on the campaign trail. So, I read further. The article compared the influence of the Internet in the upcoming election to the influence of the televised debates of 1960. Now here’s where they lost me, “If televised debates showed how impressionable voters are to physical appearance, maybe the Internet will be a medium known for effecting the depth and breadth of thought, communication skills, and administrative vision held by the candidates.” Okay, slow down there, adotas.
Even a borderline technophobe like me understands enough about the Internet to take issue here. Just because the communications means are revolutionary, doesn’t mean that the message will be. The Internet will give candidates another forum for communicating this time around, and yes, it will be extremely interesting to watch how they employ it. But the Internet certainly offers no guarantee that what candidates say will be any more substantive than we heard in 2004, 2000, 1996 … well, you get the idea.
While this may sound cynical, it’s not. I just think adotas is on the wrong track. I think that what the use of the Internet in this election will continue to prove is that the Web is still a groundbreaking, results-oriented medium for selling products, and even ideas, to critical target audiences.
Posted by Kelly on June 14th, 2007
Filed under Marketing, Miscellaneous, Web | No Comments »