EBlog
The Politics of Web Design (or vice versa)
February 4, 2008 | Posted by: Neil
As we near Super-Tuesday and the political season rages on, this NYT article on the comparison of HilaryClinton.com and BarackObama.com contains some interesting non-political insights that got the wheels upstairs spinning. While the world of B2B marketing may not seem akin to political marketing at many levels, there are number of comparisons that can be drawn between political campaigns and marketing campaigns.
- There is a tough balance between a campaign that focuses on the feelings, emotions and essence of a brand (or candidate) and a campaign that focuses content that speaks to attributes, features and services of the product/company (or candidate).
- Are your visitors coming to learn about product specifications (or stances), validate experience, get a feel for your company's (or candidate's) personality or all of the above? What is most important to your visitors? If you don't ask, how do you really know?
- In order to reach new customers (or voters) these days you will likely need create exposure for your product (or candidate) in more places that just your website and traditional advertising. (Note: 25+ references to New Media between the two aforementioned home pages).
Since 2004 the presidential campaign landscape has changed drastically (YouTube Debates, Myspace-sponsored town halls, etc.), and each of the candidate has had to adapt on the fly. How different are your organization's outreach tactics, website design/functionality and marketing strategy today than 4 years ago? What will they be like in 2012?
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Categorized in: Marketing, Observations and Random Musings, Social Media
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Comments
February 04 2008 - 08:55 PM | by Lee
Note the wide and varied use of social media - links to social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace. Use of rich media - videos, links to YouTube and Flickr. And tons of calls to action (good ol’ marketing 101).
Obama has more links to social media on his home page. Plus the design looks more modern. Is that because he has the younger crowd working for him?
He’s also advertising on DC 101 (a local “rock” station) to encourage listeners to vote in the upcoming primary next Tuesday.
Great question Neil about what’s next for marketers. The trend these days seems to lean towards less selling and more educating and informing. I think the inclusion of social media is the wave of the future.
February 04 2008 - 09:19 PM | by Nicholas
Local designer Samantha Warren recently took an in-depth look into Obama’s web brand. A good read.
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I’ve been mentally comparing the various political information sites and mini-sites that various news outlets and others have been bringing online in the recent months. There’s some seriously good design, UI, and information out there.
CNN.com Election Center
Yahoo Political Dashboard
NY Times Election Guide
NPR Election 2008
Glassbooth.org candidate selector
(I’m not trying to be politically biased by not including Fox News here, it’s just that their election site sucks.)
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@Lee: I’d say the inclusion of social media is the wave of the now! Howard Dean got the ball rolling back in 2004, with the internet basically being the only reason he rose to such heights before his infamous downfall. And Ron Paul has used the internet and, famously, Youtube, with huge success early on in the campaign.
On that note, KD Paine’s got an interesting blog post about tracking the candidates’ popularity on YouTube.
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And in response to your last question, Neil… As CTO for EB and also simply in my daily life, I’ve determined that any technological predictions that go beyond 12-18 months are purely guesses, and I think this is even more true when speaking about the internet. Let’s just call any predictions that go beyond that time frame “internet jet packs” and hope for the best.
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+1 to Hillary for the live broadcast of her town hall meeting on her site. -10 for not having a way to mute or a pause (can you do that with live streaming video?) the video.
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+10 for my alma mater getting mentioned in the article. Word.
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+20 for this comment being longer than the OP!
February 05 2008 - 10:57 AM | by Neil
While I agree that you cannot predict where things will be with any real merit more than 18 months out, I think there is value in comparing your tactics, strategies and use of technology to where you were 4 years ago.
Chances are, if your website or your marketing in general, has not changed much, you are behind the curve.
February 05 2008 - 02:24 PM | by Nicholas
True and well put. Keeping up with the latest technologies and using them for new and interesting purposes is an area where I think marketers could benefit from acting like (and talking to) their technical colleagues.
February 06 2008 - 02:29 PM | by Nicholas
On the utilitarian side, check out this Google Maps/Twitter Mash-up of Super Tuesday results and people’s real-time reactions. (Just let it sit for a minute and watch the tweets show up on the right.)