The mid-term elections of 2006 will go down in the history books as a watershed in new technology campaigning. MySpace, YouTube, text messaging, Second Life and, of course, blogs play, if not lead, then important supporting roles in the campaigns of almost all candidates at every level of government. Now, Internet video phone company SightSpeed is hoping another trend catches on with candidates: video email.
SightSpeed is best known for its web-based video calling or conferencing service, a free option that delivers pretty good two-way video communications. (Just like Skype, SightSpeed offers its free service in the hopes that consumers will upgrade to premium options). SightSpeed offers a video email service, also free (but again with premium upgrades), and it’s this option that at least one political campaign has deployed.
Campaign strategists for Democrat John Garamendi, who is running for Lieutenant Governor in California, decided to send a video message from the candidate to around 1,100 supporters as a test of the service. The video, embedded as a link in emails, worked well, according to Garamendi’s Director of Strategy and Outreach Terry Leach.
The open rates on the emails were high, twice that of traditional email, in all likelihood because recipients were intrigued about the notion of receiving a video message from the candidate. “We’ve used it twice and we intend to use it again in two-and-a-half weeks,” Leach said. “In a statewide campaign you can’t possibly get your candidate in front of all the voters” so SightSpeed’s video messaging, which can be highly individualized for groups large and small, is the next best thing.
“It’s much more like a handshake” than a TV commercial, said Dan Miller, managing director of venture investment firm the Roda Group, which backs SightSpeed. “Why do candidates go out and shake as many hands as possible? Because it’s a very effective thing to do. But you can’t do it on a grand scale.”
Miller himself, former President of AskJeeves, spurred SightSpeed’s entrance into the political campaign world by a chance encounter with Leach. “He walked up to me literally in the park” and asked if SightSpeed’s video email might be helpful to Garamendi’s campaign, Leach said. She took a look and thought the idea of sending targeted video emails is “the marriage of the old style person-to-person campaigning with new technology.”
Garamendi’s use of SightSpeed’s service, which is free for 30-second video messages but costs only $5 per month for two-minute video messages, has attracted more allies to the candidate. “A very large environmentally advocacy group wants John to share information on a regulation that would bar municipalities from regulating land use. They’ve asked him to use SightSpeed to share why he’s concerned about this particular proposition,” Leach said.
The idea of targeting particular niches with video emails is really the key to effective use of SightSpeed’s system, Miller says. “You can target it to particular niches of supporters. You can target your message specifically to them,” making video email even more effective than TV commercials, which, by necessity, are pitched very broadly.
All the candidates need are a video camera and a free (or almost-free) SightSpeed account. The low cost of the option was appealing to Garamendi’s campaign. “It’s very difficult to assimilate great ideas when you don’t have resources in a campaign,” Leach said.
But sending out video emails en masse, or even to selected groups of people, has downsides. “One of the dangers of it is it’s new,” Leach said, and some people don’t understand it. The very notion of sending out video seems like a big step — political analyst Bill Bradley (not the former Senator) referred to Garamendi’s video email not as an appeal or a pitch but a “plea,” a charged term invited by the impactful video-ness of the missive.
Another danger is that “it’s not a professional media spot,” Leach said, just the candidate and a video camera. The simplicity probably works well with some candidates but could prove fatal to others.
Cynthia Brumfield at 4:07 PM|Comments(0)
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