The IT Nerd

Barack Obama is running what has to be the most expensive campaign to become president of the United States in the history of the universe. He raised $150 million alone in September and is using that cash to advertise everywhere. But in what has to be a first, he’s purchased virtual billboard space in Xbox Live video games:

“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout,” Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, told me via email, noting that EA regularly allows ad placements in their online games. “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates,” she continued. “Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”

I have to admit that this is brillant. Obama’s core group of supporters are young first time voters, which means that the chances of having a game console are high. Plus he’s not competing against a McCain ad since he’s the only one doing it.

It’s moves like that that explain why he’s ahead in the polls.

UPDATE: A tip from a reader pointed me in the direction of this article on the PBS MediaShift Idea Lab website. It talks about what newsrooms can learn from the Obama campaign and their use of things like video games to promote their message. From the article:

“Now, what do videogames and Obama have to do with newsrooms? It’s clear that over the past year, Obama’s campaign has developed a profound understanding of how its community finds and consumes information across a number of platforms. And Obama has embraced them all, and adapted his message to fit the way people use those platforms.”

This is a good find and this is an article that is worth reading.

Thanks to Simon for the tip!

This entry was posted on October 28, 2008 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Barack Obama, Xbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.