The other day, the McCain campaign introduced by far its most inspired online initiative to date: its “Joe the Plumber” video contest. Today’s very “I’m-a-PC” web video compilation of the submissions does not disappoint:
Contrast to this TV ad along the same lines, releases yesterday:
On what planet does the latter ad deserve to get released on TV, while the former gets put into narrow distribution on the Web. I’m very confident if you surveyed the next 100 people you met, all 100 would prefer the grainy, authentic, salt-of-the-earth “Joe the Plumber” web video.
This illustrates perfectly the yawning gap between TV and the Internet, and why it’s not okay to just repurpose traditional TV content for the Web. If you’re doing TV, increasingly your yardstick for success is becoming whether an ad has viral potential potential online. Your YouTube view count is usually a pretty gauge of whether your message has gotten through — in both media.
And yet, some advertisers still believe that traditional TV advertising must be more formal and packaged up, that in this case, it has to use actors who are clearly not “Joe the Plumber” or his compatriots. But I believe these two contrasting uses of the same concept provide a teachable moment demonstrating why the traditional assumptions no longer rule. Not only is the web ad more folksy and authentic, but it makes a more compelling and substantive case for McCain’s economic policies. What more compelling argument against Obama’s tax-and-spend policies than real people — and not fake real “man on the street” people — talking about how Obama’s tax increases hurt them?
The McCain people pledged to make a TV ad out of the videos, so perhaps a :30 or :60 version of this will appear in the coming days. And when it does, I hope they put more GRPs behind it than any ad they’ve done so far (and, before I forget, with the tagline: Share your story at JohnMcCain.com/Joe) — because this is the best ad of the campaign so far.
