Internet Marketing and the 2008 Election

After the history changing victory for Barak Obama last night, the progress in this election has not stopped at the candidates themselves but in how they were able to reach the American voters. Digital technology has played an important role in how the public was able to view the candidates, through digital extentions on the television networks, and with the use of the Internet.

When CNN last night had a hologram news reporter and beamed her in and out of the studio, that was pretty exciting - something we haven't seen before. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20081104/pl_ynews/ynews_pl132

It is also noteworthy that the candidates were able to use Internet marketing and technology to spread their messages more than ever before. “The year campaigns leveraged the Internet in ways never imagined. The year we went to warp speed. The year the paradigm got turned upside down and truly became bottom up instead of top down.” This is true especially for Barak Obama, who used Internet marketing to raise huge amounts of money for his campaign as well as communicating with the American public through Internet advertisements, blogs, and his website etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/us/politics/04memo.html?bl&ex=1226034000&en=ed50bf72c5e6eaea&ei=5087%0A

Barak Obama was even reaching voters through mobile technology - text messaging updates on the campaign trail - a technology that has also not been used before. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/advice-for-mobile-marketers-courtesy-of-obama/

So, what do we take away from this? Using Internet marketing can be an effective method to reach your target, and for Obama it helped him clench a victory and become the President-Elect of the United States of America. Pretty cool!