PardonMyFrench

Conservatives Hammer Mike Huckabee over Shooting - MyThoughts

The conservative blogosphere unleashed a torrent of criticism against Mike Huckabee Monday after a man whose sentence he commuted as Arkansas governor was suspected of gunning down four police officers in Washington state over the weekend.  via www.politico.com

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PardonMyFrench - Before my comment, just a clarification point.  I like Mike Huckabee.  I've never worked for him or his PAC and of course made no donations to his 2008 campaign (I maxed out on McCain).  I also did grow to like him more because he helped us out on the McCain campaign by always attacking Mitt Romney. If he ever became a client of ours, I'd gladly work for him/PAC.  Back to the commentary on this issue....

During the 2008 primary season there were 2 negative issues that followed Huckabee – the soft on crime with the large amount of clemencies and his tax, spending record in Arkansas; as I recall, Club for Growth was pounding Huckabee on this record.  I don't remember for sure, but I believe Club for Growth ran anti-Huckabee TV ads in primary states, but can't be sure.

While he clearly appeals to the value/social conservatives the hard on crime, anti-tax/anti-spending crowd will NEVER let this die especially out of the gate in the next primary season. He’ll get hounded by anyone positioning themselves to the right of him - let alone anyone trying to position themselves as an electable moderate.  I'm thinking the attacks on McCain for immigration reform, but in Huckabee's case there is documented numbers to back up these talking points.

Back in 2008, Huckabee came out of nowhere in Iowa, was an after thought in NH, NV, MI, setting up the battle in South Carolina with McCain which was really Huckabee's last stand.   I could literally write a research paper on all of the targeted advertising we did in South Carolina to minimize Huckabee's impact in the state (I also campaigned in the state for McCain) - display ads, click to play video ads, in-state regional media buys, paid search, etc

In between IA and SC it was McCain versus Romney, followed by McCain's win in Florida (final round versus Romney) and then onto Super Tuesday which turned into a victory lap for McCain.  

Other than SC, we pretty much left him alone.  Huckabee won’t be afforded this “luxury” to be viewed as an unknown next time around; the other candidates will come after him from start on these two issues.   

I like him, but I think this episode makes it very difficult for him. I wouldn’t be shocked if he stays out of the race.  Then again, his PAC is popular, he has his own platform on his radio show, and there are plenty of social conservatives (there is potentially Palin to worry about and I doubt she'd leave him alone).

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll - Rasmussen Reports™

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -14 (see trends). Seventy-two percent (72%) believe the President is politically liberal, including 49% who say he is Very Liberal.

via www.rasmussenreports.com

PardonMyFrench - very early still but the trend is very bad for President Obama. The biggest number to watch are (or is it "is") the people who think the President is liberal - this hurts him with Independents

47% View A Candidate’s Religious Faith As Important - Rasmussen Reports™

Voters are narrowly divided on the importance of a political candidate’s religious faith but are less enthusiastic about the role of religion in politics and government.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% of U.S. voters consider a political candidate’s religion important in determining how they vote. Eighteen percent (18%) say it is very important.

Fifty-two percent (52%) do not view a candidate’s religious faith as an important determining factor in how they will vote, with 22% who say it is not at all important.

via www.rasmussenreports.com

PardonMyFrench - as much as some of you want to ignore this, the religious right has a huge influence.

Palin particularly popular among fans of Limbaugh and Beck - washingtonpost.com

We've made some updates to washingtonpost.com's Groups, MyPost and comment pages. We need you to verify your MyPost ID by logging in before you can post to the new pages. We apologize for the inconvenience.

via www.washingtonpost.com

PardonMyFrench - dont need to read the entire article. The summary says all you need to know. Personally, I don't listen to Rush

Today's GOP is both united and divided - washingtonpost.com

The Republican rank and file is largely in sync with GOP lawmakers in their staunch opposition to efforts by President Obama and Democrats to enact major health-care legislation, but a new Washington Post poll also reveals deep dissatisfaction among GOP voters with the party's leadership as well as ideological and generational differences that may prove big obstacles to the party's plans for reclaiming power.

via www.washingtonpost.com

PardonMyFrench - the lack of leadership is disturbing. Other parts regarding social conservatives versus others has been around forever and can be worked through

7 stories Barack Obama doesn't want told - John F. Harris - POLITICO.com

Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline, voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a picture that is already neatly framed in their minds.

via www.politico.com

PardonMyFrench - not sure if it was a slow day at Politico, however a couple of interesting points - the spending as well as President Pelosi

Senate report: Bin Laden was 'within our grasp' - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

via news.yahoo.com

PardonMyFrench - In certainly looks like from this report that Secretary Rumsfeld directed the armed forces not to deploy the requested amount of troops which let Bin Laden slip away. The report is depressing and can be downloaded here.

My Notes from David Plouffe's Book - The Audacity to Win Part 2

My second summary of President Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe's Book The Audacity to Win. Here's a link to Part 1.  Oh and as a quick reminder, I'm Connell Donatelli Inc's Chief Internet Strategist and directed Senator McCain's Online Advertising going back to his Straight Talk America PAC right through to the end of the General Election.  I was mostly located in NJ but did spend some time in the Virginia offices so my comments are from my cheap seats in NJ.  If you want a good recap visit this link called 2008 Election Recount.

As of this post, I'm about 70 pages from the end and right up to the point where Plouffe talks about McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.   Here's some interesting points/comments on the book....

1. With about a month to go before Iowa, Clinton's Chief Strategist Mark Penn commented that Obama's supporters looked like Facebook which I found shockingly odd.  Early on, these social networks like YouTube and Facebook were the best place to go for cheap advertising and communications and that comment showed how out of touch the Clintons were to the 2008 election.  We (McCain Camp) did pay attention to Facebook & YouTube and put out a ton of videos.  Our biggest issue with Facebook was that we didn't raise a ton of money, so that put it lower on the priority list.  Quite frankly, our candidate didn't really resonate until around the General Election in Facebook.
2. Obama wins Iowa and Plouffe writes about the win on page 137 which is about 1/3 of the book.  If this doesn't prove to you how important it is for a challenger campaign nothing will.  Plouffe talks about how important the internet was for getting out their message.  And contrary to what you know, the internet was extremely important to the McCain campaign especially after the implosion in the summer.  Throughout the summer and fall, right up until December 2007 the internet was the only way we advertised our message - either via search, display, and/or web videos.  By the time we finished a close 4th in Iowa (Huckabee wins it) we had figured out how important the search traffic was leading up to Primary votes.  100,000s of people turned to the internet the few days before Primary day and since Iowa, we ran mini state search & display campaigns to take advantage of the opportunity.
3. New Hampshire and the month of January proved to be a great and a difficult month.  Obama raised $35 million yet (I believe) they relaxed just a bit after reading Plouffe's account and lost New Hampshire to Clinton.  They then "lose" Nevada on the 19th but received more delegates and that's when the Obama campaign figured out that the way Democrats divided up the delegates meant that a) losing can get you a ton of delegates if done correctly and b) you had to win by a lot to put a distance in the delegate counts.  They proved how to win big in South Carolina.  Now New Hampshire to us was do or die and we put everything into it that we had.  As I recall I was running stand alone state advertising in New Hampshire as early as the summer 2008.  We of course won New Hampshire and besides Clinton showing some human side to her, I believe a lot of Independents voted for McCain because he needed it more than Obama.  We followed with losses in Michigan and Nevada only to come roaring back with our own wins in South Carolina and Florida. Our Florida win proved our online marketing prowess once again when overnight the entire Connell Donatelli team created new Crist endorsement ads on a Friday night and flipped out all of our ads across Florida in our Florida Surge tactic.  Finally, to put fund raising in perspective, we had a great month bringing in about $12.7 million, about 2/3 less than Obama.
4. Across those early states, it was clear to me after reading Plouffe's book that we were already in trouble for the General Election, yet didn't know it and didn't care about it in January 2008.  Obama had already out raised us $140 million to $55 million and had 35 million more individual small donations than we did.  We would end up losing all of those early states with the exception of South Carolina.
5. Plouffe goes through a lot of details on how they handled the problems with Reverend Wright.  You can read for yourself how the process unfolded including Obama's speech on racism in this country.  I think they handled the entire problem in the best possible manner - in fact, so well that they took this issue off the table for the General Election.  I firmly believe that McCain did the right thing by NOT bringing up Wright during the GE.  It didn't help Hillary in PA and certainly wouldn't help us - we lost because the wrong track/right track numbers were 70/30, President Bush, the economy and the huge differences in money.  Bringing up Reverend Wright in the General Election wouldn't have solved those problems - in fact, I even ran negative keywords to insure our ads didn't show on his name.
6. Finally, on page 236 Plouffe rips on a newly developed, yet shortly lived campaign slogan the communications group developed for McCain which was "A Leader We Can Believe In".  I remember spending some time researching the organic search results on this set of words and while McCain eventually owned this phrase, when I originally looked at it, it had Obama's website listed in the #1 spot.  Personally, I thought the slogan was a bad idea, but nobody asked for my opinion on it, just what I thought the search results looked liked.

Well, as of this post, I'm almost done with the book.  Next post should just about do it...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: State Losing Jobs That Obama Could Lose

Charles Franklin, political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, recently published a useful graphic depicting post-2001 trends and current unemployment rates in all 50 states, reproduced here:Starting in the top-left corner, the states are sorted from lowest to highest unemployment rate. At first glance, what’s interesting is that most states are below the national mean of 10.2 percent, because several very big states are above it: California, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio being among the top-11 states whose electoral vote totals alone are sufficient to reach the 270 plateau.Yes, the electoral college...the subject I really wish to raise as it relates to unemployment levels, specifically to ask: How will unemployment levels affect President Obama's re-election chances? 

Continue reading via www.fivethirtyeight.com

PardonMyFrench - Yes 2012 is a long way away but the midterms are less than a year out. All of the good hope and change Obama generated won't mean a lot until real unemployment changes, and if it doesn't get better, the states will vote for Change again

Revisiting NJ's Holiday Triangle - Wycoff's Tree Farm, Mackey's Orchard, & Hot Dog Johnny's

Well it's the day after Thanksgiving and we are off for our annual pilgrimage to New Jersey's Holiday Triangle - Wycoff's Tree Farm, Mackey's Orchard, and Hot Dog Johnny's.   If you are within 45 minutes of Belvidere NJ I suggest you do the same this year. If you are curious about our NJ Holiday Triangle route, here's a Google Map to get you started - started at Hot Dog Johnny's that is; click the larger map view.

View Larger Map

As some of you readers know we really believe that Wycoff's in the best place to cut your tree down and we've been getting our trees from there since 1990.  Ever since I made that post, The Wycoffs have been dropping me an email and here's this year's email which to my joy, the mountain is open this year for trees.

Eric,
   As the season nears, I wanted to give you an update. I believe that you will be happy with the tree selection once again. The "Hill" is going to be open this season and will feature approximately 3500 trees ready for harvest and an additional 1500 trees in our lower fields. We will continue to offer fresh cut trees for those who would rather not cut. The "Mountains of Trees" as you put it, are coming back. Eric, it has been a long road as it takes seven to ten years to bring a tree to harvest. As we continue to plant every year, (we currently have approximately 45,000 trees in production), the selection will continue to increase. Please visit www.wyckoffs.com for the latest.
                                                                                                              Thank You,  John C. Wyckoff

Anyway, here's our path for today:

1. Lunch at Hot Dog Johnny's - They only have Hot Dogs with a few toppings so stick to the menu.  I usually get 1 with the works and 2 with pickles and mustard.
2. Wycoff's Tree Farm - We are going to the top of the hill to get our tree
3. Mackey's Orchard  - The best home made cider in the area, plus their own apple cider donut and great pies.

Enjoy the holiday season and if you are within 45 mins to an hour from Belvidere you owe it to yourself to try NJ's Holiday Triangle.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Lou Dobbs mulls White House bid - Alexander Burns - POLITICO.com

Former CNN host Lou Dobbs fueled already rampant speculation about his political future Monday, sending the clearest signals yet that he's mulling a bid for president — and leaving third-party political operatives salivating over the possibility of a celebrity recruit for the 2012 campaign.

via www.politico.com

PardonMyFrench: NJ Senate Race Dobbs becomes a very interesting factor. Presidential candidate, seems like he is reaching or reading too many press clippings on himself.

BTW - Dobbs should get some other advisors besides the team that advised Chris Daggett on his bad political marketing.

Citibank's New Ad Campaign - 1.30% Better Than Their Worst Idea Ever

Citibank really needs some marketing leadership.  Sure, I've complained about their questionable marketing tactics in the past, including the wasted marketing dollars by getting the naming rights to the Mets new stadium (BTW - love the name of that post - Shea Goodbye to Shea), but this new ad campaign by Citibank seems like an utter waste of marketing dollars.  And after all, aren't those marketing dollars your tax dollars? 

Now I spent 5 years in financial services - I was hired at DLJdirect as an Online Marketing Director, made it through the CSFBdirect merrger, then to Harrisdirect, and finally left with E*Trade's acquisition of Harrisdirect.  I worked for some really smart executives including Blake Darcy who was one of the (if not the) pioneers of online trading and the bankers at CSFB and Bank of Montreal.  One thing these financial executive hated was to waste ANY marketing dollar and especially hated paying agency fees.  Plus, these executives spent a lot of time figuring out our promotions - it wasn't like you could run your own campaign even as a Managing Director without get the executive team to buy into your plan - that included deciding should it be 25 free trade or 50 free trades 

That's why this ad campaign is so strange.  1.30% APY is the offer?  They actually used taxpayer money to pay a creative agency to develop these series of 15 and 30 second ads?  Do you know how much that costs?  Plus, there are the actual media dollars plus fees (probably around 10% of the buy) to try and convince you that 1.30% APY with a minimum $25K deposit is something to get excited about?  On $25K that's about $325 if you let your money sit with them for a full year.  BTW - the small print says under $25K your APY falls to 0.50%.

Bank of America on the other hand (their biggest competitor) has been talking about online bill payment and their forced savings account on their keep the change offer (I think they match some of the money). 

The best Citibank could come up with is promoting 1.30%?  This is just another example of continued bad marketing from Citibank - this time it is your tax dollars at work "fueling" the offer and paying high media fees and media dollars.  Sad and wasteful.  At least it's probably 1.30% better than their worst marketing idea ever.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric 

Look familiar? Old campaign tool, new advocacy purpose | techPresident

The health care union turned Blue State Digital's peer-to-peer advocacy technology — what then-candidate Barack Obama's campaign used to empower volunteers to call Democrats in advance of the 2008 Democratic primary caucuses — into an issues advocacy platform.

via techpresident.com

PardonMyFrench - very good use of easy technology

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: How Bad Could Obama Screw Up and Still Beat Sarah Palin?

Although I'm fairly bullish on Sarah Palin's prospects of winning the Republican nomination, I also subscribe to the conventional wisdom that, were she to be the nominee, she would have an awfully tough time against Barack Obama in 2012. Could she beat Obama? Of course; politics is a world of probabilities, not certainties. But she'd likely cut Obama quite a lot of slack.Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for George W. Bush's well-run 2004 re-election campaign, makes the opposite case in today's Washington Post. Unfortunately, I don't think Dowd's arguments are very sound. He writes:

via www.fivethirtyeight.com

PardonMyFrench - Yes this is using polling data pretty far out but what is very interesting is the comparison between Romney versus Obama and Palin versus Obama. Obama's approvals would have to drop 3 more points to give Palin a shot versus Romney

RNC Revives "Socialist" Debate, To Vote On Principles - Hotline On Call

The resolution would prohibit RNC money from flowing to any candidate who disagrees with more than two itemized planks of the GOP platform -- playing off Reagan's maxim that anyone who agreed with him 80% of the time is not 20% an enemy.

via hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com

PardonMyFrench - not so much a socialist debate but a platform of what being a Republican means in the short term and who to support.

Google's New Ad Formats for Pharma - ClickZ

Although you may not do business in the healthcare industry, the vast majority of Americans use search engines to find health information for themselves and their families, and therefore all of us have a vested interest in the availability and presentation of that information. When we're searching as consumers for information on managing our health conditions and potential treatments, we want to see balanced, relevant information, right? And as marketers, we should always try to stay abreast of what is happening in other industries, to understand how those same strategies may be applied in the future to other industries.

via www.clickz.com

PardonMyFrench - Google to the rescue of Big Pharma and the Obama Administration

Apple's Contract With AT&T Is Done In June -- Analyst (T, VZ, AAPL)

Here's another big believer in the iPhone-to-Verizon hype. Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall was on Bloomberg Friday night, talking about why Apple will join Verizon.Here's his key points:Apple's contract with AT&T is finished in June 2010.Moving to a multiple-carrier model with Verizon brings the potential for 14 million additional iPhone sales.Apple receives $450 per phone subsidy from AT&T.When it drops AT&T exclusivity it will get a $300 subsidy from Verizon and others around the world.iPhone users are 4% of AT&T's customers but take up 40% of its bandwidth.Even if AT&T tried to keep Apple exclusive by upping the subsidy, it's still not in Apple's favor to stay exclusive with AT&T. Also, the government might step in to break up the exclusivity.Via: Phillip Elmer DeWitt, who has video of the interview.

via www.businessinsider.com

PardonMyFrench - as a former AT&T employee I think AT&T is screwed here once the exclusivity runs out. Add in mobile number portability...

AOL CEO Armstrong Talks About New Branding Effort and the Investor Road Show! (Plus Internal Aol. Logo Video) | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

After AOL CEO Tim Armstrong unveiled the newly punctuated AOL logo–big A, little o, little l, period–last night, he got on the horn with BoomTown to chitty-chat about the change in image and, more pertinently, how it’s going on the road show to sell investors on the soon-to-be independent company.

via kara.allthingsd.com

PardonMyFrench sure Armstrong is a great executive, there is no way AOL survives on their own.

Reality Check: The Very Real Jobs the Recovery Act is Supporting | The White House

Three months ago, the critics denied that the Recovery Act was making any jobs.  Today, everyone – including the critics - can see those jobs for themselves on Recovery.gov.  Now that the evidence has proven them wrong, they are left to cast doubts about just how many jobs were made and where.  But for all of the attempts to distract and distort from the program’s progress, these reports – directly from the recipients of Recovery Act dollars - make one thing indisputably clear: the Recovery Act is now responsible for supporting at least one million jobs across the country. 

via www.whitehouse.gov

PardonMyFrench - How about this Reality Check - please explain why unemployment figures keep going up, yet the Obama Administration keep highlighting these "job" numbers.

Dems Secure 60 Votes To Start Debate on Health Care - Blog - OpenCongress

The NYTimes reports: Senate Democrats said they had clinched the votes needed on Saturday to propel major health care legislation to the floor for weeks of full debate, as the majority party’s two last holdouts said that they would not block consideration of President Obama’s top domestic initiative.

via www.opencongress.org

PardonMyFrench - this is the site I turn to, to get good information

White House backs off cancer test guidelines - washingtonpost.com

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius addresses the controversy surrounding a government panel's decision to advocate mammograms starting at 50, not 40. Sebelius does not refute the decision but tells women to "do what you've always done."

via www.washingtonpost.com

PardonMyFrench - this is a mess for the Obama administration, but glad to see they are trying to right the ship on this mess.

Cook Political Report Calls Obama Beyond Radioactive

Plenty of veteran Democrats who haven't had to break a campaign sweat this decade are quickly losing their aura of invincibility. Next fall, some in this category are likelier to face tough races than many of the 42 less tenured Democrats who populate the "Frontline" list. As of today, eight House Democrats elected prior to 2006 sit in our "Lean Democratic" and "Toss Up" columns, and another 20 whom we view as potentially vulnerable sit in our "Likely Democratic" column.

via campaignspot.nationalreview.com

Still a year out but this is trending in the right direction. Those indie voters are upset

The cost of on-the-job training - Mitt Romney - POLITICO.com

During the presidential campaign, many Americans thought that Barack Obama’s lack of leadership experience would not prevent him from being an effective president. His eloquence, his insistence that, yes, he could solve any problem and his image, so artfully crafted by his advertising team, led by David Axelrod, convinced many that hope could trump demonstrated ability. It has not. Nowhere is the evidence more apparent than in his mismanagement of the conflict in Afghanistan.

via www.politico.com

Wow Mitt Romney takes the fight directly to President Obama reinforcing that he allows marketing and campaigning to take precedent over the war on terror

My Notes from David Plouffe's Book - The Audacity to Win Part 1

You long time readers know that as part of Connell Donatelli I had a 3rd row seat to Senator McCain's Presidential run starting from online marketing his Straight Talk America PAC, through the Primaries including the summer 2007 blowup, and through the General Election.  I was lucky to be part of a small group that made it all the way through.

That's why I was quite interested to read David Plouffe's book The Audacity to Win as he chronicles his management of President Obama's campaign from beginning to end.   I got the book from Amazon about a week ago along with Chuck Todd's How Barack Obama Won (a book that looks at polling data state by state) which provides a helpful companion by looking at the end numbers.  I'm about a third through the book, but here's some of my notes....

1. Right from the very beginning they focused on Iowa - in fact I'm on page 103 and I'm still reading about Iowa. The reason was simple, using polling data they realized that Clinton was strong elsewhere and needed to show strong results out of the gate.  This was different from my experience with the McCain campaign and while I wasn't there day to day so I could have missed something, I didn't hear much about Iowa until Rick Davis came back to the campaign in the summer of 2007 and then all we heard was early states...
2. Speaking (really writing) about where I was located, Plouffe insisted early on that everyone be headquartered in Chicago to ease communications.  When I read that, I felt lucky and sad at the same time.  Lucky that I could work out of NJ for most of the time, but sad because I know I missed a lot.  Knowing what I know now, if you want to make significant contributions in a Presidential campaign you need to move especially during the General if you get that far.
3. At Obama's first two campaign stops he had over 10K people show up.  10K in Iowa at an event about a year before the caucus?  There was no mention of a MeetUp tactic (like Dean's campaign) and those kind of numbers we would have killed for.  In fact, we used to run Google Ads to drive people to signup for McCain's events prior to Palin's selection (didn't need that tactic anymore once she showed up).  So for every bitter Republican that complains about our campaign, I can't think of a single Primary candidate that could bring 10K people to an event in Iowa 1 year before the caucus. Think about how that enthusiasm for Obama lasted into the General Election.
4. The internet operations led by Joe Rospars reported directly into Plouffe showing how important it was to them.  According to the book, funny enough at the time, the internet operations took heat for not raising enough money in the beginning. Also early on they asked for people to just signup on their website to get involved with the campaign.  That was way different from my experience because right from day 1 the Search operations was geared towards raising money, which we did at an awesome rate of $4 in donations for every $1 we spent.  We had plenty of plans for growing emails but time and time again we were asked to raise money.
5. Very early on, the Obama online store for clothing and items was a huge success.  We didn't have that luxury until probably the summer of 2008.  Again this gave them a leg up on us a long time before the General Election - people showing support that early on...

Anyway that's it for now.  I'll have more later

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Social Media Success Stories - Search Engine Watch (SEW)

What is the ROI of social media? How do I measure the ROI of social media? Often, when receiving these questions, it's appropriate to quip: "What's the ROI of your phone?" Other times it's not appropriate to respond with such a glib retort.

via searchenginewatch.com

PardonMyFrench - not much new here, but a good summary of the best social networking results.

QUINNIPIAC OBAMA POLL - The Page by Mark Halperin - TIME.com

Three-quarters of American voters – 74 percent – like President Barack Obama as a person, but only 47 percent like most of his policies, and voters disapprove 51 – 35 percent of the health care overhaul passed by the House of Representatives which he has endorsed, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

via thepage.time.com

PardonMyFrench - I think that summarizes The President quite well

Obama admits Guantanamo won't close by Jan. deadline - washingtonpost.com

via www.washingtonpost.com

PardonMyFrench - An unfulfilled campaign promise.

Senate announces $848 billion health-care bill - washingtonpost.com

via www.washingtonpost.com

PardonMyFrench - next few days should be interesting. I'm skeptical about the medicare savings but then again the CBO scored it right?

Inside AdWords: Take advantage of advanced reports

For a long time, the Report Center has been the place to go to find detailed data about your campaign performance. Reports with dimensions like geographic performance and time of day can give you new insights through metrics that aren't available on the campaigns tab.But there can be drawbacks to using the Report Center: customized reports take time to set up and run, and you have to navigate back to the Campaigns tab to take action on any insights you discover.We're addressing these issues by better integrating advanced performance data into campaign management. Now, instead of running a placement performance report, you can manage your automatic placements on the Networks tab. Rather than run a search query report, you can use the "See search terms" option on the Keywords tab to see which searches are bringing up your ads. And if you prefer to look at your reports in a spreadsheet program, you now have the option to download nearly every table in your account (look under the "More actions..." menu above each table).You can also use new segmentation functions to slice and dice your data directly within campaign management. Click on the "Filter and views" menu above your statistics, then choose the "Segment by" option to see different the levels of detail available for display.(click for full size image)The segmentation options available to you differ depending on whether you're looking at keywords, ad groups or campaigns. If you're looking at keywords, you can segment by match type. If you're looking at campaigns or ad groups, you can segment by network to quickly compare your performance on Google and search partner sites to your performance on the Content Network.In addition to these segmentation options, we've recently introduced time-based segmentation for your campaigns, ad groups and keywords. Now you can break out statistics by day, week, month, quarter or year to isolate changes in your performance. For example, if your performance summary graphs show a sharp decrease in clicks, segmenting by day can show you changes in other statistics that might explain why your drop in traffic occurred.You can also segment by day of the week. This option is helpful if you're looking for help with ad scheduling. Try segmenting your performance for the past few months: if your performance is dramatically different on a given day of the week, you can modify your bids to account for the change in user behavior.We'll be bringing even more data from the Report Center into the Campaigns tab over the coming months. So next time you're searching for insights you can use to improve your performance, you won't have to look very far.Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 4:34 PM

via adwords.blogspot.com

PardonMyFrench - thanks google especially for making my life easier with the search terms being on the keywords tab

Obama: Too much debt could fuel double-dip recession | Markets | Markets News | Reuters

BEIJING, Nov 18 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama gave his sternest warning yet about the need to contain rising U.S. deficits, saying on Wednesday that if government debt were to pile up too much, it could lead to a double-dip recession.

via www.reuters.com

PardonMyFrench - Wow, President Obama actually sounds surprised that too much of his debt can lead to a double-dip recession. Where are the jobs, sir?

Stimulus official: Can't certify job stats - Eamon Javers - POLITICO.com

Recovery Board Chairman Earl Devaney was responding to a request for information by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In a letter to Issa dated Nov. 17, Devaney wrote, “Your letter specifically asks if I am able to certify that the number of jobs reported as created/saved on Recovery.gov is accurate and auditable. No, I am not able to make this certification.”

via www.politico.com

PardonMyFrench - but does any sane person at this point believe the jobs "created" number. Unemployment stat is the only number that matter when judging Obama and Pelosi's "stimulus" plan

Hudson Reporter - Democrats discuss having Corzine resign early then replace Lautenberg

-- In what could become the highest profile game of political musical chairs in the state, Democratic sources claim they are considering replacing U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg with outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine. Read the sad theory here.

This is a very sad possibility and I can definitely see it occurring. The Democrats in DC would love this move

Obama: Tops For “Who Is Failure” In Google

I’d thought the googlebombs relating to “miserable failure” and “failure” had finally been defused earlier this year. Guess not. Ranking tops in Google right now, the official White House page for US President Barack Obama:

via searchengineland.com

Well I wonder how many other netroots plans aimed at President Bush come back to get President Obama. Without purposely keeping this going, I wonder how many other people going forward will write posts linking "who is failure" to this webpage.

Feds: Top e-tailers profitting from billion-dollar Web scam | Digital Media - CNET News

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation has spent six months investigating complaints from people who found mysterious charges on their credit card bill and don't know where they came from.

via news.cnet.com

I have never participated in these online loyalty programs. In fact, while at AT&T I killed a deal with a company called eRewards. Never trusted these firms.

Ray Ozzie is wrong about smartphone apps

Why is Mike Arrington so passionate about his Droid (we argued about it for 39 minutes on the Gillmor Gang last week and then we went to the beach together on Sunday and argued about it some more in private).

via scobleizer.com

Somehow Robert Scoble thought this was news worthy - Microsoft once again ignores the obvious. Apps what apps?

comScore Releases October 2009 U.S. Search Engine Rankings - comScore, Inc

RESTON, VA, November 17, 2009 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. In October 2009, Americans conducted 14.3 billion core searches, with Google Sites accounting for 65.4 percent search market share, up from 64.9 percent in September. Microsoft Sites grabbed 9.9 percent market share, up 0.5 percentage points versus September.

via www.comscore.com

As I wrote a while back, Microsoft's short term target was always Yahoo and we see it now in Yahoo's search share.

Google and Bing up, Yahoo down. I wouldn't be surprised if this continued a downward spiral for Yahoo. Have you noticed all of those Bing banner ads?

Sad.

It's Official Google Renames Network Blast To Google Surge

You knew it was bound to happen.  In true open source fashion and crowd sourcing, Google is now calling their network blast technique a Google Surge - the phrase which yours truly coined back in the 2007 election when we (Connell Donatelli Inc) used it to help Bobby Jindal win the Governor's seat in Louisiana. Since that time, I can pretty much guarantee you that we've run more Google Surges than anyone else in the political space; don't get fooled if we (and I) don't talk about a Surge for a client.

Anyway, a nice summary of the Google Surge technique from Google's AdWords Agency blog can be found here.  Personally, I'd be very interested to hear from non-political advertisers on how they've used a Google Surge to help with the marketing goals.  Obviously it works great in politics because of the hard deadline we have, but I can also think of other uses for it outside of politics including financial services (IRA season ends on April 15), general brand awareness at a product launch, heck even during the holiday season (last chance to get a gift delivered in time for the holidays).

If you want more detail on how to run a Google Surge, see my original post - not only do I explain what it is I also give you some helpful tips.  Anyway, glad to see Google is giving into my link baiting strategy (just joking) and started calling it a Surge.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Using Disney Parks to Market Princess and The Frog

As some of you readers know, I've always been very impressed with Disney's marketing especially with the way they use their parks.  Well in an awesome display of integrated marketing Disney is really using their parks to pump up their newest movie with their newest princess The Princess and The Frog.   

Now as anyone knows, Wall Street and the media always look at the openings to see how  successful a movie release is going to be.  Disney of course know this too and that's why they are using one of their tools in their arsenal which most movie studios don't have - tens of thousands of people going into their parks every day and the vast majority of them with young kids.   

So what is Disney doing?  Simple - giving away a ticket for each kid with a corresponding adult.  We picked ours up in Disney Studios and using a simple activation code and website, we picked up our free children's movie ticket guaranteeing that we will see the movie the first three weeks it is open - December 11 - December 31.  

I think this is a simple, yet brilliant integrated marketing tactic and costs Disney very little in the way of promotions.  Sure there are cards to print and marketing materials to put out in the park, but compare that with what you'd expect other marketers to do - direct mail, radio, emails, display ads, etc.  We were already in the park, likely to be their target market, and all we had to do was agree to receive the cards at a counter while we were checking out with a purchase.  That's Disney at its best using integrating marketing.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Are You Still Not Using Google's Ad Planner?

I've been directing online advertising campaigns since the mid 90s for very large companies (AT&T, DLJ/Harrisdirect) as well as small companies and political campaigns (ex - John McCain for President). When I've worked for big companies I had access to media planning tools and I've used them all - Nielsen, @Plan, comScore; in fact, I met with some of the current comScore executive team before they became executives. Usually these services are great for planning, but when you actually made a specific media buy these analyses don't match what actually went into market.

These types of services cost a monthly fee that as a small business owner I find a little tough to swallow and it was a little tough to swallow for the political agency I do work for.  So, that's why I'm a huge believer in Google's Ad Planner tool; the new enhancements including actual ad placements make this invaluable to the small advertiser.  This is just another reason why working with Google helps small advertisers operate like big advertisers without all of the upfront costs:

1. Ad Planner allows you to build media plans and forecasts by demo and geographic targets for FREE
2. Ad Planner provides pretty, professional charts for your plans for FREE
3. Build your own banner ads gives you the chance to run flash ads for FREE.  Sure they are slightly better than average creatives, but did I mention they are FREE?
4. Paid search is the great money equalizer because you are rewarded for great relevancy; plus the geo targeting, time of day targeting, creative building, and budget management are all FREE
5. Google's Content network allows you to buy on a CPC or CPM basis across big and small sites all using demographic and content targeting

The actual media buys themselves of course costs money but you can have everything run via credit card which gives you maximum freedom to lower or increase spends or shut it off whenever you want.  Plus, if you spend a moderate amount per month (~$10K) you can get access to one of Google's account teams.

Yes improvements to the Ad Planner are just another reason why Google is your best friend for advertising, especially if you are a small business or small client.  The only complaint I have with the Ad Planner is the lack of ability to geo-target at anything other than Country, State, Metro, or City; plus the City targeting is annoying because they aren't grouped alphabetically by state, but alphabetically by Metro (try looking for specific cities in Virginia).  However, I'm happy with the tool I have because it does most of what I want for FREE and I know Google will continue to make improvements.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Rupert Murdoch's Google Battle - Not So Crazy

(A quick small post - longer than Twitter, shorter than my normal posts).

I read a few posts yesterday about News Corp threatening to deny Google's spiders access to their sites and this includes the Wall Street Journal.  Now, I had the pleasure of negotiating with WSJ when I was with AT&T and even though I got the better of them for AT&T"s Personal Network plan, it created a lasting impression with me.  I've also advertised with them many times including during the 2008 General Election. While advertising revenues are important to them, they are clearly focused on subscribers.  So I wasn't surprised when Murdoch threatens to block Google.   

Hitwise's Bill Tancer put out some great charts that shows what they think Google's traffic is to WSJ and it is a whopping 25%; plus they report that 44% of traffic from Google is new.

WSJ knows this too.  WSJ journal sees other print companies who give their content away from free struggle with sales revenue - while it is coming in from the web, it isn't fast enough to replace the crash on the print side.  

WSJ has always been about subscriptions first and advertising second.  They know what the true hit would be by blocking Google.  I bet they don't care about the new traffic number.  I bet people will still know about them and the branding from the traffic doesn't matter to them.  Their advertising rates are still super high, so the traffic hit while bothersome, probably doesn't make a dent in their overall revenue numbers.  Me, I don't think Murdoch is bluffing.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

V and President Obama

Yes I know I'm a week behind but I watched my DVR version of V's premier last night and I absolutely loved the show.  While watching it I called my wife over to see certain plots in the show that reminded me of President Obama's campaign (before you liberals and Obama apologists jump on me, let me finish) - specifically the message of hope, change, universal health care, the use of technology, and the grass roots networking of the youth.  

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if anyone else noticed the connection, so I went to Google and found there was a bit of a controversy brewing especially from conservative commentators.  I was on vacation in Disney World so I missed the initial push and even if I was home I probably would have missed it anyway because believe it or not, I don't spend a significant amount of time listening to talk radio unless it is on ESPN. Here's my take on this:

1. Any conservative cheering this show on as a commentary of President Obama is off base; there are similarities but I'll get to that in a second
2. Obviously this plot line has been done many times in science fiction before and I'm not talking about the original series.  Most recently the plot line was featured in Marvel Comic's Secret Invasion where alien Skrulls previously invaded the Earth and kidnapped many of Earth's heroes to help facilitate a take over.
3. The idea of a utopia without disease or death reminded me of a Star Trek Episode called This Side of Paradise.
4. Heck one could even revisit parts of Germany in the 1930s as a parallel story line.
5. Now what every one of these story lines usually has is a charismatic leader and here's where they definitely borrowed traits from President Obama's campaign.  These include:

• Savvy dealing with the media; including the part of tantalizing the reporter with making him famous for the interview (I don't believe Obama ever promised this, but it makes for good conspiracy talk)
• Use of grassroots organizing (Peace Ambassador) including setting up area captains and offering rewards (Again there weren't monetary rewards from Obama's campaign, but more name recognition and the sense of making lifetime contributions to the campaign)
• The promise of the use of better and more modern technology (there was quite a lot of time spent with tagging on the show)
• Universal health care
• The if you are not with us, you're against us mentality; this actually could have been borrowed from not just Obama but politics in recent memory.  For an interesting read on a Who Are "They" in the Obama Administration read this post on the National Review (BTW - the "They" the author refers to is anyone on the opposite side of the President).
• The message of hope and change

There are so many easy to spot references that it didn't take non-politicos much time to make the link.  I don't believe it is a commentary of the Obama Administration because the plot is almost Science Fiction 101, but the writers definitely borrowed themes from the Obama campaign.  

I enjoyed the show.  I don't believe it is politically charged and certainly not a commentary against the Administration.  Enjoy it for what it is - a well done remake of Aliens trying to take over the world.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Daggett and Lonegan - Both Ignored The Web and Lost

I'm back from an 8 day vacation in the Happiest Place on Earth - Florida version so I have a lot of posts to catch up on.  Don't worry I'm going to avoid binge posting!

Back in June I wrote the reason Lonegan lost was the complete lack of use of modern internet marketing tools to get his message out to Republican Primary voters.   Well, the Daggett campaign followed up that "case study" with an even worse internet effort which was confirmed by Ali with these words of political marketing folly "From our research, we have discovered that NJ voters are primarily reachable via TV and other media -- not internet -- and that is why we have focused our efforts where we have"

Look I've only been working as a consultant for 4 years in the political marketing arena and I focus almost exclusively on online advertising in this space.  That runs the full range from search marketing, emails, displays ads, media buying, Facebook, and everything in between.  I do focus on search and media buying, but that doesn't stop me from working in other areas.  I've also been during pure online advertising since the late 90s (search, display, media buying) but where I was a little weak to start was translating into politics.  However, I have a great teacher in Becki Donatelli and listen to everyone else I've had the pleasure of meeting and that includes smart people from the Democrats.  One book I keep around is Joe Trippi's book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Joe's book chronicles Howard Dean's rise and then fall in the 2004 Democratic primary.  What powered Dean's rise may now seem a little quaint  - MeetUp, blogs, campaign blogs and videos, heck even a fund raising bat on the homepage, but the message is applicable to every campaign starting way behind with little name recognition.  

IF YOU ARE RUNNING AN INSURGENT CAMPAIGN YOUR ONLY AVENUE OF WINNING IS MAKING THE INTERNET THE PRIMARY FOCUS OF YOUR METHOD FOR GETTING YOUR MESSAGE OUT.

Steve Lonegan lost the Republican Primary to Chris Christie because he didn't use the internet and relied on tired and worn out marketing tactics like direct mail. Chris Daggett lost any momentum he gained via the debates because his campaign chose to ignore the internet at the insistence of their media company who of course made more money by NOT pushing their message out via cheaper and more effective channels.  Without going into too much detail in tactics, here are my top 5 priorities insurgent campaigns MUST do

1. Start very early
2. Kick out traditional media agencies until there is enough money to buy effective GRPs in target markets
3. Only use the internet for paid advertising because it is the most efficient, shows measurable results, and is the great equalizer when you are facing better funded campaigns
4. Invest in great creative developers especially ones like my friend Justin Germany who can create web ads and when you are ready, great TV ads.
5. Grassroots organizing is just not about going door to door and making phone calls, it involves using internet tools like Facebook, Google, wireless, and blogs to identify supporters, communicate with them, find like supporters, and then mobilize them.

That's how you run a modern insurgent campaign - not by listening to old style media consultants who insist the only way to run your campaign is by using old and really useless techniques.  Don't end up like Steve Lonegan and Chris Daggett - people who wasted their opportunities by relying on 1970s styled marketing

PardonMyFrench,

Eric