2008 Forecast: Online Engagement To Determine U.S. Presidential Race

The biggest story coming out of the Iowa last week and New Hampshire this week is the powerful emergence of “underdog” candidates Barack Obama (D) and Mike Huckabee (R) and the manner in which they upstaged (and are upstaging) the exceptionally well-financed and well-run campaigns of party front-runners Hillary Clinton (D) and Mitt Romney (R).

Online Interaction Will Determine Next U.S. President

This played out as a stunner in traditional media outlets (New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, et. al) but they missed the boat because they simply overlooked the power of digital media. All the clues were online. Which leads us to our prediction: In 2008 the Internet is going to have a profound effect on choosing the next President of the United States.

There are two ways to examine this development. The first is through raw statistics — a quick trip to Compete.com tells you more about the way voters (and potential voters) are engaging with these candidates than ever before.

Obama vs. Clinton vs. Edwards

As you can clearly see in the above chart, the amount of unique visitors to BarackObama.com has absolutely skyrocketed since November while the numbers for HillaryClinton.com have stayed flat. In fact, Obama’s site has seen an increase of 53% in the last month alone. His win in Iowa was hardly a shock if you looked at the data.

Huckabee vs. Romney vs. McCain

Ditto for the Republicans as you can see above. Unique visitors to MikeHuckabee.com have also skyrocketed since October while the numbers for MittRomney.com and JohnMcCain.com have had a slight uptick. Huckabee saw an amazing 73% increase last month. Once again, note quite as shocking of an upset given a look at the data.

Digital Media Trumps Traditional Media

By analyzing what data is available (none of it perfect, obviously) the “upset” in Iowa should have hardly come as a surprise, yet it took the traditional media and Washington establishment off guard since they are so geared towards traditional campaign mechanics: whomever spends the most money on advertising will receive the biggest edge at the polls. This is simply untrue in an online era. Today it’s about content, community and connection.

This year’s candidates are surfing a powerful media mix of online (web, search, community) and offline (TV, radio, print, etc) and the ones doing it most effectively are thriving. And as we’ve found at Avenue A | Razorfish, a deft mix of online and offline advertising increases a campaign’s results exponentially. Add to that “paid effect” a killer viral video component of speeches, debates and other public appearances and you’ve got a potent mix that is much more meaningful than a 30-second TV add or editorial in a local daily.

For example, look at the stats for Obama’s Iowa Primary victory speech. On YouTube alone, the multiple clips easily translate to north of 750,000 views and will probably top 1mm before the end of the week. And that doesn’t include the BrightCove player, NBC player and countless more. To give you some perspective, the NYTimes.com draws about 10mm uniques per month. The video is then deep-linked into BarackObama.com which has host of information on the candidate, community, other videos, etc. All in all, digital media offers a deeper level of engagement with an audience than any other type of media and we are seeing the results play out in real-time.

Obama vs. Huckabee

On a final note, and just for fun given what may happen between now and Feb. 5th — let alone November — I decided to quickly compare BarackObama.com vs. MikeHuckabee.com. Those stats (as imperfect as they may be) show a statistical dead heat if the election was run today.

Let’s see how long it take the traditional media outlets to tap into this story around online engagement. A couple of more “shocking” upsets may finally give web media its due.