Last week Congress passed a emergency war spending bill that granted for President Bush's request for a $124 billion in emergency funds to continue fighting the war in Iraq. This emergency supplemental spending bill is not unusual for the ongoing war in Iraq. However, what was different, is for the first time since the war began five years ago, Congress included stipulations on the money. The biggest sticking point was Congress called for a timetable for a “phased redeployment” that would begin on October 1.
Congress passed the bill last week and the White House announced the President would veto any bill with timetables in them. The President lived up to his veto threat and vetoed the bill. After an attempted congressional veto override failed the bill is dead.
Knowing full well the emergency appropriations bill would die once it reached Bush’s desk, the John Edwards campaign moved quickly to put together a great video asking congress to "not back President Bush" and to "send him the same bill again and again." This is a great example of what the 2008 election cycle will look like. Instead of taking weeks to make a commercial and spend hundreds of thousands to air it, the Edwards campaign quickly made this video, aired it online and is putting a fundraiser together around it.
Well done. Rapid Response Video.
Some criticism.:
Stop with the YouTube. I received the video in an email from the Edwards campaign. That means that I had to click away from the email to see the embedded version built on to a homepage. And once I watched the video I’d have to click to another site to donate. Assuming that this video has the desired viral effect that the campaign wants, I might pass the video along to my social network. If I do that, then whoever receives the video won’t see the same ask for money that I saw. in other words, they'd just see the video and not the request for money. If the Edwards campaign had their videos on blip.tv or veoh, they could have embedded a clickable link at the end that users could have clicked and it would have taken them directly to a donation page. Call to action, action made, impulse donation made.
Housing videos on YouTube is no way to run a fundraiser/advocacy campaign. The only two actions a users can take is to watch the video again or forward to a friend. That’s great, but the idea behind the ad is to make money for the campaign. Those two options don’t give the user the opportunity to give money.
My advice, leave YouTube and check out blip.tv or Veoh.com. Call me for help. 202-449-5644 x107.
You can see the video here without the ask.
