Obama makes me want to listen
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama use web video to announce their exploratory committees.
Obama is publishing video through Brightcove. This means you can easily email, link to, or embed the video. You also get a channel you can subscribe to using RSS.
Hillary is using her ‘own’ player which means there’s none of this nice stuff.
Another smart touch on the Obama website is the low-bandwidth download for people on dailup and a link to the transcript.
It’s also interesting to compare the production. In the Hillary video the camera is panning from left to right and back all the time. Apart from making you seasick this increases the size of the video file because there’s a lot more information that needs to be encoded.
The Obama video uses a single fixed head-and-shoulders shot. This seems to work very well for these kind of messages on the web; he’s close enough to make it feel like he’s talking to you directly, but not so close that it’s uncomfortable. Hillary is too far away over there on the couch in the first part of the video, and then a little too close and personal when they switch to close-up.
The sound is way better in the Hillary video. Obama sounds thin and ‘canned’, probably because of too much compression.
To me, the Obama video appears to be serious and personal. The Hillary video somehow made me feel I was watching a life insurance commercial. What do you think?
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dirk lüsebrink about 2 hours later: (delete | show email)
He, i'm far from being deeply interested in USA politics but i you did a great job in giving an insightful analysis on the marketing video on the web topic here. Panning, networking, compression, great arguments i for future use in evaluating options for our clients. About politics i must say, can it get any worse than now? Good luck. ¶
Richard about 2 hours later: (delete)
The Obama website lacks, well, almost everything. It has so few elements that it is almost 'googlesk' in its simplicity. Also, in his video message he talks about grassroots activism and building communities but there is nothing beyond a simple 'join' button.
Clinton's website on the other hand has heavy 'Hillary' branding throughout, even calling fundraising, 'Hillraising' making you feel part of a community. There is also the ability to organise events or find Clinton events through the website.
The new entrant is Bill Richardson, the New Mexico Governor. His website (http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/) has similarities with Clinton's in many of the content elements but with a couple of great additions. On the front page are links to social sites such as myspace, facebook and flickr and also some great user generated campaigning. It asks you to finish the sentence, "The next President must be able to..." Free market research, you've got to love that. ¶
joanne 348 days later: (delete)
I am not a U.S. citizen but I am a citizen of the world and therefore deeply interested in the current U.S. presidential debate. Both websites are o.k. What is interesting now is the debate going on now (Jan 4/08). Hilary smile is supposed to look sincere but it looks smug. Obama blinks way too much when listening to the other candidtates. Richardson has misused some grammar . Edwards is polished. When Hilary was "attacked" re Bill's presidency, her voice went up. When Obama was "cornered" on the lobbyist issue, he looked down. If we are watching history in the making, please let Obama and Clinton's communication people polish them some more so that the U.S. voters don't tune out of this most important moment. The U.S. markets everything. I know it seems petty, but since you finally have candidates worth listening to, give them some advice on marketing please!!!! ¶