As the November election appears on the horizon, it’s my civic duty to give the candidates and their handlers a primer on how they could modernize their approach and utilize some advanced electronic direct response advertising techniques to their advantage. After all, Infomercials are the most effective and measurable form of advertising there is, so I’m being patriotic and sharing our unique marketing expertise with the candidates.

The Obama campaign has already created an informative and entertaining Infomercial which treats each potential voter as an intelligent individual and provides a well-crafted tutorial about the candidate’s stand on the issues, his vision and character. However, this Infomercial has so far been underutilized. With a fraction of a typical spot media buy budget, this Infomercial could create a wave of positive PR and inform the general public about the candidate in a positive way.

 

With 28 and half minutes of TV time, there is time to demonstrate the candidate’s strong points, show his passion and elaborate on his positions on a variety of critical issues. There is also be time to meet the candidate’s family, tout his career achievements and get to know his deep inner thoughts. Towards the end of the Infomercial, I would suggest that they use a stronger celebrity Voiceover to build a more emotional and compelling crescendo which would inspire the viewer to respond to the 800# or go online to donate money, time or organizing power to further the Obama campaign.

 

Because the direct response mechanisms, such as toll-free number and website, the Obama campaign should be able to generate a valuable database of potential supporters – complete with e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

 

This scenario is really just Infomercial Marketing 101, but the tried and true techniques which we use every day in our industry could be adapted as an innovative and effective campaign strategy. It seems to me that the next President of the United States is just an Infomercial away from making history.