Our Side Of The Screen: Youth Voting PSAs
Posted by anastasia on 10-22-2008
Today’s Ypulse Youth Advisory Board feature is from Libby Issendorf…I’ll let her take it from here.
Our Side Of The Screen: Voting PSAs
Brands are pouring money into TV campaigns, viral videos, and Facebook ads designed to catch Gen Y’s attention. It’s easy for them to review impressions, click through rates, and pageviews, but what about real, unfiltered reactions? “Our Side of the Screen” will give marketers detailed, honest opinions about marketing campaigns aimed at youth. We’ll let you know what we loved, what we didn’t, how the campaigns made us feel about the brands, and most importantly, whether they made us do anything.
Have a campaign you’d like us to review? Please contact the board at youthadvisoryboard at ypulse dot com.
Election day is less than two weeks away, and everyone is waiting to see what the Youth Vote will do. Obama? McCain? Will young voters even show up? Three recent political videos have been sent my way in the past week. They all target the 18-24-year-old voter, with varying degrees of success:
Don’t Vote (from DeclareYourself.com, a non-partisan group that promotes youth voting) is eye-catching and fun at first, but about halfway through it loses momentum and becomes condescending. The video would be great if it didn’t keep hammering its points about the importance of voting and of registering to vote after they’re already clear. We don’t need the stars to “wait around” (pause button, anyone?) for us to register, and we REALLY don’t need celebs to tell us how viral videos work. I love the lighthearted, sarcastic mood of the first 1:30, but as soon as the video gets preachy, I tune out. Thanks, Courtney Cox, but I don’t need your advice on which links to forward to my friends (although your crack about “I used to have 5 friends” had me laughing out loud). It might prompt more young voters to register than the other two, but its forced “viral” message actually discourages me from passing it on. Grade: B
I cracked up at Talk To Your Parents (from Obama-endorsing MoveOn.org) and immediately shared it with friends. This video is targeted most narrowly at 18-24-year-olds and succeeds at getting inside our culture. “Gossip Girl” stars’ spoof of anti-drug PSAs we remember watching awkwardly with our parents successfully resonates with our age group, and unites our generation against our parents’ pre-YouTube McCain-voting ways. I doubt any undecideds will be swayed to Obama’s side by the heavy humor and light content, but its command of social currency keeps his momentum and cool factor high among young voters. Grade: A
Hayden Panetierre’s video on FunnyOrDie.com was awkward and unfunny. The girl just doesn’t have her comic delivery down. Blake Lively could have pulled it off with carefree sarcasm, Sarah Silverman could have succeeded at the dry humor where Hayden failed, or Leighton Meester could have been the smug, bitchy, McCain-supporting Blair Waldorf that Gen Y loves to hate. Instead, Hayden read her lines as an unfortunate, uncomfortable mix of the three and left me confused. The lines also seemed to be a weird mix between exaggeration and truth: “John McCain will start another war.” If you’re being serious, give me convincing facts; if you’re messing with me, how about an SNL-style whopper about Joe the Plumber in the Cabinet? At least Darrell Hammond gave me a chuckle with that line. Grade: D
About Libby Issendorf
After growing up on a farm in North Dakota, Libby Issendorf moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota. She discovered her passion for brands and media as a member of her school’s first-place National Student Advertising Competition team. After graduation in 2008, she began her career as a media analyst at an advertising agency. Libby works on media placement and targeting for national brands like General Mills and Land O Lakes. Outside of work, she loves blogging, playing sports, consuming gratuitous amounts of pop culture, the Minnesota Twins, being really geeky with her iPhone, and driving to see her boyfriend, who lives too far away.
Categorized under: Youth Advisory Board, Youth Marketing
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:05 am
I liked the Hayden Panetierre video more than you did.
She doesn’t need to explain the concept that John McCain would start another war.
McCain was a warmonger for the Iraq War and never apologized for voting to authorize it.
McCain at a townhall in January repeatedly used the phrase phrase “there will be other wars.”
He’s said “There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option” against Iran. “That is a nuclear-armed Iran.”
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Hi Eric,
I agree that there’s plenty of evidence about J. Mac starting another war, but her line was just weird. “He’ll start another war, and we’ll all probably die”? Her statement is ridiculous enough that she’s obviously exaggerating, but the exaggeration isn’t clever enough to be funny. It was like the writers couldn’t decide between using real facts and being over-the-top. That was just one example of where I thought the writing (and especially her delivery) of the sarcasm was awkward.
But I do appreciate your commment :) Just wanted to clarify a little what I meant!
October 24th, 2008 at 3:18 am
[...] blog Ypulse.com has graded several youth voting campaigns that have appeared online and on the airways during the 2008 election season. This blog is a [...]
October 24th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Libby,
I really enjoyed your analysis. I quoted this entry in my blog and agree that these ads at most has ‘cool currency’. The ‘Friends’ crack was great! And how bad was the Hayden Panetierre ad? Political activism doesn’t mix with her fanbase -she stars on a network show. I think the Don’t Vote ad is interesting, but I agree that it drones on. It also seems to be somewhat partisan despite its claims of neutrality. The format is a little too similar to NBC’s The More You Know ads.
Keep up the good work -and check out my blog!