Social Media is the Key to Victory

The biggest issue on Facebook lately has been the Presidential Race 2012. America has been bombarded with campaign ads. There have been numerous predictions on who was going to supposedly win the presidency. One of these predictions that increase my interest was a study I heard via radio. I tried to find the study been had no luck; however, as I recall the results from a 2008 survey illustrated that the more a candidate was searched and talked about online for dense reason such as ‘What are the symbols on Romney’s underwear?’ ‘Topless pictures of Paul Ryan’, was more likely to lose the race.  This survey caused me to raise an eyebrow, but after some research and thought, Romney could have lost the race for other reasons than this. One reason can be seen on the image displayed, where you can see that Obama’s campaign spent $52,006,072 unlike Romney‘s campaign who spent $26,230,293. With the money spent on the Obama’s campaign we could have built another Lincoln Memorial or Washington Monument. Besides outspending Romney, Obama’s campaign really focused on online marketing whether it was through ads or social media, (Rosen, 2012). “One study showed Obama spent $16.4 million in online advertising in the first few months of 2012, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Romney had spent $7.8 million, according to the filings, (Obama, 2012).”  Plus Obama’s campaign really used social media to his advantage. “Obama had more than 18 million followers on Twitter when it last audited the account, in August, compared to 787,080 for Romney. Obama's Facebook page had 27.5 million supporters, compared to 2.9 million for Romney. On Facebook, users expressed support for nearly twice as many Obama posts as they did Romney posts. Twitter users passed along, or retweeted, 150,106 Obama messages to their own followers, compared to 8,601 retweets of Romney posts, according to the study. (Obama, 2012).” After pondering these statistics, I am left with the impression that one can win if the candidate is relatable through social media and spends a lot voicing their platform while dragging their candidate through the dirt.

Work Cited 

     Obama campaign more active online, Pew says - CNN.com. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/15/politics/presidential-campaign-web/index.html
     Rosen, K. (2012, Nov 05). Who spent more on online ads this election? Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/11/05/online-ads-election/

      

In-Game Advertising

This past week I watched my friends play Army of Two on their PlayStation. As I sat there watching, I couldn't help but to desire to go to the featured Chinese zoo from the game. Then I started to wonder how effect is in-game marketing. Research has shown in-game ads increased purchase intent, brand recommendation, brand rating and engagement metrics all across the board according to the company Initiative and Avenue Razorfish’s 2010 Outlook Report.

“Apart from increasing brand awareness and purchase intent, in-game ads trigger users to more readily engage with sponsored media. According to 85 studies from Microsoft’s in-game ad serving company for PC and Xbox 360 called Massive, in-game ads were found to increase purchase intent by 24%, brand recommendation by 23% and overall brand rating by 32%, (Khan, 2010).”

From the results of in-game advertising, it is easy to see why companies are shelling out the big bucks to be featured in games. "Even President Obama campaign will begin running ads across multiple video game titles from Electronic Arts, including the new Madden NFL 13 and in mobile games like Tetris. According to Dave Madden, EA’s svp of global media solutions, the strategy paid off for team Obama. Based on surveys conducted by EA during the 2008 ad effort, gamers were 120 percent more likely to feel positively about the candidate and 50 percent more likely to consider voting for him after seeing the in-game ads, (Obama, 2012)."

With how effective in-game marketing is, I am wondering how long it will be before gamers protest all the ads and marketing done through games.

Work Cited

Obama Taps Video Games for Early Voting | Adweek. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/obama-taps-video-games-early-voting-143717

Khan, A. (2010, 05 26). A brief look at in-game advertising. . Retrieved from http://socialtimes.com/a-brief-look-at-in-game-advertising_b13631