[UPDATE: turns out he’s not the first after all – see comments below for details.]
I’ve been yarping for months that no political campaign had yet launched mobile. There’s this massive youth generation that’s setting records for political and community activity, the mobile phone is one of their favorite things in the world, and all these politicians and their high-priced communications groups are doing … nada. I’ve talked to some of them, too.
- “We’re working on it.”
- “Yeah, thanks, I’ll pass your name on.”
- “Sounds great – here’s a list of 30 people you might try.”
- “Ummm, I have no idea who would be in charge of that.”
Well, finally this week the Obama campaign became the first to launch a mobile marketing campaign.
By signing up, you can expect periodic updates from the campaign as well as advance notice about local Obama events and important updates about Barack’s public appearances.
I signed up immediately, and if I remember correctly I think you could also get a free bumper sticker, although that part seems to be gone now.
So, what do I think? I think they might as well not be doing it. I think they decided to dip their toes in the water without understanding mobile or their audience. And I don’t expect much in the way of results unless they get serious about investing in the channel.
I have yet to receive a message when they ought to be pinging me every day or two with insight from Obama, news about events, tips on how I can get involved, anything. I don’t even know what I’m going to get when they do text me, other than event info which I’ll probably already know about.
The Obama campaign has taken this opportunity to let everybody know that they have no feckin’ clue about mobile, a message that’s sure to resonate with all those young voters suffering from perpetual thumb cramps.
[sigh]
Categories: Business/Finance, Generations, Politics/Law/Government
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
I completely agree with you. I have a friend who is an avid supporter of Obama who immediately signed up for the mobile updates. Days later, he hasn’t received a single message from Obama. I have noticed that all other mobile plans that work give you daily updates, sometimes more than that. Also, the information being sent shouldn’t be just basic info. you can find out about by watching the news, but rather exclusive information
This is an area I care a lot about for business reasons. When I’m not indulging my blog hobby I’m a social media and mobility consultant for a living. If Obama had brought me in and asked me to develop a detailed plan for what NOT to do, it would look a lot like this.
Well heck, I was wrong. Obama wasn’t the first. Apparently both Clinton and Edwards beat him to it.
Now, I was wrong, but boy do I still have issues. First off, I somehow missed it on Clinton’s page some weeks back (I’m told it’s been up for awhile), and that may be all on me. If so, my bad. Or it may be that they’re not making much of a deal of it. Whichever.
As for Edwards, yeah, it’s there, but it’s not obvious where – it’s at the bottom of “Take Action” drop-down, which intuitively doesn’t seem quite right. Further, we’re talking about a way of mobilizing MILLIONS of young voters – how about a prominent banner or image ad?
Finally, I spoke not too long ago with someone who works for the Edwards campaign – someone who’s fairly up the ladder in the communications group – and this person seemed not to know anything about it.
Silos? I don’t know.
In any case, mea culpa on the factual inaccuracy. I have signed up for both campaigns’ alerts. Oddly, when you sign up, you should get an immediate double-opt-in sequence to confirm, and after a few minutes I’ve received nothing.
If my experience indicates that either or both are doing this well I’ll let you know.
yes this is indicative of his future performance. he is too young, too green. an excellent individual by we need a seasoned buck to address the depth of the mess. Vote Ron Paul, Kucinich, and I LIKE MIKE GRAVEL.