• by Masha Geller , September 26, 2003

New York may be the top DMA, but California has certainly grabbed its share of interactive headlines in the last week. The spam bill Gov. Davis just signed into law last week may have made the state seem too restrictive of things interactive to some, but Arianna Huffington is opening other doors.

With traditional media outlets congested over what has been a frenzied race for a new California governor, candidate Huffington, with the aid of Klipmart Corporation took a leap from tradition and decided to run streaming video advertisements on AOL last week targeted to California voters.

To increase awareness, Huffington tapped Klipmart Corporation, an online video advertising solutions provider, to launch a streaming video ad. The ad features Huffington's "Thinking Outside the Box" TV spot and automatically plays when a user clicks on a page containing the ad.

"The Internet has been the hub of my campaign from the beginning of my run," Huffington says, "and Klipmart has made it easier to get my message out via the web."

Klipmart's solutions allow advertisers to run up to 60-second TV commercials online that play instantly when a page is loaded. The video ad is linked to Huffington's own website, where voters are prompted to get more information about her campaign.

"This enables Arianna to speak with a unified marketing voice across all media platforms by merging her offline creative with an online presence," said Chris Young, CEO of Klipmart.

Other political elections that utilized video advertising on the web included such campaigns as Matt Salmon for Governor and Jan Brewer for Arizona Secretary of State, the latter featuring a radio spot from Senator John McCain. Both of those campaigns recorded record-high numbers of users watching the entire video and clicking on the banners for more information.

Huffington's campaign marks the first campaign to employ the combined forces of db associates and Klipmart, who merged earlier this month after several successful partnerships.

Obviously, Huffington's utilization of video advertising on the Internet is just the first of a long line of web-centered political endeavors voters can expect to see as 2004 ushers in local, state and one presidential election.