• by Kate Kaye , November 1, 2002

As Election Day approaches, ask the average voter about political ads online, and chances are, banners and pop-ups will be the last thing mentioned. Although he may tell you about the haunting trickery of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as presented in the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) “A Nightmare in the Senate” Flash movie.

“Overwhelmingly there are not enough dollars tied up this season to move the needle in any significant way,” states Rudy Grahn, senior analyst of advertising and marketing at Jupiter Research.

The political ad landscape is nowhere near barren, however. Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline, a site which provides news, info and tools about politics on the Web, explains, “Generally speaking, there’s anywhere from a 200 to 300 percent increase of almost every facet of Internet campaigns from one election cycle to another.”

And why not? The Web’s not only a great place to reach voters while they’re online at work; it can be a motivational tool for viral community building. After all, getting out that vote is what political advertising is all about.

“The Web is the single greatest grass roots or caused-based marketing tool available, and very few people are leveraging it,” says Doug Stone, CEO of NYC’s Abstract Edge, a Web marketing firm that’s done issue-based work for activist organizations like gun-control proponents, The Million Mom March, and pro school voucher group, Parents in Charge. “Here’s an opportunity to make yourself more than a soundbyte.”

Currently on the Web, the familiar voice of Senator John McCain can be heard endorsing candidate for Arizona Secretary of State, Jan Brewer. It’s streaming from audio enhanced banners running on The Arizona Republic’s azcentral.com, courtesy of Arizona’s interactive political marketing firm, DB Associates and NYC-based Klipmart’s streaming technology. Candidate for Arizona Governor Matt Salmon has also ventured online with a re-purposed TV spot streaming on the East Valley Tribune’s aztrib.com.

Early Web ad adopters during previous election years include McCain, George W. Bush, and Senator Bob Dole, who touted his campaign website way back in ’96. Candidates have also pocketed lots of cash through online efforts. PoliticsOnline’s 2000 "Follow the Money Online" survey of election contributions reported a total of $144 million had been donated online to Bill Bradley, John McCain, George W. Bush and Al Gore by mid-first quarter of that year.

Noble expects “tons” of money to be funneled to individual candidates through the Web in 2003 and 2004 because of the soft money ban, and the fact that presidential elections “always drive innovation.”

The Greens/Green Party USA accumulates about 30-35 percent of its donations via the Web, according to coordinating committee member, Mitchell Cohen. Still, the Greens prefer activist-minded members to join through local chapters rather than virtually or on paper.

In the end, the high profile promos online are rarely representative of democratizing the Web. “Lots of it is focused on the negative elements,” comments Grahn, who notes that most mainstream volume comes from offline broadcast media driving traffic to political sites, many of which tend to be aimed at maligning the competition.