• by Erik Sass , February 28, 2008

Banking on the ability of local Web sites to reach voters in the upcoming Democratic primaries, Barack Obama's campaign is running "sliding billboard" ads with an embedded 30-second video across 26 high-traffic local sites in Ohio and Texas, including major news portals like Ohio.com, the Web site for the Akron Beacon Journal, and Chron.com, for the Houston Chronicle. The ads debuted Tuesday, and will run for one week until the March 4 primaries. His rival, Hillary Clinton, has also utilized online efforts, but not on this scale.

Altogether, the campaign will run 39 different creative versions of the ads, including three different videos touting the candidate's various positions. The embedded video ads are repurposed spots that are also running on TV in the same local markets. When users click on the ads, they are taken to a landing page with a personalized video message from Obama. This includes, for example, Spanish-language messaging on some sites in Texas.

Hillary Clinton's campaign is also working with local news sites; however, the Obama campaign's current run appears to be the largest such sweep of local sites in these markets by either candidate thus far. The sweep, coordinated by Centro, includes properties on the Real Cities network, which includes over 1,400 local newspaper Web sites; WorldNow, which includes 180 local sites; and BBE, with 260 sites altogether.

The races in both states are closely contested.

A Feb. 25 poll by the University of Cincinnati has Clinton leading Obama 47% to 39% in Ohio, while a Quinnipiac University poll has her ahead 51% to 40%. Another poll released on Feb. 25 by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. has the two candidates in a dead heat in Texas, with Obama leading Clinton slightly, 50% to 46%. The poll's 3.5-point margin of error means the candidates are basically even.