• by Joe Mandese , October 30, 2008

“Who saw the infomercial for Barack Obama last night,” Hodges asked the audience, which elicited a tepid showing of hands. I’m not sure what Hodges point was with that, but my takeaway was that for all the high-profile attention Obama’s half-hour buy on the major networks got leading up to last night, it didn’t reach many of the savvy mobile marketers in this room today.

The question is whether mobile would be a more effective platform. Hodges suggestion is that it may in fact be.

“I think Barack Obama has done a really great job of utilizing mobile,” Hodges said, citing the campaign’s efforts to sign voters up for mobile alerts related to campaign issues.

“There’s also a CRM aspect to the Obama campaign that is really important,” Hodges, added, suggesting that those relationships may impact voter turn out in a way that is far more efficient than traditional media efforts.

During the 2006 campaign, Hodges said there was a 4% lift of people who went to the polls based on a mobile message. “On a cost-per-thousand basis, that was $1.56 per voter vs. traditional media, which is $20 to $30.”

Okay, so it looks like mobile marketing may also be getting Madison Avenue’s vote.