ArticleIP_64618.txt

   
   
      
         
            Is Video Campaign Spam the New New Thing?

            
Upstairs from Samson's Vitamins and Herbs, at the corner of 17 th and
Church streets in northwest Washington, D.C., there's a funky little eatery
called the CyberSTOP
Cafe. For $5 per half-hour, you can rent time on a PC or an iMac, while you
sip an espresso and take in the zany decor (chairs upholstered in leopard skin;
a painting of the Mona Lisa holding a coffee cup). Last week Al Gore dropped by
with some campaign staff and a few reporters in tow, trudged up a narrow
staircase, and had a campaign aide shoot a video with a rented digital camera
while he read a letter to Bill Bradley. Then Gore downloaded the video onto one
of the CyberSTOP computers and e-mailed it to the Bradley campaign. He put down
a $20 tip and left.

            It
was, of course, a gimmick. But all technological breakthroughs begin as
gimmicks. Does video campaign spam have a future?

            Before
answering that question, let's examine the somewhat flimsy substance of Gore's
message to Bradley. (This won't take long.) In the video e-mail, Gore asked
Bradley, with great sobriety, about an "oversight" in Bradley's campaign
literature concerning the Medicare trust fund. "For my part," the flickering
image of Gore intoned, "I have proposed dedicating a significant portion of the
budget surplus to Medicare to extend the life of the trust fund." By contrast,
Bradley's campaign literature doesn't propose similarly fencing off funds for
Medicare. "Since independent experts agree that more resources will be
necessary to assure Medicare is strong for the future," Gore continued, "my
question is, 'What specific measures do you propose to compensate for not
dedicating any of the surplus to strengthen the Medicare trust fund?' " In
essence, Gore said that Bradley's plan to expand health coverage to uninsured
Americans (which is more ambitious than Gore's plan) would bankrupt the
Medicare trust fund unless Bradley raised taxes. But the relevance of this
attack is severely compromised by the reality that 1) Bradley had already
admitted he might have to raise taxes if circumstances warranted it; and 2)
during his cybercafe appearance, Gore himself told reporters that "you
have to have flexibility on the fiscal side." When asked about Gore's query,
Eric Hauser, a spokesman for Bradley, pointed out that Gore was no more willing
than Bradley to rule out a tax increase. (For more on Gore's recent mau-mauing
of Bradley, and the strategy that lies behind it, click .)

            So
much for substance. Turning to technological matters, Hauser admitted that
Bradley never got around to viewing Gore's e-mail. Neither did Hauser and
neither did anyone Hauser knew of in the campaign (though they were familiar
with its content from reading a transcript). Apparently the video message got
lost somewhere in the maw of Bradley's campaign Web site. But obviously the
video wasn't really intended for Bradley; its target was the national press, a
couple hundred of whose members received e-mail press releases with the video
attached. Thanks to its novelty, the stunt won Gore some coverage from the
New York Times , Salon , Scripps Howard, and a few other outlets.

            One
doesn't have to be a visionary to imagine where this might go. The largest
single expense that political campaigns face nowadays is TV advertising. Gore,
for instance, has dropped a couple hundred thousand dollars on ads in Iowa and
New Hampshire. Video e-mailing is much cheaper. No, wait: Make that much, much,
much cheaper. Even figuring in Gore's $20 tip, the tab Gore ran up
sending his e-mail to Bradley and a bunch of reporters probably came in at well
under $100. (It would have been even cheaper had Gore been able to use the
video camera already in his personal possession, but campaign finance rules
made that too difficult.) Sending that same e-mail to 10 times as many people
would have cost precisely the same amount.

            For
now, the Gore campaign has no grand plans to start spamming unsuspecting
citizens with video messages. It does plan, however, to start sending video
e-mails to people who have already indicated on the campaign Web site that
they'd like to receive such material. They number in the tens of thousands.
It's not too great a leap to envision that in future presidential
races--perhaps even in this one--candidates will take the next step and start
buying lists of e-mail addresses so they can send targeted video messages or
advertisements. If "push" technology makes a comeback, such video ads could be
force-fed to the public at large at a cost that, compared to current media
buys, would probably be microscopic. These ads probably wouldn't be as
effective as conventional TV ads--remember, most homes in the United States
still aren't wired to the Internet. But they'd be so much more
cost- effective that they might still transform the way campaigns do
business.

            
               You
can watch Gore's video by going to the Gore 2000 campaign site 
               and scrolling
down to "Gore Sends Bradley An Email And Video Message." If you just want to
read the text, like the Bradley folks did, click here. 
               To read Bradley's own spiel on health care,
go to his Web site 
               and click on "In His Own Words."