New Media Revolution gives US Presidents celebrity status

Charlie Grant, New Media Executive





With election fever gripping the world, it seems that everyone and his uncle know the names Barack Obama and John McCain. Even the British youth, most of whom wouldn’t know the leaders of our very own major political parties, seem to know not only where Sarah Palin hails from, but how much she spends on clothes and her penchant for high heels.

It seems that one of the major contributing factors for this world-wide know-all of the American election can be put down to the one thing that unites us all - the internet.

Never before has the World Wide Web been used to such effect; with blog, videos, podcasts and websites popping up all over, dedicated to what has been the most costly US presidential campaign in history. Not only has YouTube become a tool for passionate voters to express their opinions to the masses, but even the two sparring political parties have adopted the video revolution.

Both the Democrats and Republicans have issued videos for the Google-owned website. Obama has even managed to secure a video of his ‘A More Perfect Union’ speech in the ranks of the highest-watched videos of all time.

YouTube was once a place where like-minded individuals (all possessing very fast internet connections of course) went to upload their latest vodcast, or to mime along to the Backstreet Boys. Now it’s become an incredibly strong political tool. With over a billion internet users in the world, and over 100 million YouTube videos watched every day, it’s easy to understand why the spin doctors are using the internet to reach the voting public.

They did their job so well, in fact, that many non-Americans now feel passionate enough to show loyal support to a favoured candidate. And even this ‘across-the-pond’ support isn’t wasted. Eager Britons have posted their written and spoken opinions in droves. It would only take a few undecided US voters to happen across a convincing argument written by a British blogger to change the course of history.

The internet is a powerful tool. It can turn politicians into superstars and ‘nobodies’ into celebrities. The jury is still out on whether our own politicians should go the digital way and embrace the new media popularity contest, but who knows? In a few years, we could be watching Gordon Brown dancing around his room to some ‘90s Euro-pop in a fantastic attempt to attract the youth vote…

Charlie Grant

A busy year...

Kari Owers, Managing Director

I’ve just returned from a week’s holiday and boy was it needed – we spent the week before we left with all hands to the pumps preparing our entries for the CIPR PRide Awards, and it was a tough job deciding what to enter!

When we looked back over the last year we had so many fantastic projects to pick from we really had to be strict on what we put forward.

For example the Prince’s Trust Challenge Trophy was a project that created such a media frenzy, it was the most exciting and – true to its name – challenging media relations exercise we have ever worked on. At one point we were gaining newspaper, TV and radio coverage every single day running up to the charity sporting events. Plus working on a daily basis with the sporting greats from Alan Shearer to Peter Beardsley and Glenn McCrory was great fun. More to the point we did so much of the project pro bono, we felt great when we heard it had hit all its targets to raise money for disadvantaged young people in the North East.

We were also able to think of a case study for almost every category, which shows we’ve really grown into a PR and brand communications agency with a client list of some truly inspirational companies. The freedom our clients give us to develop new concepts for the brand and communications is a real testament to the trust they have in us to deliver a really effective campaign.

So fingers crossed for the PRide Awards, and well done everyone. Looking back at all the work done in the last year made us realise we’ve had some great achievements!

Kari Owers