I’m taking a look at some of today’s keyword buys the buys by the two presidential campaigns and – at least as it relates to today’s new stories – they appear to be at least timely. That’s because today, Wall Street is having a meltdown with the Lehman Brothers heading to bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch essentially selling itself to Bank of America.
When I put in “Lehman Brothers” I got an ad for Barack Obama:
Worried About the Market?
Read About Obama’s Plan to Revive
the Economy and Sign Up for Events
BarackObama.com/Economy
The link goes to a landing page in which a video automatically starts – a 20 minute long video. It was rrded earlier this year and doesn’t address today’s headlines. It shouldn’t begin automatically and it needs to be shorter. It’s a speech – not the best idea, but it does address “economic woe issues”.
The page also lists a few basic proposals that Obama is laying out on taxes and then invites people to sign up to receive into and to be invited to events.
McCain, at least when with is effort on Lehman Brothers, hadn’t purchased the keyword.
But McCain didso for Merrill Lynch:
Merrill lynch
Learn About John McCain’s Plans for
The US Housing Crisis Today!
JohnMcCain.com/HousingPlan
He then asks us to sign a petition, but he doesn’t really tell us what’s on the petition:
There are important steps to strengthen the foundations of the millions of businesses small and large that provide jobs for American workers. There is no government program or policy that is a substitute for a good job. John McCain’s vision for addressing the housing crisis would also strengthen the U.S. dollar and help to control the rising cost of living that hurts our families.
John McCain has proposed principles for addressing the housing crisis in the short-term as well as in the long-term to assure it never happens again. He offers straight talk on the housing crisis and will not play election year politics with the housing crisis. He will evaluate everything in terms of whether it might be harmful or helpful to our effort to deal with the crisis we face now.
When we commit taxpayer dollars as assistance, it should be accompanied by reforms that ensure that we never face this problem again. Central to those reforms should be transparency and accountability.
To me, this doesn’t make sense. People searching for those terms who then click on these ads will be looking for deeper information. At least in my opinion.
Both could use a “statement from the campaign” type of area that addresses today’s issues.
At this point, McCain’s group – led by Eric Frenchman – has been blowing away Obama’s. Today, not so much. But that will be just one day of many.
I’ll be looking at their search strategies more and more often until Election Day.
Jonathan, I wouldn’t call typing in two keywords to see what pops up a worthy analysis. Furthermore, looking at one creative that pops up also isn’t worthy of a post. I’m sure there were more text ads running for both campaigns and there are reasons why you never run just one creative.
Interesting post and solid reply. I’ve wondered why I was seeing so many McCain and Obama ads on the internet – even when the site seemed to lean against the candidate. For instance, I saw a few McCain ads on Huffington Post and a few Obama ads on Drudge.
Now I understand how those odd pairings occur. Thanks for the information and marketing insight.