When we consider the significant viewer time that Youtube generates for voters aged 18 to 30, then why do parties like the Liberal Party continue to ignore this medium?
For all of the talk about how the Coalition outspent the opposition, the real story is how Labor outsmarted the Liberals when leveraging new media.
Consider these numbers over the last four weeks for the 2016 Federal campaign:
Labor Party Youtube views – 3.6 million vs Liberal Party Youtube views – 0.6 million
The Labor Party generated a staggering six times the number of Youtube views than the Liberal Party.
It appears that the Labor party used paid YouTube Video advertising to generated many of these views. The Liberal party seemed to experiment with only one video which produced 75% of their total views.
From a cost per view perspective, Youtube advertising is one of the more cost effective mediums. Youtube only charges an advertiser once a user watches a 30 seconds of their video.
When we consider that the Labor party was able to target swinging voters within their the geographic locations, by age or gender, then you start to get the picture that for them to reach the same audience via TV, they would most likely have to spend 5 to 6 times more than they invested into Youtube advertising.
While the Liberal campaigned as they did 20 years ago, the Labor Party ran a smarter campaign for considerably less spend.
Campaigning is not about how much money you spend, it’s about reaching your audience at the right time, right place and the right message. If the Labor Party was able to reach 6 times the number of swinger votes for quarter of the price as the Liberal, then we start to get a better understanding of which party run the smarter campaign
Not only did the Labor Party generate targeted advertising, but they were also able to understand which ads were working in real time. Therefore, their campaign team would have been able to change budget allocations in real time for those videos that were hitting the mark.
There is an old saying. Work smarter, not harder. I would suggest that the Liberal Party needs to upskill to fight elections in the today’s environment rather than deploy techniques from the 80’s.
Top 10 Campaign Videos on Youtube (July 2016 Numbers) Youtube Views
Labor: Malcolm Turnbull: Seriously Out Of Touch 760,224.00
Labor: The Liberals say one thing and do another 474,782.00
Liberal: We need to bring back the ABCC to lower the cost of construction 408,785.00
Labor: Budget 2016 Fairness Test 234,567.00
Labor: Why we need a Royal Commission into the Banks: Shorten 203,226.00
Labor: This is why we have to save Medicare 191,056.00
Labor: Does this sound fair to you? 165,327.00
Labor: This is why we have to Save Medicare 142,403.00
Labor: Bob Hawke speaks out for Medicare, do you? 124,769.00
Labor: Where’s Mr Turnbull’s leadership on climate change? 114,350.00