MORE than six million people have so far been emailed a spoof video blaming them for electing Republican John McCain as the next President of the United States.

The video is going out to more than 30 new people per second as a direct and personal reminder to them to vote in next Tuesday’s Presidential election.

The spoof video is set after the election and “reveals” that Democratic candidate Barack Obama has lost by just one vote. The ‘missing’ voter is the person receiving the personalised video!

In the spoof news-style video, the missing voter’s name is blazed across headlines in the New York Times, is personally thanked by George W. Bush and is castigated by irate US citizens (including an hilariously foul-mouthed grandmother, pictured above) and a lonely goat herd who now fears his flock is about to be bombed by ‘President McCain’.

The video is witty, irreverent and extremely well done - and it may have the desired effect in helping to Get Out The Vote as well as becoming a global hit.

Research shows that this kind of social “nudging” is extremely effective. The organisers are aiming to reach 10 million people before Election Day in the USA - but look set to easily reach their target.

To see how it works, you can fill in your friends names and send the video to them today.

Send the Spoof Video

As the organisers, MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION say: “Studies show that by far the best way to get people out to vote is to convince them that (a) everyone else is voting, and (b) everyone will know if they don’t vote.

“This video does both—with a smile (or a smirk, in some cases).

“It takes just seconds to send, and it could be the thing that actually pushes a friend of yours to the polls.”

It is entirely coincidental, of course, that Barack Obama will be the beneficiary of this ingenious tactic which sets impeccable new standards in communications and political campaigning.

In the next British General Election, will Gordon Brown or David Cameron try something similar?

At 19.11 on Sunday 24 August, 2008, we received an email headed  ‘Hello’ from Senator Joe Biden, new Vice-Presidential running mate to Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

The Obama campaign’s mastery of the internet and digital communications has already been noted: texting the choice of his No 2 direct to supporters was just the most recent demonstration.

So it was no surprise that, within 24 hours of being nominated, Biden had been plugged straight into the Obama campaign’s huge worldwide database and was sending out a personal YouTube video message.

Ten out of ten for lightning-fast communications and being so web savvy.

But the message was as equally impressive as the medium.

Most British politicians haven’t a clue how to use the internet to communicate, or to engage in conversation with the millions of people logging on. Their woeful attempts to enter the 21st century can be excruciatingly painful to watch. Like your grandad suddenly being ‘cool’.

Sixty-five-year-old Biden’s video message was refreshingly unpatronising to the Obama digital generation.
“I’m deeply honoured to join Barack and the millions of supporters like you, in this movement you’ve built together,” the veteran senator graciously intoned.

He went on to pay tribute to the grassroots nature of the Obama campaign for change.

“I’m here to join the team and follow the example of millions of people who are already organising all across the country….I want to thank you again for making me so welcome as the newest member of this team.”

Cynics may congratulate Obama’s brilliant scriptwriters for their cleverness in constructing such a humble approach for a veteran Washington insider.

But they might also agree that, in politics, the tone adopted is crucial.

And in his first YouTube video, Biden struck exactly the right note.

You can view the video here http://my.barackobama.com/joebidenvideo

IT must be one of the classic PR blunders of the year…

Birmingham city council in the West Midlands produces 360,000 leaflets - using a picture of Birmingham, Alabama!

As the saying goes, ‘you couldn’t make this stuff up’.

A sharp-eyed Brummie first spotted the Alabama image on the leaflet and rang the council to complain.

No doubt there were red faces all around the Bull Ring, internal enquiries and interminable meetings to try and find out what went wrong.

But after making the gaffe, Birmingham, West Mids then added insult to injury by:

initally denying they had made a mistake
refusing to apologise
continuing to deliver the leaflets
being unable to find a single senior council employee who was prepared to stand up and accept responsibility

Anyone can make mistakes - especially in huge bureacratic organisations like a city council.

But it only makes matters worse when you try to avoid responsibility.

It really rankles with both the council tax-paying public and the media if public organisations are caught out, won’t admit it and then try to wriggle off the hook.

Far better to hold your hands up straightaway - and apologise.

Far better too, to turn the mistake to your advantage with a bit of humour and creativity.

Why not announce a twinning deal or a student exchange programme between Birmingham, West Midlands and Birmingham, Alabama?

Or perhaps the city council’s Director of Leaflets could be sent on a West Midlands photography course?

MANCHESTER could lose £3billion investment in our public transport because of opposition to a proposed congestion charge.

That was the message at a public meeting in the city called to discuss the controversial charge, which would bring new extensions to the Metrolink as well as 120 new buses, extra rail carriages and pedestrian and cycle paths.

Labour councillor Andrew Fender, a member of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, explains in the YouTube video clip above how a massive extension of the Metrolink to Didsbury, Oldham and Rochdale, Droylsden and Ashton is part of the congestion charge deal.

“We cannot have this scale of investment without the congestion charge,” he said.

Rob Adlard, from Manchester Conservatives, explains in the YouTube video clip below that his party opposes the congestion charge because it discredits ‘green taxes’, is economically flawed and represents a government attempt at ‘blackmail’.

Unfortunately, the anti-congestion charge Momentum Group pulled out of attending the public meeting at the last minute. Its PR firm, Communique apparently did not offer any explanation.

Sound Communication has meanwhile joined United City - the business umbrella group which is supporting the Transport Innovation Fund proposal to invest £3billion in public transport in Greater Manchester, through the congestion charge.

We believe the plan will:

• ease congestion
• make Greater Manchester a cleaner, greener place to live and work
• create thousands more jobs in public transport and new transport infrastructure
• help tackle climate change

Below, in the final YouTube video clip Councillor Fender and Mr Adlard clash over the proposals.

Further Information links:

The United City web site

Clean Air Now - supports better public transport, pedestrian and cycle routes and a congestion charge

THE charge is damaging: that US Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama cancelled a hospital visit to wounded troops in Germany because he was not allowed to take the press with him.

It feeds into the popular global cynicism about politics and politicians: all spin and no substance. Obama is the cerebral dilettante concerned only with image and appearance rather than genuinely interested in the well-being of our brave boys.

And it undermines Obama’s campaign credentials as being an authentic voice who offers a clean break with the Washington machine politics of the past. Just like all the rest - a self-centred ego-maniac.

 The allegation of snubbing wounded service men now appears a central part of Republican John McCain’s attack on Obama, potentially fatally undermining the Democrat’s credibility as future Commander in Chief.

Republic campaign ‘attack ads’ are being aired on TV and YouTube and McCain has started touring the TV studios, this week levelling the ’snub’ charge on the influential Larry King show on CBS.

But what is the truth?

The Washington Post, still lauded for its campaigning reporting on Watergate, picks apart the McCain claim piece by piece.

• The press were never due to join the Obama hospital visit during his European tour.
• Obama was to be accompanied by a retired Air Force military general, who is now a campaign advisor
• The visit was cancelled when the Pentagon advised that the trip would be considered ‘political’.

But the Obama campaign’s rapid and repeated attempts to rebut the McCain alllegation appear to have given the story even more oxygen and invited even more questions from suspicious reporters.

No smoke without fire, goes the oft-repeated saying.

For Obama, yet another cliche may well be pertinent: ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’

It all goes to show how, with communications now lightning fast, every single step along the campaign trail has to be carefully examined, weighed and investigated in advance. Every political and media implication explored and calculated.

No wonder then that, on the US campaign trail at least, there appears little room for spontaneity or authenticity.

Thankfully both the Washington Post and the New York Times have presented their own insight into events, from experienced reporters who travelled with Obama on his European tour.

But what will have lasting impact - a serious broadsheet investigation or a 45 second ‘attack ad’ on TV and YouTube?

And could we rely on the British media to perform a similarly investigative function if there was a similar incident in a British election campaign?

Links to further reading:

Washington Post: McCain charge against Obama lacks evidence

The Trail: Questions abound about McCain critiscism of Obama trip

The Fix: Obama, McCain and the troop visit that wasn’t

John McCain video: Troops 

ONE of the world’s biggest advertising agencies is trying to sell its stake in a Zimbabwe company masterminding the re-election of President Robert Mugabe.
WPP, which owns a huge raft of global Public Relations companies including  Burson-Marsteller, Cohn & Wolfe, GCI, Hill & Knowlton and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, has found itself in the embarrassing position of apparently aiding the re-election of Mugabe.
WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrel - one of the world’s richest men - told Radio 4 that he was keen to sell his 25 per cent stake in the advertising company, run by Mugabe’s daughter, “as soon as possible.”
The Zimbabwean advertising company is said to be orchestrating the election campaign of Mugabe whose dictatorial regime  has been roundly condemned by almost everyone.
“There is no reason whatsoever for us to be associated with the Mugabe regime or the campaign for his re-election,” Sorrel declared.

Meanwhile The Times brands a London based mining firm’s £200million investment in Zimbabwe as an ‘outrage’.
So it’s good to see that WPP at least, appear to have discovered an ethical basis to their business, albeit belatedly.
Although cynics might consider Mugabe an easy target, it is encouraging that others agree with Sound Communication that there is room in business for a more ethically-based approach.
Hopefully, we can now look forward to WPP making a significant donation from its mind-boggling profits to social, educational and economic programmes in Zimbabwe - once that blighted country is democratic and free.

TWO interesting developments in the Third Sector - the space between public and private organisations.
First, former Prime Minister Tony Blair hands out some advice to other Third Sector organisations as a result of his involvement in charity work.
Blair’s out-of-government office has now set up four separate organisations which all appear to loosely fit the term, Third Sector.
The four organisations, two of which are termed Foundations, have been set up to concentrate on climate change, sport, Africa and Faith.
Blair, who is also a Middle East peace envoy, concludes that partnership is the key to success for his and other Third Sector organisations.
Blair says: “comparing my old and new worlds, I’d say that in philanthropy, unlike politics most of the time, you can genuinely welcome others alongside you.”
Of course, post-Iraq, the difficult question for Blair now is whether organisations are willing to be associated with him in pursuit of their noble and good causes? Or whether the association damages the cause?
Secondly, an established and successful social enterprise, the ECT Group, has been taken over by the stock market listed private company, May Gurney.
The take-over of ECT which, like Sound Communication is a Community Interest Company, is interpreted by some as a major defeat for the new social enterprise CIC model.
Others see it as a step towards new partnership working between social enterprises and the private sector, without in any way compromising the values on which the social enterprise was originally based.
Again, partnership appears to mean different things to different people. But it might be useful to ask ourselves who does the partnership benefit and who is the partnership really between?

Now anyone can become a reporter – and they can broadcast from their very own YouTube channel.
Meanwhile, as Hillary Clinton bows out of the Democratic race for President of the United States, the Independent on Sunday greeted the dawn of a new era in political reporting thus:

“a first-of-its-kind election dominated by bloggers of all political hues, by citizen journalists armed with camera phones and cheap digital recorders, and played out on YouTube and across the web.”

It goes on to describe the dynamic and influential role so far played by ‘citizen journalists’ in the US election – a trend which looks certain only to increase as the battle between Obama and McCain intensifies.
Whether Britain will ever embrace this exciting new age of digital communication with quite the same enthusiasm, open-ness and commitment remains to be seen.
But one thing is clear - effective communication with global audiences is no longer the preserve of multi-millionaire media tycoon’s like Rupert Murdoch.
And that can only be A Good Thing.

RADIO 4’s Today programme has been broadcasting a new series of special reports on the care of elderly people.

This morning’s report provided a powerful reminder of exactly why the BBC is still the best public service broadcaster in the world.

Reporter John Manel told how he had enlisted a 70-year-old woman to go ‘undercover’ in a care home for almost a week - and keep a secret audio diary.

What was utterly enthralling about the report was the freshness of the insights provided by the volunteer, Debbie Davies, trustee of the charity Compassion in Care.

Rather than a predictably hysterical tabloid denunciation of the home, what emerged was a gripping and thoroughly balanced, measured and revealing insight into what seemed a fairly typical care home.

And it was the mundane details secretly recounted by Debbie into her tape recorder that were most powerful: the ‘odd smell’, the lack of fresh air or fruit, the TV constantly switched on, the boredom and loneliness, the early nights - “the earliest I’ve been in bed for years”, the  kind and jolly staff and the next door voice crying-out unheard. “Take no notice - she’s just old,” Debbie was advised.

The human details and the beautifully humane voice of Debbie carried the greatest impact. She said: “I am doing this because I feel at least I can give people who are in the homes a voice. When you are in a home you can’t complain. You are afraid of what might happen to you.”

From Manel’s extremely simple idea came possibly one of the best eight and a half-minutes of radio reporting we are likely to hear this year. And far better than pundits and politicians endlessly ranting at each other.

It’s just a pity that local newspapers seem unlikely to try and repeat this investigative exercise in their own local care homes - presumably for lack of time, resources, commitment or interest.

Part 2 of Debbie’s undercover report is broadcast at 7.30am tomorrow morning. On the Today web site there will also be an extended 20-minute podcast of Debbie’s findings, as well as the views of  the elderly and their relatives. Don’t miss it.

HOW many people would watch a 37-minute speech by a politician?

Few of us would guess that five and a half-million people would have tuned in.

But that’s how many people have apparently so far watched Barack Obama’s ‘More Perfect Union’ speech on YouTube.

In its entirety.

The Democratic Presidential contender has other impressive on-line statistics: $235million dollars so far donated by 1.5 million individuals, 8.3 million people watching the ‘Obama Girl’ video on YouTube, record numbers of friends and supporters groups on Facebook.

All of which led to Obama being hailed as the clear leader in digital politics during a fascinating live debate on the impact of the internet on the American Presidential election, sponsored by the Financial Times, the US Embassy in London and YouGovStone.

Phil Noble, founder of Politics Online, forecast that Obama’s web-savvy campaigning would raise £1billion online and would bring 5-6 million supporters helping on the streets of America in the closing days of the Presidential election.

Dr Andrew Chadwick from the University of London, attributed the apparently more engaging on-line nature of US politics to its more pluralistic society. 

And self-confessed Obama fan Joanne Shields, from the social network site Bebo, fired up her audience with an evangelical acclamation of the revolutionary nature of the internet in ‘bringing politics back to the people’.

She added: “If you can, through inspiration and innovation, spark enthusiam in the on-line community about who you are and what you stand for, they will share your message and multiply excitement and support exponentially.” 

Which seems a pretty sound message for anyone considering how to make their presence felt on the web.