National Republicans run ads against Walz

Posted at 8:30 AM on May 24, 2007 by Mike Mulcahy (2 Comments)

The National Republican Congressional Committee says it's going to run radio ads for a week against Democrats in 12 districts nationwide, including Tim Walz in Minnesota's 1st.

“Democrats have a real record that they are going to have to defend in 2008, and we are going to use every resource available to expose that record to the voters,” NRCC Communications Director Jessica Boulanger said. “Freshman Democrats have undergone an extreme makeover since arriving in Washington. They’ve been strong-armed by Speaker Pelosi into abandoning their campaign pledges, and their constituents deserve to know.”

The ads are designed to send people to the NRCC Web site, where they say more bad stuff about Democrats. This is the part of their announcement I found interesting:

Additionally, the NRCC began phone calls into targeted districts, and launched an online banner ad buy on 20 conservative blogs and prominent news websites. Along with a viral marketing campaign targeting over one million voters, the NRCC will utilize the banner ads to drive traffic to the site, capture email addresses and emphasize the message that Democrats are accumulating a record of broken promises.

The campaign really is starting early, isn't it?

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Comments (2)

I question whether the NRCC's marketing consultants really understand the concept of a "viral" marketing campaign. A top-down, Throw-Millions-Of-Dollars-Into-It media effort is, somewhat by definition, not viral in nature. Viral is more than just a clever word to throw into press releases.

But hey, who am I to complain?

Posted by Joe Bodell | May 24, 2007 9:46 AM

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I couldn't help but notice that too. I guess everybody's trying to buy viral these days.

Posted by Mike Mulcahy | May 24, 2007 10:06 AM

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