subject: The art of election campaigning [print this page] The art of election campaigning The art of election campaigning
The Great Schlep was a campaign fronted by Sarah Silverman in the lead up to Presidential election in the US. Droga5 was the agency and their brief was to help Barack Obama win the presidency by motivating swing voters in the key state of Florida. Elections have been won and lost there in the past (Bush v Gore), and the key to winning Florida was the swinging elderly Jewish vote.
Droga5 created an online grassroots movement to get Jewish grandchildren to schlep over to Florida, and convince their grandparents to vote for Obama, and vote for a change in the world. Given the smear that Obama was Muslim, a Jew voting for him seemed far, far away.
A winner of a Cannes Lion in 2009, this campaign will surely go down in history as the camapign, that changed the world.
The case study video produced for Cannes does a stunning job, and demonstrates it's worthiness as a Titanium winner.
The Great Schlep Cannes Lion 2009
Their solution used a websitewww.thegreatschlep.com,a viral film hosted by Sarah Silverman, aFacebook group and loads of merchandise.
The results speak for themselves the Facebook group drew more than 25,000 active participants, the viral video has over 7,000,000 views and Barack Obama won the election as he got the highest Jewish vote from Florida in more than 30 years. Not only did he get the swing vote, he got them to vote, which of course isn't compulsory in the USA.
Hiring Sarah Silverman to do the job was perhaps the coup in my view, and the viral video was hard to refute.
So in an election year in Australia, will we see such innovation?
The"It's time to tell your mum" is an example of a movement against the internet filter however will we see either party (or coalition) take the initiative to create a groundswell movement on some of the more traditional election issues like education, the environment or health care?
Or will we see traditional media and journalism again dominate the campaign trail?
