By Dan Manatt
Principal, Manatt.net/Web Video for Politics
and Ian Koski
President, On Deck Communication Studio

There’s a simple reason campaigns pour so much of their precious financial resources into television ads: Americans respond to video. Since the very first motion pictures, video has had the ability to capture viewers’ attention and often to affect their hearts and minds.

As technology has evolved, video hasn’t lost its grasp on our awareness. In fact Americans are watching more video than ever in a variety of formats – on television, at the cinema, during electronic games, at live events and on the Internet. Indeed, the World Wide Web is the very epitome of multimedia convergence, bringing the best features of the printed word, pictures, sound, and now video, together in an always-accessible, very-low-cost format.

Now that the technology has caught up, video is becoming increasingly prevalent both on the Web and on mobile devices.

Mobile Video Devices have become ubiquitous. From smartphones with built-in video recording capacity to lightweight laptops that can play an array of video formats, including DVDs, users with even modest technological ability have access to a wealth of mobile video resources. PlayStation Portable is putting high-resolution mobile video feature-length motion pictures – into the hands of children. And Apple is expected to introduce a video-enabled model of its wildly popular iPod portable music device in 2006.

With the technology in place, content providers are finally catching up. ESPN.com offers sports news and highlights in high-resolution mobile video downloadable through wireless providers Verizon, Cingular, Sprint and Midwest Wireless. Major League Baseball’s Web site carries live broadcasts of every game on the Internet and transmits game highlights to subscribers’ video-enabled phones.

Between CNN and CBS News, both of which recently made news video freely available on their Web sites, only CNN allows users to watch newscasts on their cell phones – and even then only with Sprint and Verizon Wireless.

Even the Republican National Committee has begun offering video-for-download through its Web site. With a few clicks you can download short videos (and longer audio files) to your local computer or portable device.

The rapid pace of modern campaigning makes mobile video a particularly useful vehicle for daily operations. For national and statewide campaigns, pre-recorded videos can be particularly useful for volunteer training. Videos featuring the campaign’s top staffers and consultants can be sent over the Internet or on DVD to field offices, ready to be replayed as often as necessary. Not only is it cost-effective, but it will help ensure the training is consistent across the board.

In the run-up to the 2004 election, volunteers for Americans Coming Together staged an unprecedented nationwide voter registration and outreach effort, using some of the oldest and lowest-tech techniques to persuade voters: face-to-face contact, literature drops, and community meetings.

But they were also armed with video-enabled Personal Digital Assistants that carried pre-recorded campaign videos – advertisements, really – that were played for would-be voters in their doorways.

Indeed, the very notion of a campaign commercial is changing.

The cost of producing a television spot has always been a fraction of the cost campaigns pay to actually show the commercials on television. With the Internet and mobile technology, commercials can be tailored like never before – focusing on a specific region, state, city, or even on the neighborhood in which they’ll be shown.

Campaign Web sites can also display those videos alongside digital versions of their traditional television spots. Innovative campaigns are also posting “video blogs” from their candidates and top staffers, discussing talking points, issue positions and campaign strategies. Although not meant to be persuasive, they have found a niche with supporters and volunteers who need to feel deeply involved in the campaign.

With a few clacks of a keyboard and clicks of a mouse, those videos can be transmitted electronically to any number of users’ e-mail accounts or mobile devices in seconds.

It works the other way, too.

Campaign staffers have long been known to stake-out opponents’ campaign events with cameras in hand, ready to document any gaffe or vulnerable statement for use in attack ads. But the emergence of Mobile Video Capture Transmission has compressed turnaround time to a mere fraction and allowed campaigns to capitalize on opportunities in minutes.

With even a $200 digital camcorder, a staffer can now record moderate-quality video at an opponent’s event, go to his car and transfer the useful clips to his laptop and by using a cellular modem, transmit that video back to headquarters and be on the road within minutes. Talk about rapid response.

The same kind of technology package is transforming election day poll-watching by recording bona fide evidence of tampering in a format that allows for real-time action by the campaign’s legal team.

Within 10 years, nearly every campaign will have an in-house video producer who will write, produce, film, edit, compress and transmit video content for the Internet and mobile devices. Although the technology, talent and costs involved with it are already at reasonable levels, permeation will remain an incremental process. It’s only the campaigns able to see beyond the traditional air-and-mail strategy that are harnessing it today. Those who fail to embrace mobile video will be left behind.