Visible Measures Blog

For online audiences, the main event of President Obama's inauguration Monday wasn't his speech, it was Beyoncé's National Anthem.

Yesterday, in anticipation of President Obama's press conference on gun control measures, the National Rifle Association (NRA) released a new, controversial ad. The spot targets the president's family, claiming that Obama thinks his daughters are more important than our children, because his daughters' school is protected by armed guards and the Secret Service. The response to the ad has been widespread in social media and the media, including news outlets like The Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, and Politico.

After the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, there has been a national debate about American gun policy. Piers Morgan, host of Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, has been at the center of the debate as well as an outspoken critic of American gun policy. Morgan has been so outspoken that pro-gun groups have drafted a petition calling for his deportation back to the UK.

Yesterday, the American people re-elected Barack Obama as President of the United States. Networks made the call a little before 11:30 EST when they projected that Obama had taken Ohio and its 18 electoral votes. But Team Romney was unsure of the results. Hesistant to concede, they waited for more votes to come in before making the decision to call and congratulate President Obama. As a result, speeches both by Romney and Obama were delayed until late into the night, with Obama coming on stage in Chicago around 1:30 AM EST, well past most people's bedtimes.

Over the course of this election season, we've provided a weekly look at the Top 10 presidential ads in online video in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. Now that the 2012 election is just six days away, we wanted to take a step back and provide a broader view of online video trends for the candidates.

It's been a busy month for the 2012 Presidential candidates -- Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have faced off three times in national debates. The third and final debate wrapped up Monday and the two candidates are now in their final pushes towards the November 6 elections. As we look back to the debates, there were many controversial moments in the debate, but of course, we were interested in seeing which moments resonated most with video viewers online.   

On this week's WSJ Presidential Ads Chart, the anti-Romney Big Bird spot dominates, coming in at number one with over 3 million views. Big Bird by the Obama team takes advantage of Romney's comments made during the first presidential debate, when he said that he would cut funding to PBS. The ad was likely fueled along by Sesame Street's request that the ad be taken down. There are more than 30 copies and derivatives of the original clip, a sign of virality. 

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) released an anti-Romney spot featuring workers who collect trash and perform other public works in La Jolla, California, where Romney lived. Meet the People Who Make America Happen topped this week's chart with over 1.6 million views. The spot ends with "Meet the people who make America happen. Mitt Romney doesn't care about them."

Yesterday, Team Obama launched its newest ad campaign online. Called Big Bird, the campaign pokes fun at Mitt Romney's comments during the first presidential debate about shutting down PBS if elected and putting the big yellow bird out of work. The Big Bird ad has taken the media by storm, shifting the national conversation from Obama's debate performance to the yellow-feathered ad. The biggest question now is whether or not using a lovable children's character as one of the campaign's main talking points is good strategy. Detractors and proponents of the ad have made their arguments, but online audiences have already provided an answer.

Coming in at the top of the WSJ Presidential Ads Chart this week is comedian Sarah Silverman's PSA with super PAC Jewish Council for Education & Research. Let My People Vote gains more than one million views this week. The video slams voter-ID rules with colorful language typical of Sarah Silverman's comedic routines. The video's view count grew organically, but was boosted by placements on MoveOn.org, Huffington Post, and was also widely shared in social media.