Visible Measures Blog

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.

Big Bird has already inspired over 40 clips across the web, for a total 1.7+ million views in 24 hours. The campaign has cracked Obama's Top 10 ads of the 2012 election, coming in eighth place behind the rapid response campaign Stephanie Cutter: Get the Facts, which has 1.9+ million views. Obama's top-viewed campaign is the 17-minute documentary narrated by Tom Hanks, The Road We've Traveled, which has generated over 4 million views to date.

Big Bird tops Romney's most-watched campaign to date, Fine, which was launched back in mid June and has generated over 1.5 million views. Big Bird just falls short of Chuck Norris' 1000 Years of Darkness, which also has 1.7+ million views. It tops AFSCME's Meet the People Who Make America Happen, last week's biggest campaign with 1.6+ million views. With its rapid ascent in the past 24 hours, Big Bird threatens to top JCER's two viral hits from late September, Wake the F@#k Up, currently at 3.6 million views, and Let My People Vote, which has 2.4 million views.

What do you think of the Big Bird ad? Is using a children's character for political purposes fair game? Let us know in the comments section below!