Visible Measures Blog

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.

Immediately after the NRA released the spot, it began to spread online, and viewership began to climb. We monitored its online viewership closely, identifying of all its copies and responses from news outlets as well as audiences across the web. Less than 36 hours after the ad was first released, the ad and its related clips have been watched more than 1.09 million times. Audiences have uploaded more than 65 clips related to the original ad, and commented nearly 5,000 times.

To give the NRA ad's performance some context, we've compared it to an anti-gun campaign, Demand a Plan from Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The celebrity-filled spot has been watched more than 10.9 million times since first launching on December 21, soon after the Newtown tragedy. But for a fair comparison, we looked at the Demand a Plan's performance the day after it launched. The results? We found that the campaign generated 1.03 million views, which is only 30,000 views less than the controversial NRA ad.

Will the NRA ad see more viewership than the Mayors Against Illegal Guns spot? 10.9 million views will be difficult to beat, but the NRA ad is certainly off to a good start.

Do you think the NRA will surpass Demand a Plan? Let us know in the comments section below.