Candidates Face New Risks on YouTube

Candidates recognize the importance of creating videos for YouTube. A good video can go a long way towards marketing the campaign and building name recognition. But with this amazing opportunity comes risk. Of course we all know about the risk engendered by Senator George Allen when he went on his “macaca” rant on video, but today’s lesson in risk comes from Governor Rick Perry and his “Strong” video.

In response to his recent campaign commercial disparaging gay rights and championing school prayer, a slew of parody videos have emerged. This, in and of itself, is not the primary risk YouTube presents. Rather, when you visit Perry’s original “Strong” video on YouTube, the right column is filled with related videos and those related videos are mostly the parody clips. Thus, the promotion and success of Perry’s own ad breeds promotion and success for the parody ads.

Here is a sample of some of the parody ads:

There are more and I expect there will be even more, still.