Jumble Of Crap from the Wall Street Journal

What is this schlock from the Wall Street Journal?:

McCain Seems To Have Obama Beat in One Arena

Sen. Barack Obama appears to many people to be running a far more tech-wise campaign than his opponent, with his use of text messages to announce his vice-presidential candidate and the creation of his own vibrant social network, My.BarackObama.com.

But Sen. John McCain is in some ways outsmarting Sen. Obama when it comes to Internet marketing.

Oh,my! Bold statement. Let's see what the evidence is.

One example: As of Wednesday, a Google search for "Joe Biden" or even just "Biden" resulted in a prominently displayed ad labeled "Joe Biden on Obama" that links to Sen. McCain's site. There, a video begins playing that shows Sen. Biden criticizing Sen. Obama during the Democratic primaries. The move mimics the "ambush" strategy that advertisers often employ: buying a competitor's term so that an ad for the buyer's own product appears when a consumer searches for the other brand.

Sen. McCain was able to pull off that sleight of hand because he outbid his opponent for the search term "Joe Biden." As a result, Sen. McCain's ad takes the top spot alongside search results, while Mr. Obama's ad appears lower in the results.

Sen. McCain's team has been the aggressor in other ways, too. In recent days, it has bought search ads tied to key terms such as "U.S. economy" and "housing crisis," which take visitors to Web sites outlining Sen. McCain's plan on those issues.

Meanwhile, the Obama camp largely has yet to advertise around these terms, missing a key opportunity, according to experts, to communicate his message to undecided voters.

"The big downfall is that Obama's not reaching the undecided voters," says Janel Landis, senior director of search development and strategy at SendTec, a search-marketing firm that has been tracking the candidates' techniques since June. "He's not bidding on issues or his competitor's name."

His competitor's name...like "Joe Biden?" This article is wobbly. What's the "One Area" in which McCain "Seems To Have Obama Beat," again? Ambush ads?

What other evidence do you have?

In July, the McCain campaign had 15.1 million sponsored link impressions -- the number of times that an ad is downloaded onto a computer screen -- compared with the 1.2 million for the Obama campaign, according to Nielsen Online.

Um, come again?

...sponsored link impressions -- the number of times that an ad is downloaded onto a computer screen.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Anyway, let's go with it. 15.1 million is way bigger than 1.2 million. 12.5 times larger.

Sen. Obama, meanwhile, has chosen to focus online ad spending around display ads. The Obama campaign had 416.7 million image-based ad impressions, compared with Sen. McCain's 16.5 million.

416 million? 25 times larger.

But fine. McCain buys more ambush ads than Obama. More often when someone thinks they're clicking on something that will tell them information about Obama, they are actually taken to the McCain website. This is the "One Arena" McCain is winning in? Is the campaign proud of this?

Moving on...

Both campaigns have made quantum leaps in using the Web for marketing compared with where the two parties were in 2004.

Ahh, balance. Know what else? Both candidates use electricity many times during the day.

Here, too [in traditional media, like TV], Sen. McCain's camp has something to crow about this week. New data shows that Sen. McCain's ads that ran during the Olympic broadcast on NBC Universal were more memorable than Mr. Obama's commercials, according to IAG, a Nielsen firm that uses an online panel to track the performance of advertising.

"Memorable?" Interspersing attack ads into the Olympic Games coverage? Yes, I remember that, certainly. It was memorable. And sickening.

The political ad that Olympic TV watchers were best able to recall included Sen. McCain's attack ad that said Sen. Obama is the "biggest celebrity in the world" but questions if he is ready to "help your family?" The spot went on to promote Sen. McCain's renewable-energy plan.

Ahh, WSJ, bring it back to me. What else did it say? Perhaps you could embed it here?

To come up with its data, IAG looked at about 1,600 surveys of likely voters who watched NBC Olympic broadcast where the political ads aired. IAG uses an online panel of consumers who regularly log into an IAG Web site and answer questions about TV shows and ads they saw in the past 24 hours.

Higher recall of ads is "typically the result of better creative and that is the story here as well," says Alan Gould, IAG's co-chief executive officer.

The attack ad didn't sit well with everyone. About 27% of the people who remembered the celebrity ad said they were less likely to vote for Sen. McCain after seeing it.

So there ya go.

Wait, what were you talking about again, Emily Steel and Suzanne Vranica? What was this "One Arena," again?