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Cashing in on the Campaign
By Bizbox
Sen. Barack Obama is set to break all fundraising records, and even Sen. John McCain looks likely to hold his own in that department. More broadly, the 2008 election features the first-ever African-American candidate and the first campaign with no sitting president or vice president running in 40 years. Excitement has not run this high in at least a generation. How can you capitalize on this quadrennial exercise in democracy?
Certainly media outlets big and small are hoping for a bump, the New York Times reports. So far, the only clear winners appear to be cable news channels as well as a few outliers such as Politico. The Web-based politics news source has harnessed a few new features of how people like to get their political news--constant updates; an emphasis on video; cultivated personalities for specific writers--in order to up its pageviews massively. The lesson seems to be: look not just at the fact that people are paying attention, but also how they are paying attention.
And also who is paying attention. An article at Entrepreneur.com shows small businesses that cater to the booming demographic of politically-minded people under 30 with clever, at times edgy political satire as well as hip, politically-oriented t-shirts.
But, you say, I don't make t-shirts or have a news Website. Probably true. But the presidential campaign is, in addition to a crucial event for the country, an all-encompassing pop cultural moment: a common point of reference that will touch and energize more people than just about anything else. Wherever there is something so big, so dominant, there is a business niche. It's your job to find yours.
Comments (0)August 4, 2008 9:31 AM
