A timely article about the Obama Campaign's display ads during this election cycle.

http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/q-a-designing-banner-ads-obama/238242/

An interesting quote from the head designer: "Over time, the call to actions are tested to a point where there's not much tweaking to do. And with a digital team for a presidential team when you get copy it's been tested. We know it works."

Since presidential campaigns do a lot of testing and polling, plus digital technology brings a lot of testing capability the campaign must have had fantastically efficient ads. With slightly higher CTR (click through rates) and likely consistent CTR across ads. Obama's ads during this campaign also took a bit more risks (with their digital ads) in venturing into the playful, more obvious "cool factor" and direct hits at Mitt Romney. As the interviewee alludes to in the article (and as we've discussed in class), there's more room to take risks in digital. It's not like a TV buy that is locked-in upfront or is immediately exposed to mass market criticism. Digital ads are more akin to cable TV...there's a license to get creative and target niche groups.