I read about this video in yesterday’s Post where they claim lobbyists are now “discovering” YouTube. There are several things that would have made the video above much more catchy. Somehow, the tone just isn’t quite right. It needs to be a little more fun. Add in a joke or two. And show something more interesting than the most plain plaid boxshorts at the end.

It was inevitable. In the Internet age, interest groups seeking influence in Washington are joining presidential candidates in discovering a new electronic tool to press their agenda: YouTube.

“Send your underwear to the undersecretary” urges the actress in the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s stinging 66-second anti-regulatory video posted on YouTube, a free video-sharing site that is a subsidiary of Google. The video blames a 2001 Energy Department rule for an energy-efficiency standard that it says has made new models of washing machines more expensive while getting laundry less clean.

The underwear video illustrates what other advocacy groups are finding out: YouTube is a cheap, creative way to get a message to a potentially vast audience. This slow migration is in addition to more traditional lobbying approaches, such as direct mail, Web sites and scripted phone calls to federal officials. …

“We figured we would try a very fast, inexpensive campaign that would go viral,” said Sam Kazman, general counsel at the CEI and head of its Death by Regulation project. The video went up May 16 and had 1,306 hits in the first week, a respectable showing, especially considering the subject matter.

Kazman said the campaign cost virtually nothing. He wrote the script and one employee did the acting and another filmed it.

It is good that they are exploring the medium more. I hope they take it to the next level and really end up utilizing it more.  I think their Bureaucrash videos are much better.

No obviously related posts.