The Barack Obama Campaign generated significant buzz this weekend by announcing Senator Obama’s Vice Presidential selection via SMS text-message. Nielsen estimates that 2.9 million U.S. mobile subscribers received a text message from the Obama campaign over the weekend.
The Vice Presidential message (sent in the late hours of Friday night) is, by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event ever in the U.S.
“From a mobile perspective, it makes sense that the campaign chose to use text-messages,” Nic Covey, Director of Insights, Nielsen Mobile, noted. “Today, 116 million U.S. mobile subscribers (52 …

With the national political conventions starting next week, pundits and the general public, alike, are scrutinizing Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s campaign strategies.
On Thursday, Nielsen joined the fray, releasing an analysis of the candidates’ online presence and buzz, their advertising campaigns, and TV viewership for past conventions. 
Online Audience and Videos Viewed
BarackObama.com’s unique audience was twice as large as JohnMcCain.com’s in both June and July 2008.  However, in July, the number of video streams on JohnMcCain.com more than doubled, possibly due to press coverage around Senator John McCain’s ad that compared …

In a year of historic political firsts, cable news networks have devoted a larger-than-normal portion of news airtime to the 2008 presidential campaign, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. 
That strategy seems to be paying off, the L.A. Times noted.  According to Nielsen, Fox News has averaged 1.66 million weekday primetime viewers this year — up 14% from 2007.  Meanwhile CNN’s audience has grown by 40% to 1.06 million in 2008, and MSNBC’s viewership has increased 41% to 713,000.
The current cable news ratings increases extend a trend that began in 2004, …

Senators McCain and Obama are each spending sizable sums of money on TV advertising during the Olympics.  But when it comes to placing display advertising online, both candidates have relatively unimpressive records, Mediaweek Senior Editor Mike Shields noted Monday in a column.
“The 2008 race has been lametastic when it comes to online advertising,” Shields wrote, adding: “McCain’s been nearly invisible when it comes to display advertising.”
Senator McCain placed 16 million online display ad impressions in June, while Sen. Obama ran 80 million impressions, Shields noted, citing Nielsen Online data. 
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As the two major presidential candidates, John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL), battle state-by-state for votes, the Internet has become an increasingly critical outreach method, according to a recent report from Nielsen Online. “Campaigns are no longer dabbling online,” says Jon Gibs, vice president, media analytics, Nielsen Online. “We expect a candidate’s Web presence to be an integral part of both campaigns.”
Both campaigns are spending money on image-based ads and sponsored links in order to reach active web users over 18. Nielsen Online reports that 89% of active web …