Panel confidence before and after speech

During the speech, the panel also indicated their positive and negative reactions using dial meters, which showed the health care debate is still sharply divided among party lines.

Discussing the impact of the bailouts and stimulus, the President noted efforts earlier in the year had “pulled the economy back from the brink,” driving Democratic support high, and sending the Independent and Republican meters downward. Similarly, when the President brought up the costs of the Bush administration tax cuts and the cost of the Iraq war, Democrats responded enthusiastically as Independents and Republicans headed in the other direction.

Online Reaction

Outside the focus group, internet chatter related to the President’s two speeches this week, the address, and a speech to school children the day before, online sentiment for the speech was generally positive according to Nielsen Buzzmetrics. However, the school speech drew much more attention based on controversy surrounding parental and school concerns about the scope and potential partisan nature of the President speaking to school children to promote his agenda.

Viewership to last night’s address was down 38.6% from President Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress on February 24, which aired from approximately 9:00PM to 10:30PM.

In July, President Obama held a press conference focused on health care that drew nearly 25 million viewers.

Negative Buzz Increases Post Launch of “Cash for Clunkers”

In the two months prior to the official launch of the CARS (Car Allowance Rebate System) program, 10.5 percent of all discussions were positive, while an additional 10.7 percent of the discussion focused on actual intent to purchase a car through the Clunkers program. On the other side of the argument, 7.9 percent of the discussions were negative, containing sentiments like this New York Times blog comment:

“The worst part about this program is that the government is encouraging people to take on more debt. Those clunkers are mostly PAID FOR. Why on earth are we telling U.S. citizens to go and take out another big loan on a depreciating asset? It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

While positive sentiment around the U.S. government’s program outweighed the negative in the weeks prior to the launch of the program, bloggers began to shift their opinions in the week following the official launch, with negative buzz increasing to 10.1 percent of all discussions and conversations that focused on purchase intent fell to 7.1 percent. As the program quickly ran out of money, negative buzz again increased, growing to 11.4 percent while intent to buy continued its downward trajectory, this time falling to 6.1 percent of all CARS discussions online.

CARS.gov Attracts the Wealthy

Online visitors were also heading over to the government Web site created specifically for the program, www.cars.gov. Month-over-month, unique visitors to the site increased 733 percent, from 287,000 unique visitors in June 2009 to 2.4 million in July. Unique visitors between the ages of 35 and 49 were 35 percent more likely than the average Internet user to visit cars.gov. Contrary to what many may assume, visitors to the site also over-indexed among the wealthy. People who make between $100k and $149k were 33 percent more likely to visit the site, and visitors who earned over $150k were 36 percent more likely to visit the site in July.

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Just as the offline conversation about health care reform is growing in the U.S., we are watching the online discussion grow and evolve as well. In the past month, health care reform discussions have increased by more than 1,000 percent, outpacing the online talk surrounding Swine Flu and the government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program.

President Obama is keenly aware of the important role that bloggers play in sharing information about health care reform. On July 20, the President called for bloggers to help drum up support for his health care bill, causing another jump in online conversation in the days that followed. The White House has also been using Twitter to get the message out to the public. Of the 24 tweets that have been sent out in the last two weeks, 14 have been about health care reform.

Online discussion about health care reform – like offline discussion – is highly polarized. YouTube chronicles of recent protests at various public town hall meetings (which have been at the top of the list for most-cited videos in the last week), may have created an assumption that most citizens are strongly against the reform. However, in the past week there has been a slightly larger Web presence of those in support of reform, although the split is fairly narrow and is similar to other national polls on the topic. The bottom line is that the conversation is growing on both sides of the debate, as the following chart shows.

Much of the conversation centers around sharing the latest information on the health care reform debate, with both sides adding their own spin and attempting to debunk myths and misconceptions. The discussion is also highly charged, with some bloggers engaging in one-on-one arguments that degenerate to insults and name-calling. Some of these conversations are taking a very ugly turn, as we have seen them do in person as well.

While the health care reform conversation is taking place continues to grow in online political blogs and forums, it does not represent a significant share of conversations occurring on health care sites. Although patients may have the most at stake in health care reform, the conversations about this reform tend to be more political in nature and are less prominent in health forums and communities.

As the debate rages, consumers are increasingly turning to the official White House Web site to understand the key issues. In the last month, unique visitors to the health care pages of Whitehouse.gov have increased 390 percent, from 41,000 unique visitors in June 2009 to 201,000 in July. The administration has also established a site specifically dedicated to debunking the health care reform myths, www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck.

Where do you stand?

The White House announced that the President will be drinking Bud Light at tonight’s much-publicized “Beer Summit.” Consumer and media research firm Scarborough Research shows that Bud Light is also the beer choice for politically mainstream Americans. Bud Light drinkers (ages 21+) have no distinct political profile. They are just as likely as all drinking-age Americans to consider themselves Democrat, Republican, or Independent, and are average for voting in presidential, statewide and local elections. Bud Light drinkers are also average for being registered to vote.

 * Bud Light Drinkers are adults 21+ who drank a Bud Light during the past month.

In a continued push for congressional support of health care reform President Obama held his fourth prime time press conference on Wednesday July 22, 2009. The conference was carried live from 8:00PM to approximately 9:00PM on 11 networks. The sum of average audience for those networks was 24,682,519 viewers and had a combined household rating of 16.3. The networks carrying the press conference were ABC, CBS, NBC, Univision*, Telemundo*, BBC-A, BET, CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC.

Viewing to last night’s press conference was down 14% from his April 29 press conference and down 50% from his first primetime conference on February 9.

Nielsen Buzzmetrics analysis shows that more than 16% of tweets over the past 24 hours reference Michael Jackson, and less than 2 percent of Tweets mention Farrah Fawcett and Iran.

A Topper of Charts and a Major TV Draw

That Jackson’s passing dominated the web is no surprise, as he has been a major media draw for decades. According to Billboard, over the course of his solo career, Jackson charted 47 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, 13 of which went to No. 1. As part of the Jackson 5, he earned an additional four No. 1 Hot 100 hits.In addition to his unparalleled dominance on the Billboard music charts with albums like Thriller, his past television appearances have attracted millions of curious viewers eager to see more of the reclusive, yet ubiquitous, star.

Viewership for the presser was 29% less than the President’s last press conference on March 24, which was seen on 11 networks. President Obama’s first primetime press conference was watched by 49.5 million U.S. viewers on eight networks.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S PRIMETIME PRESS CONFERENCE RATINGS

Networks airing last night’s press conference from 8pm to 9pm ET included ABC, CBS, NBC, Univision, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, CNBC, and MUN2. Telemundo aired the press conference on a tape delay at 11:35pm ET.

Download the media advisory.

President Barack Obama’s inauguration marked the beginning of a new era, which included the launch of a dramatically overhauled White House Web site. President Obama wasted no time ensuring that the official site, WhiteHouse.gov, represented a continuation of his campaign’s masterful use of the Internet and social media.

During President Obama’s first month in office, it seemed like the overhaul had paid off with unique visitors to WhiteHouse.gov reaching an all-time high. However, as the novelty of having an Internet-savvy administration seemed to wear off, so did the visitation rate, leaving one to wonder if the revamped WhiteHouse.gov will actually become the effective tool for communicating with the public that the President hopes it to be.

On its own, the decline in Web site traffic doesn’t seem to be that surprising or interesting a finding. Site launch, followed by a surge in traffic and then a steep decline in unique visitors mirrors the trajectory of visitation to brand Web sites and online discussion after a large-scale (i.e. Super Bowl-level) campaign.

Interestingly though, Web traffic alone does not tell the whole story when it comes to WhiteHouse.gov. While some might see the drop-off in visitors as evidence of a gradually disengaging public, there’s more going on with these numbers. Despite the decrease in March, those visitors that did come were actually spending more time on the Web site than in January and February. The online town hall meeting on March 26 proved to be successful in engaging visitors on the site, as individuals submitted votes and viewed the meeting online.

So what does it mean that fewer people are spending more time at WhiteHouse.gov? From the corporate world, we know that a well-run online campaign thrives on two fronts—attracting new visitors and maintaining an active and engaged user base. Because time spent on a Web site is a key indicator of engagement, it is clear that while one front of interest has dwindled (i.e. traffic), another is beginning to blossom (i.e. engagement). Having dedicated visitors who are willing to spend time and engage with the site is certainly an encouraging sign for an administration that has expressed a desire to communicate its policies directly to the people.

Of course, WhiteHouse.gov is not the only resource for those interested in learning more about the Administration, and it wouldn’t be fair to assess engagement without also considering these other destinations. The Administration provides many avenues for communication, reaching consumers where they are already congregating. The official YouTube channel has received over 21 million views, President Obama’s Twitter account boasts over 800,000 followers and his official Facebook page has attracted over 6 million supporters to date.

But despite all of the social media activity, WhiteHouse.gov is perhaps the most compelling example of President Obama’s vision because it is a site that his administration controls as opposed to a third-party site. Frequenting the official site illustrates a level of effort and commitment that is not required when following President Obama on Twitter or becoming a supporter of his Facebook page. While it is hard to say definitively at this point, engagement on WhiteHouse.gov may prove to be the Administration’s most valuable online metric in the long-run.

As we continue to follow President Obama’s online presence, it will be interesting to see just how much of an impact the retooled White House Web site is actually having and how President Obama’s strategy adapts to the ever-changing, online landscape.

The proliferation of video across the site, from the President’s weekly video address to video segments on the site’s blog, has helped spur this impressive growth. Unique viewers of video content increased 236 percent month-over-month, growing from 75,000 in February to 252,000 in March 2009, while total video streams increased 350 percent during the same time period.

Unique Video Viewers and Total Video Streams at WhiteHouse.gov 

So who is viewing video at WhiteHouse.gov? Viewers of video content at the site over-indexed among males and people between the ages of 35 and 49 and those over 65 in March. Unique viewers 35 to 49 were 78 percent more likely to view video on whitehouse.gov than the average viewer, while people 65 and older were 48 percent more likely.

Unique Viewer Composition Index by Demographic Group for WhiteHouse.gov

Average Composition Index is 100

Another new video feature on whitehouse.gov, Open for Questions, was launched this March. It is a section of the Web site in which the President addresses questions posed by citizens via online video. Open for Questions was one of the top subdomains visited within WhiteHouse.gov, receiving 618,000 unique visitors during the month.