Is Obama Taking a Page From Perot?

Well, not exactly. Ross Perot ran the first political infomercial back in 1992, when he ran for president on his Reform Party ticket. At the time, conventional wisdom said that a half-hour presentation by a talking head would drive away viewers, leaving his message, and campaign money, wasted. Instead, his low-budget presentations, given with charts and graphs and peppered with Americana-infused humor garnered some of the highest ratings in television, even drawing more viewers than popular sitcoms.

The Obama campaign may be test marketing a similar strategy, albeit one with a less folksy approach. The 28-minute infomercial ran at 1:30 a.m. on ION Telelvision (channel 38 if you don't have cable in Chicago) early Sunday morning. “This was one more effective way for us to communicate with folks who may not normally see other communications we have with voters who are paying closer attention to the race.,” the campaign told Advertising Age. "I guess they are going after the insomniac vote," said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of TNS Media Intelligence's Campaign Media Analysis Group. He told AdAge that the unusual time slot might give the campaign a chance to try out the infomercial format and its impact on voters without spending much money. [Ed's Note: As of 9:30 a.m., the Obama video has not yet appeared on the series of tubes known as "The Internet." We're still looking, though...]