In a post on Pundit League yesterday, I followed up on last week’s best political videos of 2010 with another list. You could call them the worst political videos of 2010, but that doesn’t really do justice to how bad they were. These videos missed their marks so badly that you couldn’t help but send them to friends or post them to Facebook – entries included Dale Peterson’s angry, minute-long rant about why he should be Alabama’s next Ag Commissioner, a Florida state representative’s Kenny Loggins ripoff, and (of course) Demon Sheep.
After I finished the post, I noticed a running theme in the five worst political videos of 2010 that wasn’t present in the five best: each of the “bottom five” were official campaign videos (and, significantly, only one of those candidates won). In contrast, only two of the “top five” were released by campaigns. That isn’t surprising; judgement is often clouded in the stress of an election campaign, and some candidates simply stumble. Those on the outside looking in sometimes have a clearer head and are able to drive points home more directly.
Another common thread was length. The “bottom five” averaged 2:18 each, while the top five made their points in an average of 1:03 – less than half the time. That figure is not insignificant: 40% of online viewers abandon videos within a minute.
Jim Eltringham 