Iowa voters spoke loudly this week in the Democratic and Republican caucuses. And depending on the campaign, the roster of candidates in both parties is recalibrating itself as things roll on towards New Hampshire and beyond. Republican winner and upstart Mike Huckabee heads to the Granite State with clear momentum from his 8 point victory in Iowa, as does his Democratic counterpart, Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney are left sorting through the debris of millions in Hawkeye advertising expenditures and little real return for the investment.

What does any of this mean from an online marketing standpoint? Well, it’s a mixed bag. Candidates are surely spending loads of cash on display advertising and socking away tens of millions of monthly impressions. At the same time, they’re investing in website development that’s allowing online visitors to view candidate videos, make instant campaign donations, sign-up for local volunteer efforts and meetings, and otherwise jumpstart viral campaigns that run less on money and more on word of mouth. In a phrase, the 08 online campaign season is shaping up to be consistently unpredictable.

Overall, there are two important lessons to be learned.

Lesson One: A wave of political advertisements, paid and otherwise, are flooding the ether. Read more

We recently installed our first round of kiosks at GameStop locations across the country. For those who don’t know, GameStop is the largest video game retailer in the world, a true giant in the rapidly growing video game industry, and a valued partner in our kiosk campaign.

It’s been amazing to see this campaign move from “concept” to a real, live program. The Leadstream recently developed a first person shooter with a 2 minute countdown, based on a Quake 3 game platform. We used a cryod as the weapon, and designed the game to meet the E 10+ standard of the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s (ESRB) ratings classification system. Essentially, we removed all the blood and guts from the game, and created our non-human enemies to simply disappear after each successful engagement.

Our finished product is now the cornerstone of the kiosk campaign. You can see a sample by emailing joel.brewer@theleadstream.com. We’ve surrounded the game with a call-to-action video, different client promotional spots, and added the element of a monthly contest for the highest score earned at each GameStop location.

The end result? Customers can engage with our kiosks to compete for a retail gift card and hear directly from partner clients about various products and services.

Quite literally, we’ve gone from average spectator to a major player in kiosk marketing in just under a year’s time. Our campaign combines best-in-class kiosk design, the award-winning Quake 3 gaming platform, a compelling, interactive marketing message, and the world’s largest video game retailer – what more could a marketer ask for? We’ve essentially created a closed-loop kiosk network that allows advertisers to target the elusive 17-35 tech savvy male demo in their natural environment. If you’re tired of using the old shotgun approach – “spray and pray” – and you want to target this audience with laser-like precision, let us know.