Party Leaders on YouTube from April 13 to April 20, 2007

Highlights of last week

New Liberal Advertisement Released on YouTube Gets Over 6,000 Views; Liberal / Conservative Blogger Videos Prominent This Week.

• There was a sharp increase in the number of views of YouTube videos related to Stephane Dion this week. Most of these views resulted from an official Liberal Party of Canada advertisement [1] uploaded on April 18. The ad received 6,259 views in two days; the most views of any party leader YouTube content this week (and the highest of any clip since we began our tracking). Perhaps people have been waiting to hear a response from Dion to Harper’s frequent attack ads.
• Perhaps in response to the prominent Liberal bloggers’ videos last week, many Tory bloggers’ videos were in the top clips. Splattoman [2], a conservative blogger, had his videos appear in the top five viewed videos for Harper, Dion, and May; while none of the Liberal bloggers’ videos remained in the top clips this week.
• Surprisingly, even with the launch of the Liberal’s new website on April 17th, the Bloc Quebecois are the only Federal party to date whose website allows viewers to download and save video clips, which could then be sent virally to YouTube and other social networks independently. The Liberals and Conservatives host their videos on their websites, and instead prefer to load their ads to YouTube on their own. The NDP are the only party to link directly to YouTube.. This is an interesting point given the success of such tactics in the United States, especially in Barack Obama’s fund raising campaign.
• In the past three weeks, the total views for content tagged for Stephen Harper were higher than those tagged for Stephane Dion content, which is not surprising given that there is more material mentioning Harper on YouTube (see the chart below for the trend lines).
  
• In contrast to the Conservative overall dominance, the Liberal’s new video has resonated more than the recently launched Conservative Party videos on their home sites.
• Jack Layton’s gaffe [3] continues to remain in the top videos this week (with 1120 views, compared to 304 last week). This indicates the potential for YouTube content to ensure the staying power of popular content, which can circulate for a longer time-period than has been previously the case through more traditional media.
• Obviously, this kind of resonance is not always present, since other top clips from last week have dropped in views when compared to related news cycles. For example, Chow’s video [4] only got 233 views this week in comparison to over 1,500 last week.

Party Leaders on YouTube from April 13 to April 20, 2007

Stephen Harper

Stephane Dion

Jack Layton

Gilles Ducceppe

Elizabeth May