Yes It Can: The Mash-Up Viral Video Takes Off

The “Yes We Can” viral videos pinging around the internet in the last couple weeks have taken “mash-ups” to a whole new level in politics.

Video mash-ups are when you take video produced for one purpose and repurpose it in another context to make a different point. The first big example of this in politics came a year ago with the repurposing of Apple’s classic 1984 Super Bowl ad into a political statement about Hillary Clinton’s national conversation, and a warning about the rise of Obama. We’ve been talking a lot about mash-ups and viral video at the New Politics Institute in the last year, including an event with the creator of that “Vote Different” video.

But the “Yes We Can” by will.i.am and other stars raised the bar dramatically. This took a lot of creative work to blend a new song around the words of Obama from a primary speech. Their efforts have been rewarded with more than 4 million hits on YouTube and countless references on mainstream TV.

Now come the knock-offs and some of them are terrific. If you have not seen them, check out the john.he.is video that takes key passages from McCain’s speeches and has what looks like characters similar to the “Yes We Can” video trying to reinforce his words, but coming out puzzled and angry about McCain’s lines like “bomb, bomb Iran.”

Then there’s the “No You Can’t” video that has rich Americans singing off the Obama speech about how you can’t disrupt their status quo. It ends with the word “Vote” morphing into “GOP.” Very funny.

It’s true that these viral videos may only hit numbers in the 1 to 4 million range rather than the 10s of millions who might see traditional 30-second television ads. But many of these people viewing the viral videos are the activists and opinion leaders and journalists who can leverage it far beyond the numbers. They then send them out to their influential circles of friends and families too.

There are other factors that make these videos more powerful than they may appear on the surface. They can blast far beyond the boundaries of 30 seconds - for example, the “Yes We Can” video is a full four minutes. And it bears reminding, that the cost for distribution is zero. Nothing, compared to millions of dollars to try and force a quick message at TV couch potatoes who don’t’ want to see it, and increasingly, can zip past the ads with their digital video recorders.

And then there is the coolness factor. This is the indefinable quality that, as they say, is priceless. To have a guy from the Black Eyed Peas and his Hollywood friends volunteer to create a video for Obama is cool. To have creative young people all over the internet follow up with their versions is even cooler. Remember, this is America. To be cool is valuable. That translates into politics.

Then again, not all web videos are created equal. Some can really backfire on a candidate too, even if they are devised to help. Witness the “Hillary for You and Me” video which seems like it was created in the 1970s. But then, the 1970s are now hot. Or was that last year?

Peter Leyden
Director of the New Politics Institute.