Jacobs Media’s Dave Beasing chimes in on GOP candidates missing a huge opportunity to campaign like it’s the 21st Century.
According to the Washington Post, the Republican version of The CNN-YouTube Debates may have to be postponed from the original September 17th date until sometime later. There are plenty of home video questions being submitted, but there may not be any candidates to answer them. Seems several – including two of the frontrunners for the nomination, Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney – still haven’t consented to appear, as of this writing.
As Fred Jacobs wrote in this space following the Democrats’ turn, using questions submitted by YouTube’s webcammers gave the forum a decidedly populist feel – even if the producers from CNN missed an even greater opportunity by allowing questions to be chosen by an online vote. Our own research and observations indicate that involvement in the process is important to Gen-Y. Indeed, although the overall ratings for the Dems’ YouTube face-off weren’t high, they were the best among 18-34 year olds in the history of cable channel debates.
What do the GOP candidates have to fear? Plenty. Questions from the public tend to be blunt and personal. Telling a journalist your abstract position on gay rights or health care or Iraq tends not to tug at the heartstrings. But try answering the same questions from friendly people with real names and faces, right there on camera – that they shouldn’t adopt children, should lose their savings to cancer, or that you’re sorry their husband didn’t come home from war.
Anyone marketing a product in 2008 must give up control, allow the public to have input, and have the courage to respond to real people with sincerity and honesty. That’s a new way of exposing yourself advocated by Punk Marketing author Richard Laermer, who will speak at Jacobs Summit 12 next month. It’s scary for everyone. But what we should fear even more is appearing irrelevant to an entire generation.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Dave, this is the same problem that appeared when Fred wrote about the process. It’s nothing more than show. While the IDEA is great, the execution is flawed. Until CNN, (hostile to any Republican), is out of the business of choosing the questions, all YouTube type debate, (or any debate for that matter), becomes nothing more than orchestrated sound bites. When you can get the candidates from any party to directly answer questions not prescreened by biased organizations,(regardless of bent), then you can have a real use of the “populace”. Just like there will be no substantial change until Radio accepts that it HAS to change. Not just put on a new coat of paint.