Creative Spotlight: The Internet Still Loves Ron Paul

August 26, 2011 • 1 min read • By Kamau High

Ron Paul is a hero on the Internet. In the mainstream media, not so much.

The Texas congressman’s quest for the Republican nomination continues to gather clicks with his latest ad “The one who can beat Obama.” It’s the only political ad currently in Unruly Media’s Global Ad Chart of top 20 shared videos.It’s gotten nearly 12,000 shares in the past week and 58,000 since the video was released by the campaign on Aug. 15. Interestingly, Unruly has the vast majority of the shares — 98 percent — coming from Facebook versus a tiny amount via Twitter (under 2 percent). The video has been viewed over 230,000 times.

Paul has rabidly vocal supporters. The video has drawn over 4,500 comments on YouTube. Like most politicians, Paul’s campaign uses social media for outreach. He has 450,000 likes on Facebook, far more than his more scrutinized competitors like Michelle Bachman (15,000) and Jon Huntsman (13,000). (GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney trounces the field, boasting over 1 million likes.)

Paul’s ad mimics a movie trailer with everything from a green screen with the words: “The following preview has been approved for all audiences” to an overly serious narrator. The titles look like they can be in “Battlestar Galactica.”

The ad recalls Tim Pawlenty’s ad from earlier this year, which also used a fake movie-trailer theme. Pawlenty, of course, dropped out the race after coming in third, behind Ron Paul, in the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa earlier this month.

Ron Paul’s treatment by the media is close to meme status at this point. The campaign even plays it up on his website. Parlaying that into winning the nomination remains a long shot.

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