Raldon Lumpkins, 20, hits the streets of San Francisco today. His mission is to produce articles, blogs and videos of concern to young voters interested in the upcoming presidential election. The work is for the nonprofit Rock the Vote, which uses music, pop culture and new technologies to engage young people in the political process. And the tool he'll wield to produce it is an AT&T Samsung BlackJack II personal digital assistant, equipped with, among other things, a 2-megapixel camera, GPS, 3-D graphics and, of course, text messaging.

"It's one-stop shopping when it comes to phones," says Lumpkins of the BlackJack II. "And if I like using it, I'll tell my friends this is cool and you should get one."

That's exactly what AT&T was betting on when it hooked up with RTV for its "Rock the trail" campaign, which will put five young reporters out on the street with the phones, as well as offer the company numerous branding opportunities.

"We knew going in that the election would be the biggest story of the year and that everyone would be focused on it," says AT&T representative Susan Bean. "And we had a strong sense that text messaging to this election cycle would be what the Internet was with Howard Dean in 2004. [The partnership] is a way to showcase our technology."

AT&T is not alone in marketing directly to young voters. Nokia, Adobe Systems and even the National Beer Wholesalers Association are among those aiming to reach politically engaged 18- to 30-year-olds (millennials of voting age), a group whose growing numbers has become one of the primary season's most interesting twists. More than 6.5 million voters under 30 showed up to vote in caucuses and primaries this season -- a 109 percent increase from the last presidential primaries, according to RTV statistics. Youth voter turnout for the November election is expected to at least match the 49 percent of young people who voted for president in 2004.

It makes sense, then, that marketers, already keenly aware of the power of word-of-mouth communication, would want their products and services to be used and seen by this highly involved and passionate demographic.

George Mason University associate professor Michael McDonald, an expert on voter participation, notes that marketers who tap into the networks created by political organizations can become an organic part of young people's lives whether they're campaigning door-to-door or creating content for Web sites. It "ties [a company's] product to the election," he says.



The halo effect

AT&T's RTV partnership is part of a branding initiative to move the company from the "old AT&T, a century-old, iconic brand largely thought of as the telephone company, to the new AT&T, an innovation-driven, youth-oriented company with mobile at its core," says Bean. "Rock the Vote with its halo effect of youth and rock 'n' roll is a perfect fit."

Although the communications company may be literally putting its product in the hands of only five reporters, the content it helps create will appear on the Web sites of BET, online magazine Wiretap, Washingtonpost.com and rockthevote.com, which the youth registration group expects will garner 50 million viewers this election cycle.

The AT&T logo will also appear on rockthevote.com and alongside the RTV logo on marketing materials including in-store displays and at a number of upcoming summer music festivals that RTV sponsors.

AT&T, which announced the partnership during the Iowa caucuses in January, also participated in an RTV text-message initiative to turn out young voters during the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. The effort generated 21 print and 55 broadcast stories, including coverage on MSNBC, The Montel Williams Show and in The Washington Post, according to Bean.

Rock the Vote and AT&T will also launch a text-messaging effort for the general election.

Forrester marketing analyst Josh Bernoff, co-author of the book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, says the partnership with RTV is smart business. "Reaching young people is really difficult with traditional advertising because they're spending so much time online," he says. "This is a smart way to cut through the clutter."

It's also a plus for RTV, says Heather Smith, the organization's executive director. "Young people are using their mobile phones to talk to their friends, and for us to have a partner like AT&T provides us with new technologies to encourage peer-to-peer conversations about voter engagement," she says.

They don't seem to need much prodding. PR firm Waggener Edstrom recently surveyed 800 young people 18-35 about how they use new media in this election cycle. The survey found that 79 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds had watched a campaign video online, 63 percent had used a social networking site for political purposes like registering to vote or sharing information about a candidate, and one-quarter had sent or received a text message that contained content about a candidate or campaign.



RTV's own data shows that 85 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds own a cell phone, compared to 75 percent who have a landline phone. The group also found a 4 percent increase in the number of their members who register to vote when they receive a text message reminding them to do so.

Texting is catching on fast; on Super Tuesday, for instance, Barack Obama's campaign invited young voters in a series of radio ads to contact the campaign via text message.

Taking it to the street

Although RTV's youth reporting effort is just beginning, MTV -- [ with the help of a $700,000 grant from the Knight Foundation -- has had its "Street Team," a group of 51 young reporters covering election-related topics of interest to young voters, out and about since January. Its partners include Adobe Systems; Nokia; Flixwagon, an Israeli company that provides mobile broadcasting technology; and PNY Technologies, which produces security cards and flash drives. All of the partners receive branding opportunities by having their logos displayed next to the content as it appears on MTV's various sites. Viewers can also click on a "learn more" button about the companies.

Nokia's participation was short term. On Super Tuesday it provided N95 mobile phones to 23 Street Team reporters, one for each state with a primary. The phone includes a camera, a portable media player and text-messaging capabilities. The reporters created live phone-to-Web broadcasts that aired on MTV's news and Choose or Lose sites.

MTV placed Nokia's logo and the message "shot on the Nokia N95" next to the online videos. The same logo and messaging appeared on each Street Team member's blog page, which also featured Nokia's live mobile broadcasting video player. In addition, the N95 phone received product placement when it appeared during live broadcasts.

According to a Nokia report on Super Tuesday, the Street Team created 443 online video clips totaling more than 10 hours of mobile-video content. The live mobile-video streams received more than 100,000 page views, with the archived clips garnering more than 200,000 page views.

Flixwagon provided an application installed on the N95 phones as well as on the other cell phones MTV currently supplies to the team; it allows for high-quality, live streaming video directly to the Web. PNY gave the reporters secure digital memory cards and USB flash drives.

Adobe provided each Street Team member with a copy of the Adobe Suite 3 Production Premium Package, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator and Soundbooth. The package allows users to do post-production work for film, broadcast, the Web and mobile phones.



All stories, videos and blogs have been appearing on mtv.com, chooseorlose.com and think.mtv.com since January. The content also appears on more than 1,800 Web sites included in the Associated Press Online Video Network.

"MTV wants to bring to the forefront the voices of young people, and Adobe's goal is to inspire civic engagement through media," says Miguel Salinas, Adobe's senior program manager for its philanthropic initiative called "Adobe Youth Voices."

The MTV effort also helps the company engage with consumers more effectively. "Customers expect businesses to connect with them on many levels and at different times with a variety of media," says Doug Mack, Adobe's vp of consumer solutions. "Each person is looking for more stimulation, more relevance, more attention, more connections to a community, such as social networking. Technology plays a vital role in shaping this customer expectation and responding to it."

Even beer marketers see the election as an opportunity -- albeit a lighthearted one. When the National Beer Wholesalers Association wanted to "get the word 'beer' into the election lexicon," according to Rebecca Spicer, representative for the beer wholesalers lobby, it launched a campaign asking voters of drinking age to answer the question, "Which of the presidential candidates would you like to have a beer with in 2008?"

The query is posted online and a non-scientific poll has also been conducted at events during the Iowa caucuses and the primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The Web site features video clips of people, including political pundits Mary Matalin and James Carville, answering the question.

The beer wholesalers lobby is pleased with the results so far. Nearly 20,000 people have "voted" in the poll, which has appeared in 425 blogs providing links to the site. The poll has also appeared in 37 print and broadcast media outlets, according to the association.

Whether the word "beer" has entered the election lexicon is a matter of debate. What isn't is who's ahead: As of press time, Obama was the winning choice.

Wendy Melillo is an Adweek contributing writer and assistant professor in the School of Communication at American University.