The Politico has a piece on the Hillary/1984 ad that caused a bit of a stir last week, and it concludes with this formula for successful viral political ads:

Videos should be somewhat sophisticated, less than two minutes long, play on pre-existing stereotypes and have an initial core audience. “Vote Different,” which runs about a minute, is a professional mash-up of a popular 1980s Apple computer commercial that casts Clinton as the familiar Machiavellian puppet master. “That’s how it goes viral,” said Carol Darr, who runs the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University. “Just stuff that appeals to the 13-year-old boy in all of us.”

Coming soon: internet political ads starring the Ninja Turtles.

I’m really quite fascinated by the advent of fan-made commercials. The most notable example so far has been the fan-made Doritos commercial that aired during the Superbowl this year. Now admittedly, that wasn’t quite generated entirely out of fan-love for Doritos; the company set up a contest and picked the winner from a bunch of entries. But the prospect that popular political ad campaigns might no longer be officially approved leads to all sorts of interesting possibilities. How does a campaign control its message when independent parties are out there working without oversight? What happens when an election is won even partly on the basis of an ad that a candidate didn’t create or approve? My inner 13 year old boy is extremely curious.