Electioneering has already spread to YouTube

Candidate answers voters' questions with video clips

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By Tanja Aitamurto
     
      "Salvation", is Jaro Koikkalainen's crisp response to the question of what the popular video-sharing web portal YouTube means for his parliamentary election campaign.
      Koikkalainen is seeking to win a seat in Parliament for the Centre Party from the South Savo constituency. He answers questions from prospective voters in short video-clips that are accessible to anyone who goes to the YouTube site. Jaro plans to bring out a new video each week up to the elections in March.
     
The video spots are a kind of life-saver for Koikkalainen's campaign because the YouTube site, which is particularly popular with young people, provides him with free advertising space. The history teacher's campaign budget is otherwise very modest, just EUR 2,000.
      "For that sort of money you do not get yourself very much visibility in the regional newspaper. The Internet puts the candidates on more of an equal footing, when you can get attention for free on the Net and not only by paying for the privilege", says the 35-year-old candidate.
      So far Koikkalainen has had 1,900 unique hits on his personal website, though he acknowledges that a fair number of them may be his own pupils from school in Savonlinna.
      "My campaign manager got the idea for the videos from America. In the States, the Ask a Ninja videos are hugely popular", says Koikkalainen.
      In these comedy clips a black-clad figure dressed up as a Ninja warrior, with only the eyes visible, answers viewers' questions on all manner of issues.
     
Koikkalainen, too, answers questions uploaded via the Net on such questions as the make-up of the post-election government coalition, the cuts in cultural funding in the South Savo region, and how many kilos he can bench-press in the gym.
      He says he has received so many questions he can no longer get around to answering them all.
      The videos are made in a small studio at the home of his campaign manager, who has a ranch just outside Savonlinna.
      The candidate and his manager usually see to the filming themselves. Shooting one clip takes around half an hour. The campaign manager then edits the raw material, adds a new background to it each week, and posts it on the Net.
      As a bonus for regular viewers, the director's cut also includes at the end a few failed out-takes and moments where the candidate flubs his responses.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.1.2007
     
Jaro vastaa ("Ask Jaro") videos can be found on YouTube and also at the link below.

More on this subject:
 COMMENT: Candidate PCs running hot

Links:
  Jaro Koikkalainen´s election website videos (in Finnish)

TANJA AITAMURTO / Helsingin Sanomat