New Site Airs Homemade Political Ads on TV

Forget the YouTube election. For the first time, Americans can now run their own political advertising campaigns on television, thanks to VoterVoter.com, a new business unit of a major advertising firm.

Starting around $1,000, the site lets people purchase broadcast time in any market across the country, target specific demographics, and choose an ad for their candidate or cause -- or even make their own. Then the company, WideOrbit, which currently manages about $10 billion in advertising across 900 television stations, places the ads and takes a standard 15 percent cut of sales. "This is the first focused political site that enables the purchase of air time," CEO Eric Mathewson told me. WideOrbit's current clients include NBC Universal, Hearst and Gannett. Operating as a nonpartisan business, it will run political ads from across the political spectrum. Mathewson says he already has early orders for "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in ads for one of the presidential candidates, and he expects a full range of buyers once the site goes live on Thursday. Current users kept their names private, for now, but FEC law requires that buyers' names are listed at the end of the ads when they air.

VoterVoter.com is launching with mock-ups of positive and negative ads for the three presidential candidates, and it plans to roll out ads for congressional, state and local races. The site also welcomes open source input from donors and activists. If a homemade ad is popular on YouTube, for example, Mathewson said VoterVoter can help buyers produce a similar message in the high resolution video required for television broadcasts.

In an era when hundreds of thousands of people donate to candidates and millions more debate politics online, VoterVoter could find a receptive market in donors and activists willing to pool their resources for a greater impact on campaign messaging. And when buying ads directly, donors are not restricted by the FEC's $4,600 limit on donations to individual presidential candidates. Political advertising often captivates activists -- netroots groups and the John Edwards Campaign have previously run contests to broadcast grassroots ads. Just this week, MoveOn.org launched an "Obama in 30 Seconds Ad" competition, promising the winner's ad would "air on national TV." If VoterVoter catches on, volunteers, bloggers and donors could skip the contest and air their ads directly.

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