In the past year, the web video industry has continued its growth spurt, and the President of the United States has embraced the new media landscape. Since his memorable appearance on Between Two Ferns, Barack Obama has used the Internet to reach his constituents in novel and exciting ways. He has met with YouTube stars, sat for interviews with the video site’s top personalities, and taken selfies in a BuzzFeed video.
Now, the man responsible for this new media push is leaving his post, and as he prepares to depart the White House, he has discussed his important work. Dan Pfeiffer, who served as the Senior Advisor to the President in charge of White House communications, sat down with Backchannel for an interview about his novel digital efforts.
A key part of the White House’s digital approach has been its plan to reach viewers who would otherwise tune out the President. “Prior to having all these different outlets, the Washington press corps could decide what the topic of the day was,” Pfeiffer explains. Now, though, the President can field those topics while also using sites like YouTube and BuzzFeed to cater to younger Americans. “It’s not a substitute for a White House press conference or an interview with a traditional mainstream journalist,” he says of Obama’s interview session with YouTube stars. “It’s just another way of trying to engage.”
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While the efforts to reach younger constituents have succeeded at conveying the President’s message, they have also drawn criticism from traditional media (i.e. Fox News). This, Pfeiffer claims, is unavoidable. “You have this big battle when you think about how you’re going to communicate in the digital space, because authenticity is the coin of the realm in the digital space,” he explains. “But in politics, discipline is the coin of the realm. Sometimes there can be tension there.”
Because of this tension, many of the President’s online video appearances involve a significant amount of risk. No appearance was riskier than Obama’s swaggering appearance on Between Two Ferns, where he used a jocular attitude to match Zach Galifianakis’ quips. As Pfeiffer puts it, this appearance was a “Hail Mary” used to combat the negative press drawn by healthcare.gov’s messy rollout.
But it worked. Funny or Die became a top referrer to the government’s healthcare website, and the comedy website has served as an occasional partner for the White House since then. “We tried a spaghetti strategy—throw a lot of things against the wall and see what sticks, and to be very willing to take on risk that under traditional political rules you wouldn’t,” notes Pfeiffer.
That “spaghetti strategy” is reminiscent of BuzzFeed’s content strategy, which often involves a lot of trial-and-error in order to find the topics that drive the most activity among consumers. With that in mind, it’s not at all a surprise that the White House and BuzzFeed ended up collaborating on a comedy video. “We knew that the BuzzFeed video would do very well with the BuzzFeed audience and with social media, but it would cause a lot of criticism from some pundits and media critics,” admits Pfeiffer. At that point, all the communications guru can do is trust his President. “He has very good comic timing,” says Pfeiffer of Obama.
Pfeiffer believes future Presidents will have to continue to experiment with online video. In particular, he sees content produced by the White House are a particularly important growth area (right now, the White House YouTube channel has 550,000 subscribers and 213 million views.) This, Pfeiffer claims, will raise cries of “propoganda,” but as with the President’s online video appearances, he believes it is a worthwhile risk. “There is an insatiable appetite for content out there,” he says. “Your traditional news outlets don’t have the resources to produce the amount of content that the Internet requires on a 24/7 basis.
As for Pfeiffer himself? He doesn’t happen any immediate plans to bring his communications skills to any other employers. “My first task,” he says, “is to go on a long vacation.”
You can read Pfeiffer’s entire interview with Backchannel here.
