Late-Night Informercial for Obama

First Barack Obama's campaign made political and broadcast history by buying $5 million of advertising in NBC Universal's Olympics programming. Now it's marking another political first, running the first infomercial of the 2008 presidential campaign. If you hadn't noticed, that may be because the nearly 30-minute program aired at 1:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 10, on Ion Television. The Obama campaign confirmed the airing of what it called a "long-form commercial," but provided no details and also declined to answer questions on why it ran the ad. The mostly biographical, 28-minute, 30-second program included scenes of the Illinois senator's keynote speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, as well as scenes from other campaign appearances, background about Sen. Obama and frequent call-in numbers. "It is a first. I guess they are going after the insomniac vote," said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of TNS Media Intelligence's Campaign Media Analysis Group. He said the unusual time slot for the spot appears to allow the campaign to test the effectiveness of the infomercial format without spending much.