A little side-note gleaned in my reporting on Scott Murphy's New York Congressional campaign employing the rarely-used "Google Surge" or "Network Blast" tactic:
Eric Frenchman -- the man behind the McCain camp's now award-winning online advertising strategy - says he came up with the term "Google Surge," after employing the carpet-bombing style display ad tactic for Bobby Jindal's congressional campaign in 2007, and for McCain's camp when targeting Ohio and Florida voters. The tactic may now gather steam after its use by the California Proposition 8 campaigns like Murphy's have employed it. The tactic, described in my story about the Murphy camp, essentially involves bombarding users in a defined geographic area (like NY's 20th congressional district) in a brief period of time with ads from one advertiser.
Google doesn't seem to like the "surge" term, so they call it "The Network Blast." I suppose "surge" has too much of a military connotation, particularly in relation to the troop surge in Iraq. But I'm not to sure the "blast" term is appropriate either, considering how it's often associated with e-mail campaigns.
Look for a story Monday on another innovative use of the Google surge in conjunction with another award-winning campaign from the '08 election.
Read "It's the End of SEO as We Know It" in the new digital edition of SES magazine.
Kate Kaye is a Senior Editor at ClickZ News. As a daily reporter and editor for the original news source, she covers beats including digital political campaigns and government regulation of the online ad industry. Kate is the author of Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media, the only book focused on the paid digital media efforts of the 2008 presidential campaigns. Kate created ClickZ's Politics & Advocacy section, and is the primary contributor to the one-of-a-kind section. She began reporting on the interactive ad industry in 1999 and has spoken at several events and in interviews for television, radio, print, and digital media outlets. You can follow Kate on Twitter at @LowbrowKate.

February 15, 2012
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February 22, 2012
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