I believe, that one of the funniest things that occurred this week was Sarah Palin’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. I have been following the American election closely and the thought of Sarah Palin in the White House terrifies me to no end however, I have been very amused by Tina Fey’s portrayal of Palin and will be sad to see it end after November 4th. The article from Advertising Age titled Sarah Palin 'SNL' Online Clips Soon to Eclipse TV recently caught my interest. Sarah Palin is the first candidate to actually appear this election on the sketch comedy show even after Obama and Clinton have both had rumors about their appearances that have never happened for one reason or another. The article talks about how her appearance had garnered huge ratings for the show but those ratings are meager to the number of people who have viewed the Palin skits online. NBC.com alone has had 6.1 million views at press time. In four days, all viewing that have been registered have totaled 8.85 million and there are many sites that have the cold open and “Weekend Update” that do not count views so the number is obviously even bigger.
What does this mean for advertising? Quiet simply, viewers. Having someone as controversial and who is such a big draw in the media on a program that you brought allows your ad the chance to be seen be many more people. Further, advertising on sites that are bring in millions of new people because they want to see either the skit for the first time or over and over again allows your reach to be expanded even more. The reality of people changing channels during commercials, muting both the television and their computer while watching but the fact remains that the more people who watch the content the higher your chance that people will see your ad, retain it and be influenced by it. Advertisers need to not only know what consumer’s media habits are but keep on top news and pop culture, good planners and buyers knew the election was coming up and knew that SNL has very good ratings during times of high political interest and yes they may have gotten lucky with the exact date of Palin’s visit but the ratings will continue to be high and have been high since the election really kicked into high gear. To get the most for your client it is important to not only take the statistics and runs into accounts but the world around you too.

ETA: I wanted to post the actual Cold Open from SNL the night Sarah Palin was on however, because we are in Canada this is much more difficult to do so here is a link I found that we can watch up here in the north. Enjoy!