The Great Schlep

Why it works

In 2008 some polls showed Barack Obama lagging with older Jewish voters, many of them in the swing state of Florida. Droga5's answer, for the Jewish Council for Education & Research, was a four-minute web video in which Sarah Silverman urged young Jews to go and talk their grandparents round, and to withhold visits if they refused. A website offered downloadable talking points and a Facebook app signed up 'schleppers' for the trip. Profane, affectionate and impossible to ignore, the film premiered on September 23 and had reportedly been viewed seven million times within a month. It is studied as a model of participation advertising: the video was only the recruiting poster, while the persuasion happened in family conversations that no media budget could buy. David Droga later cited 15 million views, 1.5 million talking-point downloads and 25,000 sign-ups. At Cannes in 2009 it won a Titanium Lion, in the year Obama's own campaign took the Titanium Grand Prix.