Today I attended an interesting Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) panel on the 2008 election and the use of online advertising.  According to the IAB’s invitation to the discussion,

[t]he 2008 presidential race saw one of the strongest voter turnouts in recent history.  Alongside President Obama’s impressive victory, one of the biggest winners in this historic campaign was the online advertising industry.  Barack Obama’s campaign spent over $16 million on online advertising in 2008, with much of that spending going to local media sites. But the increasing transition to online ad spending wasn’t the only thing different about the 2008 campaign – for the first time, political online advertisers ventured into the waters of behavioral advertising to get out their message, with noted success. But with Congress and regulatory agencies cautiously eyeing-up this nascent form of advertising, political behavioral advertising might end up on the cutting room floor.

The discussion featured Kate Kaye, Senior News Editor at ClickZ News, Colin Delany, founder and editor at Epolitics.com, Jeffrey Dittus, CEO and founder of CampaignGrid, and Emily Williams, Interactive Account Executive at MSHC Partners and former online advertising manager at the Obama campaign. 

I’ve posted some photos from the event here and I’ll note some of the interesting points raised by the panelists shortly.