Tories hijack ‘YouTube vote’ on election day

The Conservative party has circumvented the ban on party broadcast advertising during election day, booking the main ad unit on YouTube’s home page from midnight to 10 pm tonight, when polls close.

The party aims to harness the emotive power of broadcast media to influence UK YouTube viewers, estimated by ComScore (Feb 2010) to be streaming 88 million videos a day, though how many access the site via the home page remains unknown.

The move is also calculated to block any of the other parties from similarly hijacking the ‘YouTube vote’.

“Our YouTube homepage ad on polling day lets us take our message of change to millions of people – ensuring we’ll be the only party reaching a mass audience online,” a spokesperson for the Conservatives said.