RESTON, Va., Sept 04, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study of the online performance of the campaigns for Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain in their quests for the U.S. presidency. The study, which evaluated site visitation, video viewing behavior, searches on the candidates' names, and display advertising efforts across the Web, showed that Barack Obama's campaign ran a more advanced online operation during the first six months of 2008. Obama leads McCain in site visitors, candidate searches, and display ads, while the McCain campaign leads only in video views.

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Obama Campaign Turns Up Online Advertising Efforts

During the first half of 2008, the Obama campaign consistently displayed more online ads than the McCain campaign, averaging nearly 92 million exposures per month compared to approximately 7 million per month for McCain. In recent months, Obama's online efforts have ramped up considerably with 150 million exposures in May and 244 million in June.

    Trend in Online Display Ad Views for Barack Obama and John McCain
    January 2008 - June 2008
    Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
    Source: comScore Ad Metrix

                                      Display Ad Views (000)
                     Jan-     Feb-    Mar-    Apr-     May-     Jun-   6-Month
                     2008     2008    2008    2008     2008     2008   Average
    Barack Obama    58,013   36,386  18,147  43,662  149,956  244,276  91,740
    John McCain      4,463   12,010   7,237   9,466    8,192    3,241   7,435

"Not only have the two campaigns placed a different level of emphasis on the importance of using online advertising as part of the media mix, but their execution also shows stark differences," said Andrew Lipsman, senior analyst at comScore. "While Obama's ads tend to be 'brand-building' ads encouraging people to join the movement, McCain's ads are often issue-oriented. Additionally, while Obama ads have an almost universally positive message, McCain ads feature a mix of positive and negative messages."

McCain Web Site Draws More Video Views than Obama Site

Although BarackObama.com has attracted nearly four times the average number of monthly visitors (2.2 million) as JohnMcCain.com (583,000), the McCain site has generated more than three times as many video views (2.1 million vs. 612,000).

    Online Comparison for Barack Obama and John McCain
    January 2008 - June 2008
    Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
    Sources: comScore Media Metrix, comScore Video Metrix

                                        Monthly Average (Jan 2008 - Jun 2008)
    Candidate Site                      Unique Visitors (000)     Videos (000)
    BarackObama.com                          2,178                    612
    JohnMcCain.com                             583                  2,101

"By featuring video content prominently on the front page of JohnMcCain.com, the campaign has been able to effectively leverage the Web to reach a larger audience with its video campaign messages," added Mr. Lipsman.

Meanwhile, the number of searches including the term "Obama" was approximately four times that of "McCain" (5.4 million vs. 1.3 million). This disparity likely reflects both the public's interest in Barack Obama's historic candidacy as the first African-American presidential nominee from a major political party and the desire to find out more about the background and positions of this relative newcomer on the national political stage.

    Number of Searches* for "Obama" and "McCain"
    January 2008 - June 2008
    Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
    Source: comScore Marketer
                                        Average Monthly
    Search Term                         Searches (000)
    "Obama"                                 5,362
    "McCain"                                1,345

    * Based on broad matches of the terms "Obama" and "McCain" on the 5 major
      U.S. search engines

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/boilerplate.

SOURCE comScore, Inc.

http://www.comscore.com

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