The media world loves to get revved up about elections and this year the issue is voter registration. Norman Lear is spearheading a campaign called "Declare Yourself." And no surprise, Lear, perhaps one of the most successful television writer/producer in TV history, is using his contacts and his expertise, turning TV humor into a tool. He's gotten two of the stars of "Reno 911" to create four videos to get what they're calling "the target demographic" to vote.
It's pretty funny--they tell 18-35 year olds that they're the target demo for advertisers and also for registering to vote. 18 year-olds to vote. And the campaign is getting all sorts of young celebs--many TV stars (surprise surprise, this is Lear's program) to be spokespeople.
Lear's reaching out to that "target demo" on their own turf, and he's got a media industry's who's who list of partners, including Yahoo! , MySpace, Google and YouTube, Friendster, Evite , Comedy Central , ClearChannel --plus a retail partner, American Eagle Outfitters. They weren't kidding about target demo. Clearly, all these partners are dying to reach them too, and to do so are helping underwrite this campaign. (Update: Motorola was previously listed in this post as a sponsor--it is not yet an official sponsor.)
Lear started this campaign thing in 2001 when he sent the original copy of the Declaration of Independence he'd bought on a road trip, sending it to 51 cities and 115,000 students saw the exhibit. Back then he teamed up with a lot of the same retail partners and hosted a "Young Hollywood Celebrates Democracy" event. I'm sure he'll hold something similar this time around. And keep in mind they're celebrating Democracy, not the Democrat Party's candidates--as this is a non-partisan organization.
The celeb videos are pretty funny--check it out.
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