It was inevitable. In the Internet age, interest groups seeking influence in Washington are joining presidential candidates in discovering a new electronic tool to press their agenda: YouTube.``Send your Underwear to the Undersecretary,'' urges the actress in the Competitive Enterprise Institute's stinging 66- second anti-regulatory video posted on YouTube Inc., the free online site that is a subsidiary of Google Inc. The video blames a 2001 Energy Department rule for an energy-efficiency standard that it says has made some newer-model washing machines more expensive, while getting laundry less clean.
The underwear spot illustrates what other advocacy groups are finding out, that YouTube is a cheap, creative way to get a message to a potentially vast audience. This slow migration is in addition to more traditional lobbying approaches, such as direct mail, Web sites and scripted phone calls to federal officials...
The YouTube audience hardly seems like the demographic that would be interested in washing machine efficiency. Still, the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, which opposes energy-saving fluorescent bulbs and increasing the gas mileage of cars and trucks, has 43 videos up on the site. Many of them are snippets of speeches and testimony with few ``hits.''
And then there's the underwear spot.
``We figured we would try a very fast, inexpensive campaign that would go viral,'' said Sam Kazman, general counsel at CEI and head of its Death by Regulation project. The video went up May 16 and had 1,306 hits in the first week, a respectable showing, especially considering the subject matter.
Kazman said the campaign cost virtually nothing. He wrote the script, one employee did the acting, and another did the filming...
The CEI Web site links to the video and to a June Consumer Reports' magazine article that rated top- and front-loading washing machines for energy efficiency and performance. The rule required washing machines manufactured after the beginning of this year to be 35 percent more efficient. The magazine found the performance of the new machines varies widely.
``Not so long ago you could count on most washers to get your clothes very clean,'' said the article. ``Not anymore. Our latest tests found huge performance differences among machines. Some left our stain-soaked swatches nearly as dirty as they were before washing. For best results, you'll have to spend $900 or more...'
The manufacturers of home appliances, energy-efficiency groups and regulators who are being mocked in the video disagree.
Celia Kuperszmid Lehrman, deputy home editor at Consumer Reports, said the underwear campaign takes the ratings out of context. ``We support energy standards for washing machines,'' she said. ``There are alternatives that will wash as well as older machines. They cost more to buy, but not to operate.''
``I think it's obnoxious; I don't think this dog barks,'' said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project in Boston, a coalition of industry, consumer, environmental and state interests.
Of course, here is the video clip:
