The second Lisbon referendum draws near in Ireland and one of the interesting aspects is to see how the campaign is playing out on the web. In recent years, Ireland has been famously hi-tech (or at least has had a booming hi-tech sector), so this, along with the country’s well-known transatlantic affinities and youthful population, might induce the expectation of a lively online campaign, with opposing sides slugging it out on YouTube.

WeBelong batting for Lisbon and Ireland

Plenty of No videos seem to be doing the rounds, spreading the message of the Lisbon Treaty ushering in an improbable world of abortion clinics on every corner, Irish soldiers dying in faraway foreign fields under EU orders, the entire fishing fleet scuppered somewhere off he Galician coast and famers cast into destitution by an EU commissioner wearing a monocle and black leather gloves and known to his friends as Dr Death. The End-Of-Ireland-As-We-Know-It generally, in other words.

My quest: find those shy retiring Yes-videos and see what they were doing to counter the, erm, somewhat tendentious, if not occasionally bizarre, claims of the No camp.

But where are the Yes-videos? Google searches turned up plenty of the above, but the Love Lisbon genre seemed a rather rarer beast. Hence my quest: find those shy retiring Yes-videos and see what they were doing to counter the, erm, somewhat tendentious, if not occasionally bizarre, claims of the No camp. I concentrated on independent sources, not political parties.

Did I strike gold? Well, it’s a mixed bag.  I had high hopes at one point of a guy in giant green spectacles, but for all his undoubted commitment and sincerity, I don’t think he’s going to swing it single-handed.

If your idea of a good campaigning online video is something short, graphically neat, with a simple message and a decent tune, I think so far an offering from WeBelong currently has it for me. (They need to make it easier to share though.)

Not bad stuff from an outfit called Generation Yes, either. My favourite from them goes in for a bit of negative campaigning (not unreasonably, given the large quantities of mud being flung by the other side), while another, rather earnest one, focuses on human rights.

The biggest formal non-party organisation campaigning for a Yes, IrelandforEurope, has definitely got the message that it needs to make online videos, and offers over 40 on its website. Most of these though are talking heads videos – many celebrity endorsements, which is great – but I was really looking for something with viral potential. For me, the pick of the bunch was one which attacked the other side AND made a positive case for the treaty.  Mentions too for themed videos on climate change (nice tune) and humanitarian aid.

Characterisations of the politicians on the two sides of the argument – the Yes side being “incompetent, inept and corrupt” and the No side being “unemployable feckin’ headbangers” – give this over-long video some viral potential

As celebrity endorsements go, my own attention was detained for longest by a video which is anything but slick and graphical: the launch of Ryanair’s pro-Yes campaign, featuring Michael O’Leary in typically trenchant form. His characterisations of the politicians on the two sides of the argument – the Yes side being “incompetent, inept and corrupt” and the No side being “unemployable feckin’ headbangers” – give this over-long video some viral potential, but less so than if O’Leary wasn’t already famous, and loved and loathed, for expressing these sentiments frequently in public. His parade of Ryanair girls in the video give it a slightly anachronistic corniness, but will irk as many as it diverts.

And that’s about it (so far). Not an awful lot, it has to be said. It causes me to reflect on how much harder it is to promote something wordy, technical, legal and complicated (however positive and necessary), as opposed to slagging it off any old how, without having to worry too much about detail and accuracy. Inevitably, going for the people on the other side is easier, something which comes out in the videos above.

Maybe, as in rock’n'roll, the devil has the best tunes

So, what do we conclude? Maybe, as in rock’n'roll, that the devil has the best tunes. Maybe too that the Yes camp needs to get its creative juices flowing before 2 October.

Know any good Yes videos, the one that cracks it? Let us know. The angels can sing too maybe.

Meanwhile, from Generation Yes: