President Barack Obama not only impressed comedy fans during his appearance opposite Zach Galifianakis on “Between Two Ferns” this week, he successfully lured them to HealthCare.gov.
White House Senior Communications Advisor Tara McGuinness tweeted on Wednesday that the healthcare enrollment website’s traffic was up 40 percent on Tuesday, compared to Monday, which she contributed to the Funny or Die video’s 11 million views.
Also read: Read Obama and Zach Galifianakis’ Full Transcript of ‘Between Two Ferns’ Interview
http://t.co/FrO24hdvcA is the #1 source of referrals to http://t.co/0r93BavlrV right now.
– Tara McGuinness (@HealthCareTara) March 11, 2014
Funnyordie video has 11 million views. http://t.co/a7HUExG0vg traffic for yesterday was up almost 40% from Monday.
– Tara McGuinness (@HealthCareTara) March 12, 2014
See video: Apple Geniuses Help Barack Obama Fix the Government Shutdown
Hourly traffic up from yesterday. @funnyordie video referrals at 32k and 575k site visits as of 6pm. #GetCoveredNow
– HealthCare.gov (@HealthCareGov) March 11, 2014
890k+ visits to http://t.co/zGLCNOxaSv on Tues, up 40% from Mon. Lots of consumers shopping to get covered before 3/31. #GetCoveredNow
– HealthCare.gov (@HealthCareGov) March 12, 2014
Predictably, the President was immediately scrutinized by critics after the interview — filmed two weeks ago — went live this week, and White House press secretary Jay Carney defended Obama’s participation.
“The video itself was causing the action that we’d hoped it would cause, which is getting folks to go to HealthCare.gov and look at the options available to them and hopefully enroll,” Carney said. “We obviously assess opportunities that we have and, you know, look at whether or not they’re going to be successful and wise and I think we made the right call here.”
Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly, predictably, called the PR tactic “a little bit desperate,” and concluded “Abe Lincoln would not have done it.”
Lincoln also died in 1865. O’Reilly did not elaborate as to whether or not that would factor into the 16th President of the United State’s decision to participate in an internet talk show.