Online Political Ads Aren't all that Annoying

With the election less than a month away, I thought this article was incredibly relevant for this blog post: Guess What? Online Political Ads Don't Turn Voters Off. They Work

While Online advertising has greatly increased for this year's campaign--and I imagine that it will continue to for upcoming campaigns--a recent study by Toluna found that while the majority of people find the political advertising to be more of a "bad thing" than "good thing" online advertising is more enjoyable (on par with Radio and Newspaper advertising).  Of course, dead last are those automated phone calls--aren't those illegal by now?

Reach for the political online advertising has been high 55% of respondents in Toluna's study said that they had seen online political advertising and this is second only to TV (88%).

Not only has online advertising been less annoying to potential Voters, but it has actually elicited a call to action from more than half of those who saw it in the Toluna survey.  Those calls to action include donating to a campaign, going to a campaign website, seeking more information about a campaign, paying more attention to a candidate's campaign, and voting. 

The article also explores how people felt about the targeting in political advertising, which people were more responsive to and accepting of than, say a grocery store selling their information to marketers.

Personally, I think there is a lot of desire to stay tuned into the current election.  Perhaps if these voters feel behind, they see this advertising as a reminder of what they want to or feel they should be doing, and thus find it more helpful than annoying.