Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/05/politics/voters-microtargeting/
The election is now old news, but this article offers a good indication of what we can expect to see in future political marketing. Political campaigns have been significantly increasing their focus on digital marketing, and in particular see a huge opportunity with microtargeting. Since all voter registration rolls are now publicly available online, campaigns can cookie users and then cross reference the data they get from the cookie with the voter registration rolls. This will allow campaigns to see who is and is not likely to vote, and what their interests are. Campaigns can then send targeted marketing to individuals to appeal to their passions. So instead of showing everyone in Ohio the same television ad, they can individually go after the Ohio voters that are actually likely to vote and send them a tailored digital ad they think will resonate with a person on an individual level.
A company called DSPolitical already has 600 million cookies and has matched them to the 250 million registered voters. However, unsurprisingly, 86% of Americans have said they do not want political ads tailored to their interests and 64% said their support for a candidate would decrease if they found out they were being microtargeted.
It will be very interesting to see how microtargeting is used in future election cycles. While the thought of being inundated with political messages online that directly reference my political beliefs is quite creepy, it could be a powerful way to get more of the population to vote. If a campaign knows you only vote once in a blue moon, they may spend more resources trying to convince you to vote and less resources on someone who always votes. They may also try and target regular voters and get them to help spread the word. This could be really beneficial in small local elections when most people don't even realize there is an election going on, as they could be marketed to ahead of time in a cheap and effective way. Of course, based on the way political marketing has gone lately, it probably won't end up being an optimistic story.
The election is now old news, but this article offers a good indication of what we can expect to see in future political marketing. Political campaigns have been significantly increasing their focus on digital marketing, and in particular see a huge opportunity with microtargeting. Since all voter registration rolls are now publicly available online, campaigns can cookie users and then cross reference the data they get from the cookie with the voter registration rolls. This will allow campaigns to see who is and is not likely to vote, and what their interests are. Campaigns can then send targeted marketing to individuals to appeal to their passions. So instead of showing everyone in Ohio the same television ad, they can individually go after the Ohio voters that are actually likely to vote and send them a tailored digital ad they think will resonate with a person on an individual level.
A company called DSPolitical already has 600 million cookies and has matched them to the 250 million registered voters. However, unsurprisingly, 86% of Americans have said they do not want political ads tailored to their interests and 64% said their support for a candidate would decrease if they found out they were being microtargeted.
It will be very interesting to see how microtargeting is used in future election cycles. While the thought of being inundated with political messages online that directly reference my political beliefs is quite creepy, it could be a powerful way to get more of the population to vote. If a campaign knows you only vote once in a blue moon, they may spend more resources trying to convince you to vote and less resources on someone who always votes. They may also try and target regular voters and get them to help spread the word. This could be really beneficial in small local elections when most people don't even realize there is an election going on, as they could be marketed to ahead of time in a cheap and effective way. Of course, based on the way political marketing has gone lately, it probably won't end up being an optimistic story.
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