Digital Commercialization of Politics and the Ecommerce of Buying Votes

Out 2020 election has become an incredible playground for digital marketing agencies, once positioned to drive ecommerce, now deploying their sophisticated tools to buy votes. This realization was initially vaulted into the lives of citizens in March 2018, when The New York Times and The Guardian/Observer broke an explosive story that Cambridge Analytica, a British data firm, that had harvested more than 50 million Facebook profiles and used them to engage in psychometric targeting during the 2016 US presidential election. The controversy also generated greater scrutiny of some of the most problematic tech industry practices — including the role of algorithms on social media platforms in spreading false, hateful, and divisive content, and the use of digital micro-targeting techniques for “voter suppression” efforts (Green & Issenberg; 2016; Howard, Woolley, & Calo, 2018).

For decades, politicians have explored ways of enhancing their communication and influence among these voters and this is why extreme importance has been given to these digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn as an extension of the candidate. Furthermore, political digital marketing extends beyond the promotion of candidates, parties, and electoral platforms on the internet, include mobile phones, social networks, graphic advertising, search engine marketing, platforms, communities and any other form of digital media, all offering interactive experiences and total real-time information. The digital strategy deployed by these candidates focuses on 3 main pillars: building trust, utilizing their social networks and closing the advertising gap where the concept of  ‘sell them, without selling’ is applied, creating attractive content for users.

Today, we are facing an election where we have seen unprecedented utilization of these tools and tactics and in a matter of weeks, we will see which candidate will prevail. No matter if you are someone who is into politics or not, it seems we can not escape their reach and influence, truly accelerated in magnitude by the same digital marketing agencies that once pushed commodities into your homes and lives.