BOR: - Advertising

GOP Looks To Bridge Digital Divide Against Dems

Noelle Bell — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:44:02 GMT

Our side is extraordinarily good at using digital social tools through apps, social networks, and voter targeting programs designed to identify and reach potential voters. The Republicans have been behind the curve in matching our digital outreach to various communities, and they're looking to catch up in time for the 2012 elections.

It was Republicans who were at the cutting edge of list enhancement in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Karl Rove and other consultants honed the use of commercial data for micro-targeting.
But Democrats pioneered the next step: outsourcing voter file assembly and maintenance. A small group of private companies - Catalist, Voter Activation Network and NGP (the latter two of which have since merged to form NGP VAN) - were able to enhance Democratic voter lists using information obtained from groups that can accept unlimited money that candidates and parties are barred from receiving.

Right now, the GOP has the advantage with their restrictive voter ID laws in states such as Texas, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, with an estimated 5 million voters to be disenfranchised by these voter ID laws. A greater focus on voter targeting by the Republicans through digital social tools will heighten the voter disenfranchisement in key races that will determine the makeup of state legislatures, the House and the Senate, if not the White House itself.

So how can Democrats counteract that? In order for Democrats to keep up their digital edge against the GOP, I'd recommend a more focused digital strategy to find qualified voters that can make all the difference in competitive primary and general election races. There's been a lot of focus on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for good reason. Keyword campaigns can be built to identify different voters by interest, gender, and age, and ads then can be run targeting these voters to visit your website, or to check out your video, petition site, and so on.

One advertising strategy I've seen gain prominence is one that Democrats should consider: retargeting ads. Basically how this works is by putting a javascript in the footer of a website, and this code creates a list of people that visits the website through cookies. This keeps track of people as they visit other websites, and your ads can target them on other websites. It's a good way to increase conversions and brand awareness for websites.

This form of advertising strategy can work for Democrats is if they target potential voters that visit their website, and then follow up with retargeting ads two weeks later or a couple of months later in time for primary or general election races. The ads being run could be a volunteer sign-up, sending e-mail blasts on specific issues, and a reminder for people to vote before election day. Many advertising platforms allow for frequency caps, so people wouldn't be inundated with non-stop ads.

Retargeting ads are but one component of advertising strategies that Democrats should have in their toolbox going into the 2012 elections. Even with all the digital tools in place, nothing replaces fieldwork in getting qualified voters to the polls on Election day, but having the data in place will be crucial for that.

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New Ad and an Olympic Media Strategy for Obama

Mack Simpson — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:50:46 GMT

This new commercial from the Obama campaign was released for air yesterday and is being seen today in the states of Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia.

(That's 18 states, six more than what Kerry targeted in 2004.)

Also, it seems the Obama campaign is looking for a large summertime media placement, quite possibly on the Olympics.

Though the Obama campaign is keeping mum about whether it will definitely run spots, it has asked NBC Universal about Olympics advertising including $500,000, $2 million and $4 million packages of ads. (NBC presented those along with a $10 million package.) It's not only a sign that the Obama camp has faith it can continue its stellar fundraising achievements but a signal that a widening field of battleground states has the candidate contemplating national broadcast buys. An Olympics buy could also allow Mr. Obama to reach out to a large swath of women. http://adage.com/article?artic...

Burnt Orange Report Advertising Policies

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:38:47 GMT

The Burnt Orange Report accepts multiple forms of advertising.

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