2012 and Future Presidential Campaigns to Utilize More Digital and Mobile Technology for Ads
Digital and mobile technology will play an increasingly significant role in campaign ads for the 2012 presidential campaign and future races, said panelists at the Broadband Breakfast Club Tuesday. TV ads remain the primary choice of campaigns, according to Rob Saliterman, senior account executive of elections and issues advocacy for Google. But more ads in both the Romney and Obama campaigns are shifting to other media like email, mobile devices, Facebook, Twitter, Google advertising and even Pinterest, the panelists said.
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"Advertising in multiple platforms has significant lift in engagement and recall,” Saliterman said. The variety of media complement each other by increasing the number of people exposed to ads, like online videos, without increasing costs to the campaign, he said.
Facebook facilitates spreading Web campaign videos through fans, said Jamie Smolski, a member of the U.S. Government and Politics team at Facebook. Email in particular offers a crucial medium for sharing campaign ads, said Stephen Geer, a partner at OMP, a marketing and fundraising company. “There’s only so much persuasion advertising you can purchase,” he said. “If you have 15 million people or 20 million people on your email list, the idea that you can reach almost everyone that you're trying to persuade with a video, if it’s compelling enough and if there’s enough incentives to share it … it’s such a huge advantage.”
The Romney campaign wants to explore mobile technology for campaign ads, said Ryan Meerstein, senior political analyst at Targeted Victory, a Republican digital strategic consulting firm with Romney as a client. Mobile technology also provides an efficient means of reaching Hispanic voters, Saliterman said. The Iowa and New Hampshire campaigns ran a mobile ad with a phone number for information on polling locations and volunteering, he said. He expects geo-targeting through mobile devices to play a significant role in campaigns. Mobile campaigning remains experimental, however, because “we don’t know how effective it will be yet,” Meerstein said. The Obama campaign had no comment for this story.
The Internet is also capable of targeted ads, noted Geer, Saliterman and Smolski. “Advertising can be much more specific on the Internet than other mediums,” Saliterman said. Search ads on online videos offers a cost-efficient use of campaign dollars because the campaign only pays for the ad if the viewer chooses to view the entire ad, he said. Campaigns can also use browser cookies as a fundraising tool to research people who visit campaign websites, even if they don’t donate money, he said.
Geer said future digital campaigns will be more professional in 2016. “The way it’s going to be different is the number of people who cut the cord on cable television,” Saliterman said. “The delivery system for reaching likely voters is going to be very different four years from now,” he said, predicting an increase in video ads.