A great example of how a microtargeted political ad can actually boost votes came to my sound studio this week. As a female political voice actor, I see a terrific array of some pretty effective ads and this one took full marks. Targeting is a marketing concept that’s older than most constituents walking the earth, and microtargeting, is essentially our 21st century ability to take a message and with laser precision zoom in on a group of people to tailor the message to specific markets.
Targeting – whether it’s a demographic sector of the population, or a geographic one – is narrowing down numbers to better shape messages to people of concern. An example might be educators, then narrow that down to primary school teachers, then more specifically, primary school teachers within the public education systems. Or geographically, that might be a city, then a precinct, then a street. We might send a flyer to houses on that street or to mailboxes of kindergarten teachers in public schools.
Microtargeting, Moving Forward from 2018 and Beyond
Now moving forward from the 2018 Mid-Term Elections and beyond, with our ability to gather, process and understand how to use data to our advantage (thank you Jeff Bezos) this strategy has expanded to add psychographic and behavioral data to our demographic and geographic base. The combination of which can help advertisers dissect very specific market segments and create customized messages to them.
That being said, quite a few people distrust microtargeting, chiefly because of the invasive nature of data collection and its implications. No one likes to be scrutinized so carefully. Voter data collected for political advertising might include our use of Sat tv, cable, broadcast, DVRs and live and streamed radio, media that are all purveyors of targeted advertising. Return path data from these outlets can be connected with other data (like our consumer habits) to better target messages to individual voters. Not all data collected by these media sources is useful, however.
Campaigns will begin with info from digital voter data bases and combine that with info that might be able to help them. The emphasis is on might. Drawing from the vast amounts of media consumption data available is like going to the ocean instead of the well. It may be difficult to find correlations between what music or tv shows certain voters like and issues that campaigns care about. So, there are limits to the data collected in terms of its relationship to politics.
The First Microtargeting Campaigns
The Bush and Obama campaigns were the first to dive into targeted messages using data about what tv shows specific market segments were watching. In Obama’s 2012 campaign he effectively used microtargeting to mobilize voters that might not otherwise have headed to the polls to get out and support him. Addressable advertising is really the new frontier. It’s the ability to show different ads to different households. So targeted ads will get to the right voter market no matter what shows they’re watching.
How are micro-targeting messages most useful and powerful? In targeting people who are very likely to support you anyway, but may not get out to the polls to actually vote for you without a little extra push.
Effective Political Ad Microtargeting Campaign
Circling back to the political ads I voiced this week, they were a series of several bumpers for a very effective political ad microtargeting campaign. Created by a cutting-edge digital advocacy agency, the ads targeted certain professionals, in this case real estate agents and invited them to support a fellow real estate agent in her bid to office. First of all, the targeting was genius. What real estate agent wouldn’t want to support a fellow professional (especially one with as high a profile and as respected in her field as this one happened to be). Secondly, the form was short (a.k.a respectful of your time) bumper or pre-roll ads on You Tube. These targeted ads will achieve what they are meant to do. Persuade or (gently) push a market segment into action, namely realtors, that would probably have supported the candidate anyway but might not have made the effort to definitely get out to the polls and give her their vote.
The advocacy agency made a great choice in selecting a female voice over for this set of bumper ads. The idea behind these ads was to send a gentle nudge. The use of the female voice is highly correlated with being trustworthy. The verbiage was simple and rallying. An in-group kind of invitation and cheer. A male voice over, traditionally linked with persuasion, might have come off as a bit aggressive and risked push back.
Need a female voice over artist for your political ad? I’d love to talk to you about it today.