The US election campaign is garnering momentum and the fourth season of House of Cards just around the corner (which will also focus on the race for the White House) the spotlight is once again on winning over voters and the science behind doing it successfully.
As the political storm of last year’s campaign shows, results can still create a surprise, especially when the outcome is far from clear cut. Relying on traditional polling data simply is not enough of a marker for shaping messages and communication strategies or calculating how much a story is resonating.
Despite some murmurings in 2010, the 2015 election saw social media and digital engagement utilised in an incredibly effective way for the first time.
Big budgets were diverted away from traditional advertising towards digital targeting with the primary purpose of adding a greater level of precision to the campaign process.
Capturing the attention of voters in swing constituencies or customers within niche segments is fundamental to any campaign, not only for driving engagement, but also generating ultimate buy in.
However it requires data, in the right place and the necessary tools to effectively utilise it.
With the help of Acxiom’s constituency data the Conservatives and the SNP both took advantage of this enhanced capability to geographically target voters along consistency boundary lines and ensure messages reach the right people within Facebook throughout the course of their election build.
Ultimately they wanted to ensure voters who were undecided were given the necessary information to make an educated decision on polling day, and realised Facebook was one of many effective ways of achieving this at scale.
This level of targeting has the ability to provide a greater level of accuracy for forecasting voter sympathies. Whereas daily newspapers held the primary influence in the past, (who can forgot the famous headline “It’s The Sun Wot Won It” on The Sun in 1992), the waters are now much muddier with a more diverse media toolkit on which to draw.
Party lines are blurring in the US in a similar way to the UK and one need only look at the Tea Party or Trump’s decision to stand as an independent if he doesn’t win the Republican candidacy.
While we all know the result, and read the stories around the inaccuracies of the polls, evidence now suggests that the Conservative party was able to reach 80.65% of Facebook users in marginal seats during the campaign for No.10 in May.
That’s no small feat.
Brands can also learn a lot from our political cousins. Any brand looking to build advocacy and drive sales needs to be able to target specific individuals and provide them with the information they need to make a decision or purchase.
While brands have been using a wide range of direct marketing tools for years to reach specific audiences, the precision with which they are able to do this successfully and with a high level of sophistication, can vary wildly.
Organisations that are able to connect their 1st party data assets with other 3rd party data assets, which add additional insight, are crucial to developing a fuller, more rounded picture.
This ensures messages are much more targeted and relevant. Ultimately they are more meaningful and have a far higher level of substance than media headlines.
By Jed Mole, European marketing director, Acxiom
