Commentary
Local Political Campaigns Tackle Big Data
- by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, March 18, 2014
Gone are the days when local political campaigns could get by with a list of radio stations tacked to the wall. Rivaling the biggest national efforts, local races have become incredibly sophisticated in terms of measurement and targeting, according the experts at MediaPost’s Marketing Politics conference on Tuesday. “There’s a lot more sophistication and nuance … to enable one-to-one targeting,” said Gayatri Bhalla, COO at political data special Catalist. Local campaigns are “targeting in a way that was never possible,” said Jim Walsh, CEO at DSPolitical. Yet, the vast majority of political spending still goes directly to TV -- about 90% to 95%, by Walsh’s estimation. And the reason is simple. “Most of the media budgets are still controlled by TV guys.”
Gavin O'Malley edits MediaPost's Mobile Marketing Daily and MoBlog column. Follow him: @mp_gavin. You can reach Gavin at gavin@mediapost.com.
That's astounding to me! YouTube, LinkedIn, Bloomberg, glassdoor, Google Ad Words, An iPhone App where you can allow specific demographics to give you feedback on your campaign or you personally. I haven't mentioned Facebook because I don't value the audience, respect or trust the company. Yahoo! is in a transition period so I think you'd be better off spending your money else where. I'd be happy to recommend a delivery platform if video with measurable audience data is important. But exclusive Broadcast TV is in my opinion a mistake; especially in the 18-24 demographic.