Why Targeted Online Political Ads Can Be Dangerous To A Campaign
from the election-season dept
As the campaign season is in full swing, you may be seeing more of those wonderfully annoying political advertisements showing up on social media pages and other sites. It seems like common sense at this point that, to some degree or another, the majority of Americans would like to keep the government from spying on us, but the private companies that manage political campaigns find themselves in the same boat. The difference is that far from just watching, those private companies are putting out those targeted advertisements and, according to a University Of Pennsyvania study, people absolutely despise those ads (pdf). Some highlights from the study:In case you missed it, the recurring theme in most of those results is some flavor of the phrase "if they found out," which makes me thankful that most people are ignorant of how much of the above is already occurring on the websites people are visiting every day, otherwise nobody would vote for anyone. But the overall point is that people hate the idea of targeted political ads because it feels like an invasion, even more so (per the above results) than corporate ads. TechPresident, which covered the study, was surprised at how dismissive political ad companies were of the results.
- 86% of Americans say they do not want "political advertising tailored to your interests." Somewhat smaller majorities also said they don't want ads for products and services (61%) or news (56%) tailored to their interests.
- 85% agreed "If I found out that Facebook was sending me ads for political candidates based on my profile information that I had set to private, I would be angry.”
- More than 3/4 said they wouldn't return to a website if they knew if was sharing information about them with political advertisers.
- 70% say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate they support if they found out that their campaign was using Facebook to send ads to friends of that person saying they "like" that candidate's Facebook page.
- And two-thirds said their likelihood of voting for a candidate would decrease if they found out they were tailoring messages to them and their neighbors by purchasing information about their online activities, and then sending them different messages based on what might appeal to each.
Rich Masterson, Chairman of one such company, Campaign Grid, responded:
"The Annenberg study is interesting but raises more questions then it answers. From a methodology standpoint the researchers never asked respondents if they were registered to vote and whether or not they voted in the last election. Regrettably a majority of Americans don't show up at the polls because they have become disaffected by the process. It's unclear if the respondents are the same people who don't show up at the polls or if they are in fact engaged in the process. Secondly, the researchers made little to no effort to inform the survey respondents that the technology used for targeting is, in fact anonymous. The presumption that an individual's privacy is violated would lead one to assume the results would be negative. Lastly, there are many surveys that indicate Americans do not like negative campaign advertising, exercise or healthy diets. The fact that Americans do not like these things does not make them bad."Let's paraphrase that paragraph and boil it down to his three points in order to highlight the problem: so many people are disenfranchised with the political process that most don't go to the polls (or vote), people would supposedly react differently if they were told that their privacy was being invaded for a positive end result, and just because people hate the way most campaigns conduct themselves doesn't make that conduct bad. It's an incredible full-circle paragraph, where we go from the problem being disenfranchised voters to the proud assertion that the very things Masterson's company is doing to disenfranchise them aren't bad. Oy.
But the other problem is one Masterson touched upon, but is better highlighted by a response from Jim Walsh and Chris Massicotte, executives at DSPolitical, another political ad agency:
"It is understandable that Americans think that they don't want political advertising tailored to them when asked directly. But the simple fact is, and as this report points out, political advertisers have been tailoring messages to Americans since the beginning of the modern political campaign. When cable TV began political advertisers would choose what channels to advertise on based on their desired demographics and sometimes tailoring different ads on different channels. Tailored online advertising is not very different from tailored direct mail, which has proven very effective."This is exactly wrong. The difference between online advertising, particularly on social media sites, and advertising via television or direct mail is that the internet is not a broadcast medium. It's a communications tool, one which flows in many directions rather than from producer to recipient. As such, if you're going to engage in activity that everyone hates, and you're going to do it using the internet, you can expect the backlash to be huge. Your ads, particularly those that mistep or annoy, will not only turn off the recipient, but they will be commented upon, derided, all by the very same platform you used to send them. As TechPresident concludes:
"People like Walsh, Massicotte and Masterson, and the political operatives and politicians who hire them, may want to remember one key thing about the Internet. Unlike TV or direct mail, it's a two-way medium. The people who are being targeted can talk back. And lately, salient numbers of people have been talking back at all kinds of targets. If the political targeting industry and its clients aren't careful, they may find the bulls-eye painted on their backs."Indeed.
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Filed Under: ads, politics, privacy, social media
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Direct mail
I find myself far less likely to vote for national candidates that send direct mail. More-local candidates that send direct mail make more sense, since I wouldn't likely know their positions otherwise.Cases in point:
I get junk mail from "Romney For President" because I'm registered Republican. I would never vote for him for president (though I voted in the primary). They're wasting their money. They even ask you to put your own postage on donation envelopes so they don't have to pay it. That's led me to consider sending it back empty.
My girlfriend gets junk mail from "Obama For President" because she's registered Democrat. All the direct mail they send her talks up his Obamacare and Immigration policies, the two things she most dislikes that he's done. The junk mail has almost let me convince her to vote third-party in the election.
I don't think these political groups know what they're doing as much as they think.
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For example: FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!
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Direct mail
Cases in point:
I get junk mail from "Romney For President" because I'm registered Republican. I would never vote for him for president (though I voted in the primary). They're wasting their money. They even ask you to put your own postage on donation envelopes so they don't have to pay it. That's led me to consider sending it back empty.
My girlfriend gets junk mail from "Obama For President" because she's registered Democrat. All the direct mail they send her talks up his Obamacare and Immigration policies, the two things she most dislikes that he's done. The junk mail has almost let me convince her to vote third-party in the election.
I don't think these political groups know what they're doing as much as they think.
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Anyone who would change their vote from Obama to Romney based on whether they were targeted in ads rather than on the real issues is not someone that deserves to be voting.
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Politically, the same rule applies. I tend to vote for candidates based on my own research of their concrete achievements and specific goals. Political ads and campaign promises are nothing more than smoke and mirrors. I think it's important to vote, but I think it's equally important to thoroughly consider your options before you cast your ballot.
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use them, and your surfing life is *MUCH* more enjoyable, kampers...
(even setting aside the security/privacy issues...)
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Anonymous, hm?
But is it? More and more people are getting wise to the fact that what most companies promise is not anonymity but that "no personally identifiable information" is used -- and that what companies consider non-PII does not always mesh with what people consider non-PII (for example, Apple doesn't consider your physical location to be PII).
In other words, more and more people don't believe promises of anonymity, with some justification.
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Re: Anonymous, hm?
I think you're being a trifle unfair on what is - to an extent - a valid point.
The Walsh / Massicotte point shows another fundamental mis-understanding of how social media works as well. It is fundamentally a social space first; intruding into this space with marketing is very different to sticking up a billboard or broadcasting an ad on tv. It's more like (though I hate resorting to analogue analogies) interupting a bunch of people chatting in a bar. If you're going to do that you have to be damn sure that what you're going to tell them is a) something they want to know and b) something they want to hear about in the bar.
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One thing they also miss...
They might think they're being all fancy and hip by using social media to target the political ads, but in reality they're completely disenfranchising an entire generation of voters.
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Most of them don't vote now anyways. The elections they had this spring in the town I am currently in had like a 16% voter turn out. Even if you look at national voting, less than 40% of the people vote (generally between 36-38%) on "off years", and slightly more than 50% (there hasn't been over a 60% turnout since before 1970) during Presidential years.
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clearly you cannot attribute any facts to this, as they survey is flawed from the start.
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Why are you thankful that dishonest politicians are still getting votes?
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The problem is for many people, "what they want to hear" is not the truth, but rather that everything is all right/going to hell in a handbasket.
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its such a large gap in views they would have to make some very very very specif promosises to get me to show my slightest support for the state
"how now on all non-violent crime will no longer having the state come kidnap u and put u in one of the most dangerous places on earth"
"now on ur taxes there will be an opt-out of supporting war"
"it will be no longer illegal to drink a large soda in newyork"
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online marketing
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The Last Word
“Re: Re: Direct mail
I don't think the issue would make people vote for The Other Guy, but I could see it reducing the likelihood of them voting at all.