Moving Political Advertising Online

No matter where an election is taking place you can be guaranteed that those contesting will fight tooth and nail to win. So it often baffles me that candidates and those advising them don’t explore every means possible to win votes. Of course, in the heat of a campaign it may not always be so easy to step back and identify where opportunities exist. But that’s no excuse for the lack of innovation that many political consultants offer.

Political advertising on television in the US has reached a fine art (not least due to the amount of money spent on producing these advertisements). Political advertisements have been shown to play a definite role in persuading the electorate (Study 1 – Study 2).

So given that political advertising can be so influential, why is their use by political parties outside the US not widespread? The answer is simply because political advertising on television is banned in many countries.

The solution is even simpler – Take Your Advertising Online! It’s where an increasing number of voters are to be found and a potentially untapped market of younger voters can be won. And what makes this an even better idea is that the costs of disseminating your message online are minimal compared to television advertising.

And social media networks can help spread your message even further. The single greatest advantage for political advertising provided by social media is its ability to precisely target and segment individuals and groups. Social media tools such as Facebook allow advertisers to engage in nano-targeting in a way that allows you to reach a potential audience with comparatively inexpensive advertising, where traditional media marketing is both expensive and non-targeted. It is this ability to reach niche markets with inexpensive targeted messages that holds the greatest potential for the development of political marketing.

So if you are planning a campaign (political or otherwise) and you have the resources to produce an advertisement that can be placed online then make sure you do it! The UK Conservative Party have made their first significant move into the world of online advertising with their Spotify campaign. I suggest that you do likewise and make sure that you are not ignoring your opportunities online.

If you are looking to read in more detail about best practices for political advertising online then I would suggest checking out this publication from the Graduate School of Political Management at GWU.

I managed to ensure that my first blog post was not a ‘Welcome to my Blog’ post! Err…welcome to the blog!

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