I could — and almost certainly will — go on at length about my favorite-best and favorite-worst political ads, and this election season is sure to produce some doozies. But those classic ads are just a part of the many and increasingly creative ways campaigns are finding to cram their message into your brain. Political advertisers are always looking for new and innovative ways to not just get your eyes but to get your attention, and you may or may not like the results. Here are just a few ways they’re doing it.
(Warning; This has the potential to get ranty. But come on, you know you’re here for it.)
Text messages
No, text isn’t anything new. And, theoretically, it shouldn’t be anything much — the FCC’s policy regarding robotexts is similar to the one regarding robocalls, and political campaigns (and other entities) are required to gain your consent before they start autodialing you. But campaigns and campaign-adjacent organizations didn’t get where they are by being stupid, and numerous peer-to-peer texting companies have popped to help candidates get around that pesky rule. Because they’re sending personal text messages, see, from a person, without autodialing, and that makes it okay.
Social media, it would appear, just isn’t getting the job done, and campaigns are always looking for ways to reach you directly.
[Rep. Jennifer Wexton’s campaign communications director Aaron] Fritschner added he believes P2P messaging is a better voter engagement tool than social media because it focuses on the correct audience — voters.
“Twitter is where much of the conversation happens between campaigns and activists, campaigns and journalists, [or] campaigns and other campaigns,” he said.
The reach of P2P also enables campaigns to communicate with populations who do not own smartphones, said Roddy Lindsay, CEO of Hustle, a platform that invented P2P in 2014. This is especially true for rural Americans, who are less likely to use smartphones, according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center.
“When you think about things like apps or digital ads, [non-smartphone users] are actually not able to see those ads,” Lindsay said. “With just a normal feature phone you can still send and receive texts.”
NPR, “From Get-Out-To-Vote To Text-Out-To-Vote: The Rise Of Peer-To-Peer Texting”
Since the 2016 election, Hustle has become the P2P company of choice for Democratic candidates, working for more than 1,300 campaigns and sending more than 200 million texts in 2018. Republican campaigns tend to go with companies like RumbleUp, which sent “tens of millions” of texts during the 2018 election season.
[RumbleUp CEO Thomas] Peters said he believes P2P is so successful due to the rapid nature of text messages.
“Over 90 percent of text messages are opened in the first five minutes…no other channel can claim that kind of visibility,” he said.
Not only is peer-to-peer texting able directly to engage with the voters, but it is also more interactive and fun for the volunteers themselves, Peters explains. “You can do it from home, from your couch while watching Netflix, and you can… send 2,500 messages an hour.”
NPR, “From Get-Out-To-Vote To Text-Out-To-Vote: The Rise Of Peer-To-Peer Texting”
Fun!
So when you look up from your work to find an unsolicited text from a political campaign, you can take comfort in the knowledge that that sucker wasn’t automated — some poor campaign staffer pressed the Send button theirownself. Don’t you feel special?
#sponcon
Social media isn’t completely dead for political campaigns, though, and Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg has become famous (infamous?) for seeking out Instagram influencers to spread his message. He’s dropped countless dollars of his billions for sponsored posts to “make [him] look cool for the upcoming Democratic primary” (his words).
The sponcon all comes in the form of a fake DM from Bloomberg to the influencer of choice, relying on self-deprecating humor to try to overcome his audience’s concerns that he really is just trying to find a way to look cool. Reviews have been mixed, ranging from “Best advert ever” from travel influencer Chris Burkard to “I hate this” from musician Ed Droste, with a quick meander into “This is a clear example of what wealth can get you votes. Bloomberg’s a billionaire and is able to pull in endorsements like this” from commenter @rebelwithoutapause_. I guess that’s what you have to expect when you’re paying for coolmaking campaigns with Instagram celebrities like @ShitheadSteve.
The Bloomberg campaign isn’t doing it alone — they’re doing it with the help of Meme 2020, a company with deep roots in the influencer industry. (Every time I type that, my soul dies a little.) Meme 2020 is connected with Jerry Media, which is known for, among other fun things, publicity for the Fyre Festival. So that’s cool.
The biggest danger with a meme campaign, much like with a hashtag campaign, is that once it’s out there, it’s out there. And that fun-casual-DM format makes it super easy to ‘shop in some faux dialogue highlighting some quotes and activities during his time as New York mayor that he’d really, really like to remain unhighlighted.
If there’s one thing I can emphasize to all the new media strategists out there, it’s that the Internet is forever, and once you put something out there, it’s out of your control.
Facebook ads
Like text messages, Facebook ads are a favorite tool of political campaigns and hardly something innovative that’s just popped up for 2020. The thing that’s popped up is Facebook’s decision that Facebook political ads aren’t like other Facebook ads, and that means they aren’t subject to fact-checking. Google is limiting targeting of political ads, Twitter is banning them outright, and Facebook is all, like, “No prob! Political misinformation is kind of our brand these days.”
Okay, they didn’t actually say that. (Please don’t sue me, Zuck.) What they said was that “While Twitter has chosen to block political ads and Google has chosen to limit the targeting of political ads; we are choosing to expand transparency and give more controls to people when it comes to political ads,” per FB Director of Product Management Rob Leathern. That means more details available in the Facebook Ad Library, where you can now see when any given ad started running, how much money was spent, where it was shown, who it was targeted to — you know, all the stuff that offsets the impact of dishonest political campaigning.
One thing that’s good to know is that only candidates and their campaigns are allowed to run misleading ads. A PAC, for instance, or a dedicated and zealous individual who might want to spread lies in support of their candidate of choice will get Rule 13ed in an instant by Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers. It’s only the candidates themselves who get to lie to your face.
(On rereading, I realize that all that sounds kind of bitter, but let’s be honest — it’s hard not to be, as election season heats up and pointed political messages are falling like baseball-sized hail. All I can really say on the subject is… for real, don’t sue me, Zuck.)
Welcome to Minority Report
I mean, not really — the one thing campaigns haven’t pulled out (to our knowledge) is a trio of bathtub psychics who can microtarget you now to keep you from voting wrong in the future. But they’re doing their level best to put themselves where you live. And while yes, that’s kind of the point of campaigning, the projected $6 billion political ad spend this year make it more intrusive than Charmin, which is literally up your butt.
Feel free to drop your own political advertising-related rants in the comments. No campaign messaging, please — we’re trying to keep this a safe space.