TV ads don’t cut it in today’s tech-savvy world, so how do politicians target younger voters?
Posted January 25, 2016 7:31 am.
Last Updated January 25, 2016 7:33 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – They don’t watch the 6 o’clock news. They don’t answer telephone surveys. So, how do you get their vote?
Politicians are using new ways to harvest data about younger voters.
“The media landscape has changed. The old channels — the legacy media channels, like radio and television — are not as effective at reaching certain generations,” says SFU communications expert Peter Chow-White.
Parties don’t have as much information about millenials, who don’t respond to traditional questionnaires; that’s where targeting an email address with things like a craft beer survey come in.
Chow-White says the strategy of targeting millenials on social media isn’t entirely new.
“Obama used social media to contact people in 2008 and Canadians, as usual, are slowly catching up to those types of practices in the US.”
“Canadians, as usual, are slowly catching up to those types of practices in the US,” he adds.
Chow-White notes with Younger voters playing a more pivotal role, what you’re seeing is “gathering new types of information through social media or other forms to gain data and intelligence on each individual voter so you can contact them as specifically as possible.”
He adds American politicians have been using data mining approaches for a decade, noting Obama was famous for it in 2012, as the first big data campaign.
