Mobile campaigns to be hot in 2012 presidential race
Social networks played an important role in the last U.S. presidential election, but the explosive growth in smartphone usage and the introduction of tablets since 2008 could make or break the candidates for president in 2012.
Context & Ripple Effects
The arc here runs from 2008, when social networks first played an important role in a U.S. presidential election, through 2011's warm-up acts: campaigns fighting over hashtags as a campaign battleground and Google's mobile ads business closing out what its own blog called a breakout year looking back at 2011. What changed by January 2012 is the installed base — explosive smartphone adoption plus the arrival of tablets since 2008 gives candidates a screen in voters' pockets that simply did not exist last cycle.
First-order effects
- Presidential campaigns' media budgets shift toward mobile formats — apps, SMS, and in-app display — where Google's fast-growing mobile ads operation is positioned as a direct vendor to both sides of the race.
Second-order effects
- Platform owners and ad networks compete harder for political spend, since a candidate's need to reach voters on devices forces agencies and consultants to buy wherever mobile inventory concentrates.
Third-order effects
- If mobile outreach proves decisive in 2012, each future cycle ratchets digital-first tactics further down the funnel — from broadcast-style web pages toward per-device, per-voter messaging — consolidating political advertising around whoever holds the mobile audience.
The trend: Political campaigning is migrating from the social-web playbook of 2008 toward smartphone-first voter targeting, with the 2012 race as the first full test.