| No, this is not a joke, dirty or otherwise. This is a 21st century techie way to winkle out every last voter you need to win an election. It is how Al Franken won his US Senate seat in Minnesota, and why he watched so calmly over the long recount, certain he was going to win, according to DailyKos, http://www.dailykos.com/story/... scoop-on-how-Franken-knew-he-was-going-to-win
When Franken entered the race he had high name recognition, but there were some serious challenges as well: offsetting the name recognition advantage were his high negatives, he was up against a well-funded entrenched incumbent so there were very few undecided voters from early on, and there was what they called the Obama Deficit. The Obama Deficit refers to voters who said they had voted for Obama but were undecided in the Senate race, or were going to support the incumbent or someone else, not Al Franken. How did Franken target this demographic successfully? |
| The theory was that the Internet audience is "extremely fractured," which led to the decision not to broadcast many "universally persuasive messages" designed to appeal to a broad, seemingly monolithic audience, but to take "the most persuasive messages and nanotarget each one to the right niche." The campaign designated 125 niche groups and sent more than 1,000 pieces of tailor-made contacts.
When people search on the Internet, they wander everywhere, so the Franken campaign arranged to be everywhere, with little ads and factoids "tailored to the whim they are currently indulging," that, if clicked, led them to the Franken web site or related sites.
"In short, long-tail nanotargeting takes those little gems-be it an endorsement, video, news story, or ask-and shows it to the people who would care"
Example: A Minnesotan searching for cheap gas or researching fuel-efficient cars was presented with ads about Franken's plan to lower gas prices.
Those 125 niches identified are the long tail of voters who, however momentarily, had interests outside of those rated of concern to the common political herd. Crafting Franken ads around that interest was nano-targeting. Once such a voter clicked on the special Franken ad, the campaign staff analyzed and studied them minutely: what ads achieved results, which ones triggered donations, which pulled in the most volunteers, of what sort? Thus, when it became apparent the election would be a nail-bitter requiring a re-count, the Franken campaign was ready. They could comb through their state-wide, exquisitely calibrated voter lists and find attorneys and volunteers everywhere to watch the re-count, no matter how long it took.
his system requires that the ad-makers understand their target thoroughly---- no matter how clever, an outsider cannot parachute in at the last minute and figure out the ins and outs of local issues in order to drop a perfectly designed notation, factoid, or ad in exactly the right spot. Even locals would have needed extensive research, and they had continuously to monitor and modify the ads to know which ones worked, which ones generated the most contributions, and so on. Plouffe from the Obama campaign pulled off a similar micro- or nano-targeting, as described in his book The Audacity to Win. Franken barely pulled off a victory despite running in a strong Democratic year; perhaps the nanotargeting made the difference.
Consider how such nanotargeting might have helped turn out those Obama Deficit voters in Virginia. The kind of precinct-level turf knowledge proposed in the Reform Handbookversion 1.0 here on BlueCommonwealth/com has many of the same elements. |
