Online Advocacy – Case Study
Much has been written about candidate use of online tools in the 2008 election.
But here’s one of the best pieces I’ve seen regarding sophisticated use of the internet for issue campaigning.
The focus was California’s Proposition 8, which sought to ban same-sex marriages in the state. Whatever your position on the issue, the online tactics successfully employed by the ProtectMarriage.com coalition deserve your attention. Prop 8 won with 52% of the vote, but has been appealed to the courts.
As the reporter observes, there might have been a presumption that the younger, web-savvy constituency opposing Prop 8 had a natural advantage in using the online medium, especially compared to a "stodgy" coalition led by religious conservatives. But that’s not the way it seems to have played out.
The Prop 8 advocates used very sophisticated online targeting techniques to get their message to the right voters, using voter file data as well as contextual and behavioral data to target their likely supporters, both with relevant persuasion messages and then GOTV messages. In other words, matching the right message and the right messenger to the right recipient.
The Coalition raised online $7 million of its total $41 million raised, and spent $1 million on its online advocacy.
As I said at the outset, whatever your views on the issue, lots to learn here about online advocacy.
Tom
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[…] all the hype around online fundraising and campaigning in the wake of the Obama campaign, the Agitator points to a good case study from California’s Prop 8 campaign (from the anti-gay marriage […]