Dems' Experimental Ads Revealed

Advertising

This Ad’s for You (Not Your Neighbor)NYTimes.com"Targeted political ads on streaming platforms — video services delivered via internet-connected devices like TVs and tablets — seemed like a niche phenomenon during the 2020 presidential election. Two years later, streaming has become the most highly viewed TV medium in the United States, according to Nielsen."

How a zombie apocalypse is informing a new wave of Dem adsPolitico.com"The style and format of the ad campaign, produced with help from the firm 76 Words, is built off of more than 18 months of unorthodox research, including studies that delved deep into the psyche of voters. Operatives at Wide Angle Research believe it represents a new frontier in digital campaigning."

Campaigns

The major midterm candidates on TikTok, rankedFWIWNewsletter.Substack.com"This is the first election cycle where several dozen major party, statewide candidates are actively using TikTok to reach younger voters. According to our analysis, out of over 100 candidates on the ballot for U.S. Senate or Governor this November, we counted 31 that are actively using the app. 24 of those 31 candidates are Democrats, and 7 are Republicans."

13 Social Media Posts Every Campaign Should Do Before Election DayBestPracticeDigital.com"With this list, your campaign will have ample social media content leading to Election Day. Even better, many of these posts are evergreen and can be scheduled ahead of time."

Email

Gmail launches pilot to keep campaign emails out of spamAxios.com"Users will see a banner on the first email from participants in the program, asking if they want to keep seeing the messages, unsubscribe or report as spam."

Fundraising

Dem Senate candidates posted best online fundraising month in AugustPolitico.com"Democratic candidates’ strong digital fundraising numbers reflect in part increased spending on digital platforms to target donors along with voters. Warnock, Demings, Fetterman and Ryan — along with Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke — are the top-spending candidates on Facebook in the past 90 days, according to the company’s own data. The top-spending GOP Senate candidate on the platform, Herschel Walker, spent just one-fifth of what Warnock, his opponent, spent over the same period."

Social Media

Social media firms are prepping for the midterms. Experts say it may not be enoughNPR.org"Last year, researchers at NYU analyzed what happened after Twitter labeled some of Trump's tweets before and after the 2020 election as containing misinformation. They found the labeled messages spread even further on Twitter, and also took off on other platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Reddit."

Social Network Parler Restructures, Focuses on ‘Uncancellable Economy’WSJ.com"The company, which itself was knocked offline after the U.S. Capitol riot last year, said it bought a cloud-services provider that will serve clients that want to be able to operate without being penalized because of political ideologies."

Technology

Is A Tech Company Ever Neutral? Cloudflare’s Latest Controversy Shows Why The Answer is No.TechPolicy.Press"For those who would prefer to see a company like Cloudflare stay out of the content moderation game entirely––well, that ship has sailed. Up and down “the stack,” internet infrastructure services have repeatedly made unilateral decisions to drop entire websites – Cloudflare is hardly alone."

Advocacy Software Leader Quorum Acquires Capitol CanaryCampaignsAndElections.com"“I think advocacy tech is still very much catching up to marketing tech and even political campaign tech,” he said, noting that tools like A/B testing emails are newer innovations in advocacy."