The “Microtarget”

I read an interesting story in the Washington Post business section today, discussing the use of “microtargeting” in the current presidential election.  The author received input from a guy name Colin Shearer who works for SPSS.  They described the process of identifying “small but crucial groups of voters who might be won over to a given side…”.  This sounds similar to what corporations have been doing (or trying to do) for years, by targeting small groups or even individuals with tailored product or service offerings.  It would be interesting to know how effective this tactic has been in the current primaries, particularly the Democratic run-off.

I’m not sure that putting sophisticated marketing analytic tools in the hands of politicians (or more accurately in the hands of their campaign managers) is a good thing.  As the article points out, this capability increases the likelihood of deception since they presumably know much more about the target audience and can target associated hot buttons.  But I suppose as consumers we’ve all grown accustomed to the daily marketing barrage, and hopefully can see through these attempts.  After all, the stakes are significantly higher than the risk of purchasing the wrong shampoo.

This entry was posted on 23. April 2008 at 16:33 and is filed under Business Focus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.