There are early lessons from the unpredictable tumult that has been the 2024 cycle so far. One of those, at least for LoopMe, a tech company that specializes in ad measurement and optimization using predictive AI, applies to candidates looking to make the leap to higher office.
Following President Biden’s exit from the White House race back in July, LoopMe analyzed voter sentiment for Kamala Harris so it could help inform clients of any “strategic opportunity.”
“There wasn’t really any historical data that could inform targeting or sentiment shift outside of voters really raising their hand and giving us that information,” Robin Porter, the company’s head of political, told C&E.
They were subsequently able to get some 66,000 voters to share their thoughts and from that, form targetable audiences. “It was the audiences we were able to form from that data that became very valuable,” said Porter, who previously served as a Comcast sales director for political. “We were able to look at the demographics that made those shifts, who was more likely to be male, and where were they shifting, who was more likely to be in the younger demographic versus the older.”
For LoopMe, which mainly works with brand advertisers, the lessons from this exercise are applicable to, say, a member of Congress considering the leap to statewide office. “We’re actually in conversations right now with congressmen who are looking towards the future for senatorial races, and they’re strategizing with us around those capabilities – to go statewide outside of their district and to begin to ask questions to gather sentiment around what type of leader they [voters] would be looking for [in] a senator,” she said.
She added: “What they’re really looking to do is … help inform if they should even throw their hat into the ring. … That’s a new way of looking at the use of predictive AI ahead of elections.” It’s an offering that could prevent candidates from going through the exploratory committee phase of a campaign, and possibly have other far-reaching implications for the industry.
