As holiday shoppers start spending in the coming weeks there’s one item that Bernie Sanders’ campaign hopes is on everyone’s list: Apple TV.
The White House contender’s digital consultants created an app that’s available through the set-top box and it’s received around 1,000 downloads since it became available in mid November, according to Revolution Messaging, which heads up Sanders’ digital team
The Sanders camp boasts it’s the first presidential campaign with an Apple TV app. But aside from being a pioneer, it’s questionable what tangible benefits the senator’s effort can glean from its envelope-pushing venture. Revolution Messaging’s Walker Hamilton admits the move was driven less by practicality than the consultants’ curiosity and the campaign’s desire to incorporate as much technology as possible.
Still, he said, there will be benefits. While most of the downloads will likely come from hardcore supporters, there’s the possibility for the Sanders camp to make in-channel solicitations for donations. Moreover, Sanders also gets the personal information of those who download the app.
In the long run, it could be used to message test, but for now the Sanders campaign is happy to just have another way to get its message out.
“I think that accessibility via a number of channels is really the name of the game now,” said Hamilton, Revolution’s chief technology officer. “This is just another way of consuming the message.”
The Apple TV app has similar content to what’s available on the campaign’s YouTube channel, but there’s the added value of being on supporters’ living room TVs as opposed to just on their smartphones or computers.
“It really allows for a much closer connection with the constituent,” Hamilton said. “I think that’s kind of the next step that everyone’s hoping for.” It’s the living-room aspect that could make Apple TV a more appealing tech frontier than, say, Meerkat or Periscope which are geared toward a mobile audience.
Apple TV is making a lot of best-tech-gift lists this holiday season, but should other campaigns rush to get on the platform? Only if they have the library of content to put up and an army of supporters necessary to make the effort worthwhile, according to Hamilton.
“It’s a question of volume,” said Hamilton. “Any of these platforms can be useful. The question is, are they useful, and is there a value proposition there? When it comes down to it, these are all just delivery channels.”