Advertising Democracy: Audience Segmentation and Targeted Emails in the 2012 Presidential Election

Abstract

Segmentation and targeting practices are staples of modern political campaigns. This paper examines segmentation and targeting literature to describe the construction of audiences, privacy and regulatory issues. The central research question examined is: How is targeting manifest in the narratives of the 2012 U.S. presidential election campaign emails of the Democratic and Republican parties? This question is addressed using a qualitative content analysis of different variations of five widely disseminated email messages from each campaign, and identifies various examples of targeting, including that based on age, gender and location. The findings suggest that targeting occurred based on donation history, location, age and gender, and offered several signs pointing to potential trends such as an emphasis on personality, emotional appeals and contests that may be confirmed with future research.