Pandora Helps Causes and Candidates Get Out the Vote

No matter which type of campaign you are managing—congressional, municipal or statewide race, getting voters out to the polls will be vital to your success this mid-term election. With historically 40% of the electorate casting ballots to determine election outcomes, it’s essential to connect with your political base. The stakes are high to engage your target voter.

Media Today: As fragmented as the Electorate

The major challenge that campaign marketers, political consultants, and media buyers face is how to cut through the ad clutter and reach their base supporters—and those coveted swing voters on the fence—with a message that moves them to action. TV ad spend alone for mid-term campaigns is expected to be one-third higher in 2014 than it was in 2010, reaching $3 billion, according to a recent article on Deadline.com.

In addition, campaign marketers are facing an increasingly fragmented media landscape as millions of voters are changing the way they consume media, communicate, and find information, shifting from traditional media to online, social, and mobile channels. That makes TV just one part of a campaign’s overall marketing mix. It challenges political campaigns to find innovative ways to reach constituents at scale, eliminating wasteful, and expensive, impressions. The common denominator is that almost everyone, of every political stripe, listens to music.

Reaching Voters on Pandora

No matter what your political persuasion, music is the soundtrack to our lives. Pandora’s registered user base has 250 million-plus subscribers. Each month, more than 67 million potential voters aged 18-plus listen to Pandora an average of 20 hours and then some, with more than 53 million of them engaging on mobile.

We can target by behavioral and lifestyle attributes, geography (DMA, zip code, county/region, state, etc.), behavioral attributes, and, of course, music preferences. And now, an exciting new advancement allows us to target based on political party, inferred by a listener’s zip code and music preferences (see our recent blog post, “Your Music, Your Politics: Pandora Gets It”). These listener insights translate to smart use of big data, helping your campaign reach the voters you need to cast their ballots.

Case in Point: Priorities USA Action

How does Pandora help you attract the votes your campaign or candidate needs? Check out how Priorities USA Action’s campaign utilized a high impact video solution to reach their constituents on Pandora.

“At Priorities, we knew we wouldn’t be able to match our opponents dollar-for-dollar—so we had to be more creative,” says Bill Burton, Former Priorities USA Action Senior Strategist. “Pandora allowed us to efficiently maximize reach by precisely targeting every dollar that we spent.”

“More and more media consultants and buying agencies are realizing the power of Pandora audio, video and display advertising to increase voter reach. A trend we are noticing is that many consultants are leveraging Pandora earlier in the campaign cycle as a powerful extension of their cable advertising.” Sean Duggan, VP Advertising Pandora.

Get in Touch

Supporting a candidate or promoting a cause? Contact your Pandora political advertising expert or send an email to our team (political@pandora.com) to find out how you can use the power of music to win this mid-term election.