Campaign Advertisements in 2020
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/14/us/politics/democrats-political-facebook-ads.html
The 2020 election is the first race where Facebook is releasing their advertisement spending data publicly. This gives the public insight on how much money each candidate is spending on Facebook ads, along with who they are targeting the advertisements towards. This is significant in the advertising world nowadays, where advertisers are trying to gain the reach of the target audience that they want at a lower cost per unit, which is exactly what we have been discussing in lecture.
Compiled spending data shows that Presidential Candidate Joe Biden spends most of his Facebook advertising money on those over the age of 45. In addition, his target audience tends to be women, with about 2/3 of his spending going towards this group. Bernie Sanders is the opposite: his spending favors those below the age of 45. This is similar to Andrew Yang, whose advertising skews overwhemingly towards a young male audience.
These statistics are important because these show that advertisers are clearly trying to reach a target audience. And… this is visibly working. In a Quinnipiac poll, Biden was leading among voters greater than 65 years old — Sanders among those ages 18 to 34. Biden only spent $12,000, less than 0.5 percent of his Facebook ad campaign, on those under the age of 25 — Sanders spent half a million dollars. Clearly these advertising tactics are working as they are winning in their respective target age groups. This is most recognizably a dominant strategy.