Xaxis eyes greater slice of US political adspend with new launch
WPP's ad tech specialist unit has lifted the curtain on its Xaxis Politics arm, through a tie-up with Haystaq DNA in the US to capitalise on the political advertising market there, which is expected to hit $11.4bn in 2016, as the country enters a presidential election year.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both in the 2016 US presidential race.
The company, which sits within WPP's GroupM unit, today (09 November) announced the launch which it claims will allow advertisers to leverage the "world's largest and most accurate offline voter database" to then traget them with ads in a digital encvironment.
Xaxis claims it can let brands do so without having to unearth personally identifiable information (PII), so those seeking political office can serve online audiences with ads in the shape of online video, conncected TV slots, or mobile advertisements, as they increasingly shift away from TV.
Xaxis Politics was developed in conjunction with voter registation database Haystaq DNA, with the outfit also claiming Xaxis' data management platform (DMP) Turbine can then match politicians with their desired audience online.
This means that political bodies can trawl through the 166 million-stong data base to hit voters with targeted ads on issues they believe will swing the vote in their favour, according to Xaxis. This means that political advertisers can reach their most relevant voters across display, mobile, online video, digital radio, connected TV and social media.
Voters can be targeted according to political affiliation, likelihood to turnout, or other demographic information, or around specific events such as a debate or policy announcement, with campaign targeting available on a national or local basis. Crucially, Xaxis Politics also claims to offer candiates the opportunity to engage with the hard-to-reach younger audience, specifically with its ability to connect with mobile users.
Brian Gleason, the newly-installed global CEO of Xaxis, said: “Voter data is the lifeblood of political advertising, with a lengthy pedigree as the engine of successful direct voter marketing. By bringing this data into the digital space, we’re opening up an entirely new level of sophistication for political marketers competing to have their voices heard in a crowded and fragmented market.”
Haystaq DNA CEO Ken Strasma, added: “Political marketers have come to expect the accuracy of individual-level targeting models for direct mail, phones and door-to-door canvasing. Until now, using those models to target voters online has been a time-consuming and expensive custom process.
"With more than 20 pre-built models predicting turnout, partisanship, ideology and positions on hot-button issues, now it is easy for online campaigns to target the right voters with the right message at the right time.”
A recently published forecast from research outfit Borrell Associate forecast that political ad dollars will amount to $11.4bn next year as candidates fight it out to win over users at the ballot box, with $1bn expected to be spent exclusively on digital media.
The total political spend on digital advertising inventory is expected to hit $3.3bn by 2020, with TV's dominance of that sector expected to be eroded due to the growing influence of digital and social media for younger audiences' attention.
An adept social media strategy is largely credited with the success of incumbent US President Barack Obama, who was able to win over the lion's share of the youth vote in both 2008 and 2012.
Xaxis Politics also counts as the first publicly unveiled product with Gleason at the helm, following last week's announcment that Brian Lesser had been promoted from the role of global CEO of Xaxis to head-up GroupM in North America.