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Democrats More Mobile Savy Than Republicans
A survey by Nielsen Mobile with a US election theme has found that overall, 62% of Democrats are data users who use one or more data service on their mobile phone - compared to 55% of Republicans.
Already, much has been said of the Obama campaignÃ's use of mobile marketing. The Obama campaign sent a text message to 2.9 million mobile phones announcing Joe Biden as candidate for vice president. Additionally, the Obama campaign has a full mobile website containing news, videos and ringtone and wallpaper downloads.
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign has not been as active in mobile media, but that may make sense. Perhaps the McCain campaign knows that, in 2008, mobile is a more effective channel for reaching Democrats than Republicans.
The survey also found that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to use text messaging (53 percent compared to 46 percent). Democrats are also more likely to use picture messaging and MMS (27 percent compared to 21 percent)
Though the differences may not seem great, these variations indicate that advertising across mobile channels tends to be more efficient at reaching Democrats than Republicans.
ThatÃ's not to say that conservative voters are without a place in mobile media. The Drudge Report, a news site many consider to be conservative-leaning, attracted a mobile Internet audience of 567,000 unique users per month, as of July 2008.
Other political and general news sites are attracting large audiences as the election approaches, too. CNN had the most popular general news site on mobile and also the most popular politically focused component as of July 2008. CNN News attracted 4.8 million unique users and CNN Politics attracted 1.2 million unique visitors in July 2008. As the election draws near, the audience for CNN Politics has grown sharply, from 364,000 unique visitors per month one year prior.
Mobile Internet wonÃ't be the only way that voters follow the remaining weeks of the election, though. Today, more than four million mobile subscribers subscribe to and watch video on their phone and many additional subscribers watch mobile video through mobile Web. Among mobile video viewers, news channels are consistently among the top channels watched over the phone. Further, Nielsen MobileÃ's most recent Mobile Video Report estimated that 680,000 mobile video users are interested in seeing more political and government coverage over mobile video, leaving open the opportunity for mobile news video channels to expand their coverage for a welcome audience.
Posted to the site on 2nd October 2008