Undecided and Online

Remember when McCain announced his candidacy on David Letterman a few years ago? Now Letterman’s rant this week about McCain canceling on his show last minute so that he could rush back to DC and fix the wall street meltdown is a youtube top hit. Instead of heading back to DC, McCain headed over to Katie Couric’s New York news desk to conduct an interview. During his show, Letterman cut to a live feed of an unsuspecting McCain getting touched up by the make up artist on Katie Couric’s New York set.

This live TV moment was the final proof that this campaign coverage is the equivalent of a reality TV show. The brouhaha has created massive online traffic for Letterman - in fact Letterman got a much better viewership than he might have received if McCain had actually shown up for his interview.

Obama is branded as the internet savvy candidate. McCain is still getting pilloried for saying on the campaign trail, “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself…I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”

Despite the fact that he has long served on the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees Telecom law, McCain has not been a powerful voice on internet regulation and has been criticized by national civil rights leaders for opposing increased internet access for schools and libraries. His online campaign strategies seem to mirror his legislative approach: hands off and a bit traditional.

But new marketing research adds a more complex layer to the online electoral battle. Obama cyber-mania may be making campaign history, but a new study shows that McCain’s traditional online strategy may actually give him an important voting edge.

According to MediaPost, “McCain is drawing nearly 11% more traffic from politically neutral sites than the Obama campaign.” The assumption is that undecided voters are more likely than others to be drawn to the neutral sites. That’s a small percentage of people looking at political content online, but it’s a massive percentage of voters with the opportunity to swing the election.

The McCain camp has invested heavily in paid search terms, while the Obama team has generated a colossal online presence through natural search rankings. You might think this gives Obama an advantage, because he’s developed a grassroots driven online network of support. But marketing research says otherwise: in the consumer world, people who clicked on paid ads/terms took action, like purchasing something, at a much higher rate than people who clicked on something resulting from an organic search. In some cases the paid clicks netted a sale about 50% more often than an organic search.

Not all consumer marketing research converts to advocacy. But it’s useful to learn from Madison Avenue.

There are three types of online shoppers: those that click on a brand, like “Converse”, those that click on a generic category, like “shoes”, and a pretty small group of people that click on both. Similar to the political shoppers, each category of shopper responds to unique marketing efforts. In the consumer marketplace, the biggest bang comes from people who click on a branded term (51%) compared to those looking at generic terms (37%). Few people did both (12%). Very roughly translated, the 12% crowd is the equivalent of the politically neutral web surfer. They are undecided and a bit malleable.

Taking the concept offline, it’s a bit like shopping for office furniture at a thrift shop versus at Ikea. It takes patience to buy used furniture, but the payoff can be significant. Most people head straight to Ikea, some browse for deals, and a small number dip their toe into both worlds. It’s those that are waffling between Ikea and the thrift store that make up the undecided shopper, and whose consumer habits may help to inform strategies about marketing to the undecided voter.

A few years ago Winnie took me to Century 21, Manhattan’s famous four-story discount department store, after I had complained incessantly about New York’s wickedly cold winter. It was a head throbbing, nauseating experience. There were no less than 1 million coats for sale, some on hangers and many dropped on the floor. She made me try on no less than 500,000 coats, most of which looked substantially worse on my body than on the hanger. I prefer the smallest of boutiques, with clothes displayed like rare works of art. My challenge is that I have a Century 21 budget with a Barney’s mental model. Perhaps that’s why the 12% of people who both shop certain brands and shop generically on line are the least likely to make purchases. It’s not that I don’t need to shop, it’s just that if the choice is between pouring through racks of tightly packed discount coats looking for the one that has no shoulder pads and going into debt to buy the designer label, I lose my will to make any purchase at all.

I am the consumer equivalent of the undecided online voter. My power is miniscule as an online consumer; however, the power of the undecided online voter looms like a massive storm cloud.