Red Brand/Blue Brand

There's a fascinating piece in Ad Age this week about what brands are top with Republicans and Democrats.

No surprises for the number one slot for either party with Google topping the Democratic list and Fox News Channel leading the GOP list. There are some brands that are on both lists such as the History Channel.

The article talks a bit about what impact such partisanship can have on the brand, but in this political season I think the far more interesting thing is how campaigns utilize consumer data. Back in 2004, I was fortunate enough to coordinate an election debriefing with the top political operatives for both the Kerry and the Bush campaigns. One of the things that stuck out in my mind was how the Bush camp was able to successfully target their get-out-the-vote efforts using consumer data. They knew for example that if a person drove a Volvo, that person probably wouldn't be voting for Bush so they didn't bother trying to get that person to vote. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first election to use such consumer data in this way and it probably made a difference in the 2004 race.