Cervantes Camp Tries Text Campaign

Mike Cervantes is one of the judicial candidates vying for a seat on the bench. This campaign season has seen more than a few candidates try new tactics in social and electronic media.

None of which is really ground breaking, but it does show a growing acceptance and implementation of social and electronic media in a town that is still decidedly old-school when it comes to campaigning.

But for the first time that I can remember, this campaign season has seen the implementation of a text messaging campaign. To my knowledge, thats the first time its been done. The O'Rourke team had it as part of its campaign roll-out.

Their text messaging campaign started with a universe of zero if I understand it correctly.

Cervantes was the first candidate to actually buy in to an EXISTING text messaging universe. The reason I am commenting on it is because I am pretty familiar with what he did, seeing as I was one of the people who managed the texting community at Entravision, which is where he purchased the campaign. (Sorry, there are various uses of the term in this piece, but its an advertising campaign)

Entravision has x amount of users that have opted-in to receive text messages from the various TV and radio stations under the umbrella. The opt-in is usually centered around a contest to win tickets or receive scores from high school football games, or some other project designed to grow the universe.

Then, advertisement can be sent out to all or part of the community. I am part of all the communities and I received a text message in English that said, "Don't forget to vote. Punch 80 and vote Miguel Cervantes for Judge of the 41st District Court. Political ad paid for by Miguel Cervantes."

Moments later, I received a Spanish message that read, "No olvides votar! Oprime 80 y vota por Miguel Cervantes para juez de la Corte del Distrito 41a. Anuncio politico pagado por Miguel Cervantes."

Benefits


Its a customized message that is sent to a pretty decent sized universe and it can be multi-lingual. It is also sent directly to a users phone and as long as they don't delete it, they will likely be able to have it with them when the go in to vote.

The ads can be timed. Personally, I thought the timing sucked on this particular ad, but not bad for a first try. I would've purchased it the first day of early voting and I would've purchased multiple ads. Along with Election day. I also would've asked for a multi-media message and sent a video.

There is a huge upside to this idea because so many people are going away from landlines. I don't think I've had a landline in a decade.

So the really treasured numbers are cell phone numbers. The first political consulting firm that is able to figure out how to effectively capture cell phone data of high-efficacy voters is going to make a pant-load of money.

Short-Comings


You have NO IDEA how much of the universe are registered to vote. You have no idea if the messaging worked at all. You have no idea what are they live in either. So it could be really effective, or it could be a huge waste of money. There's just no telling.

At any rate, its the first innovative thing I've seen on the campaign trail in quite a while. Even more impressive to me that it came from judicial candidate. I'm not sure I think it will be effective at all, but I do think that the potential is there if the idea is tweaked and improved.