More Campaign Use of Mobile Web, ‘Augmented Reality’ Seen

Politicians will increasingly use “augmented-reality” smartphone applications and the mobile Web in election campaigns, said Hill and industry officials. Interactive mobile apps are a novel tool to engage potential voters, but compelling content is still critical, they said Monday at the Politics Online Conference. “People buy the shovel, but they want the hole,” said Will Hurley, chief architect of open source strategy at BMC Software.

Mobile apps will one day have a “transformative” impact for politics comparable to TV in the ‘60s, predicted Matt Lira, new media director for House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va. Those who “understand that mobile is the wave of the future will have an upper hand no matter what kind of campaign you're working on,” Vance Hedderel, communications director for dotMobi, said on a later panel. Globally, more handsets exist than TVs and PCs combined, and the small devices are more personal, he said.

The 2008 Obama campaign emphasized text messages, said Distributive Networks CEO Kevin Bertram, who worked on the campaign. He predicted more use of the mobile Web and apps in future elections. Campaigns will likely use mobile apps for data gathering and donations in addition to expanding SMS distribution lists, he said. The mobile Web likely “will be used more aggressively for directing people where events are,” he said. A wide range of age groups opted into Obama’s SMS campaign, and no one complained about paying their carrier to receive them, even those without text bundles in their wireless plan, Bertram said.

Citizens may one day donate to campaigns through their phone bills, said Bertram. His company has been “working very proactively with the carriers to try and find a way to enable” text-message donations, he said. That would be the “holy grail,” since people are nervous about sending credit card information over SMS or the mobile Web, he said. It may not happen until the 2012 or 2014 elections, due to possible Federal Election Commission worries and “a lot of legal liability concerns” by carriers, he said.

Augmented reality “has the most potential to be a persuasive medium,” because engaging people where they are enables politicians to “make a broader point, and then to allow them to take actions reflective of that point,” Lira said. While the definition of “augmented reality” is loose since the industry is still developing, panelists said the term refers to layering extra, virtual information on top of the real world. Not yet vastly used by politicians, such apps have taken the form of GPS-enabled canvassing efforts to get more votes or funding, panelists said. Rhomobile CEO Adam Blum predicted increasing mobile device functionality will lead to an “arms race, where … every time there’s an interesting new capability on the device, it’s going to show up in a canvassing app."

Politicians could use augmented-reality apps to tie “broad legislative concepts to specific actions in people’s everyday lives,” Lira said. Apps could show people how much it costs to repair a road on which they're currently driving, he said. Apps could also take the form of mobile games that would engage voters in a “fun and entertaining way,” Lira said. “There’s a lot of hesitancy for people to knock on doors or to go phone banking,” he said. Games incorporating augmented reality “could be a … useful way to make it a more enjoyable, fun experience no matter where you are physically.” Augmented-reality apps turn a politician’s historically one-way messaging into a two-way approach allowing constituents to weigh in on the issues and set their government representative’s priorities, panelists said. Average people could use apps to geo tag potholes in need of repair, for example, said Hurley.

Augmented-reality apps are only as good as the content that’s conveyed, said John Craig, PurpleForce marketing vice president. “Engagement will not occur in your constituency base … unless you have very good content to start with,” he said. “Focus on the content,” and then go to technology vendors to build the channels, he said. Hurley agreed: “You have to have something that’s compelling, and that something has to be your content."

Good data also is vital to reaching the right people in the mobile space, said Lira. As with other media, it’s important to assess whether the cost-per-vote is worth it, said Hurley. “It’s all about the return on investment,” he said. “You can’t just do things because they're cool.”