The Politics Of Your Pandora Station

Of the billions of dollars that will be spent in this year's elections, the majority will go toward advertising, and as the huge demand for air time pushes up the cost of TV commercials, many groups are turning to a new technological frontier: Pandora Internet Radio.

"When you combine audio, video, and display ads--it's a powerful format," says J.D. Schlough, a Democratic digital media consultant tells Seth Cline at US News & World Report.  "That's part of what makes Pandora unique."

Unlike most Internet display ads, Pandora's ads make impressions upon users who, even if only listening passively, cannot avoid an ad simply by looking away. Pandora also has more than 150 million registered users and in many places is the most listened-to radio station. But perhaps the biggest reason Pandora attracts political types is targeting – political campaigns can customize which listeners hear what ads based on where they live, how old they are, and even what type of music they listen to.

"On Pandora we know exactly who our audience is, so if you're trying to reach moms, the D.C. area, or young people in Ohio, we can do that," says Francisca Fanucchi, a spokeswoman for Pandora. When users sign up for Pandora, they give their ZIP code, gender, date of birth, and E-mail address, all of which are used for targeting purposes, Fanucchi says.

This customization makes Pandora ideal for microtargeting, a strategy used by political groups to identify very specific types of potential voters--like "liberal leaning post-graduate singles" or "middle-aged commuters near Philadelphia"--by mining large amounts of data such as credit card records and Internet histories.

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