In
2016, 69 million Millennials were eligible to vote. Almost the same amount as Baby Boomers.
Source:
Pew Research Center
But,
only 34 million Millennials voted, versus 48 million Baby Boomers. That's 49% of eligible Millennial voters
versus 69% of eligible Boomers. (Fry, 2017)
Perhaps it is because Boomers were raised to believe that voting was their civic duty.
Perhaps it is because Boomers were raised to believe that voting was their civic duty.
So,
the obvious question is - how do we get more Millennials to vote?
One
way is to help people make a concrete plan.
That increased voting by 4.1%.
But
telling them that they and their neighbors would be informed about who voted
after the election resulted in a 8.1% increase.
The
biggest increase came from those that identified with the tribe in answering
the question - how important is it to you to be a voter? Framing the issue based on self-identity versus
action - i.e. "How important is it
to you to vote?" increased turnout by 10.9%. (Syal & Ariely, 2016)
Another
option being explored is text messaging.
According to a study from Simmons, 51% of Millennials are willing to
share their mobile number for a good reason and the opportunity to help others. SMS has a 98% open rate, and 83% of the
messages are read within three minutes of delivery. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used the texting app
Relay to help her win her Democratic primary. While, Bernie Sanders used it to organize
volunteers in 2016. (Pavelcsyk, 2018)
But
perhaps the most intriguing approach is gamifying. Tonight, Samantha Bee is launching a new live
mobile game similar in style to HQ Trivia.
Each day there will be 10 questions and those who answer correctly will
split a cash prize. There will be prizes
for registering to vote and finding your polling place. And, they have big plans for National Voter
Registration Day (9/25) and Halloween - of course - because the idea won't work
if the game isn't fun. (Weprin, 2018)
So. Why do you think helping people make a plan
increases turnout? Why would sharing
their voting patterns be even more effective?
And why is getting people to identify themselves as voters the most
successful of these three approaches?
Will
you share your mobile number for a good cause?
How do you feel about marketing via text? Are you receiving marketing messages via text
now? Are you responding? Is cause marketing different than other
marketing?
Finally,
what do you think of the gamifying idea?
Do you like games? Will you play
this one? Do you think others will?
At the
end of the day, which of these approaches do you think will be most successful
and why?
9/13/18
update: The game launched and promptly crashed last night. More here...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/samantha-bee-app-gamify-midterms-crashed_us_5b9a0eb7e4b05092ceed2ecd
Fry, R. (2017,
July 31) Millennials and Gen Xers
outvoted Boomers and older generations in 2016 election. pewresearch.org Retrieved September 11, 2018, from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-and-gen-xers-outvoted-boomers-and-older-generations-in-2016-election/
Syal,
S. & Ariely, D. (2016, September 1)
How Science Can Help Get Out the Vote.
scientificamerican.com Retrieved September 11, 2018, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-science-can-help-get-out-the-vote/
Pavelcsyk,
J. (2018, September 7) Politics With
Purpose: Mobilizing Millennials Beyond Likes And Shares. mediapost.com. Retrieved September 11, 2018, from https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/324809/politics-with-purpose-mobilizing-millennials-beyo.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline&utm_campaign=110842&hashid=qPjrjs2d4CzuoIyymSYheeVOsxs
Weprin,
A. (2018, September 11) TBS' Samantha
Bee Hopes Streaming Mobile Game Will Drive Viewers To Vote. mediapost.com. Retrieved September 11, 2018, from https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/324811/tbs-samantha-bee-hopes-streaming-mobile-game-will.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=readnow&utm_campaign=110901&hashid=uqqx0UvOI-Dz9SmOVzBACoNyK8k
6 comments:
Identifying and recruiting voters is very important because the government affects every single person in the world whether you’re a peasant or you’re you come from the wealthiest family. All voters have different views, opinions, struggles and want someone who is appealing and serves to all their needs and wants. They want someone who cares and is there to lead and not be a tyrant. I also think that marketing via tex is not so professional because people enjoy nice creative emails with pictures or videos. That appeals to the eye and raises the chances of persuasion. I am not receiving marketing messages via text now which is maybe why I am against because I thinks it’s not useful.
Gamifying ideas is an on-hand interactions where consumers are able to interact with each other and choose what they think is right thus leading to their views. HQ is a great game and it entices people to win money. I personally had the app for a couple of months and I really enjoyed it.
Gamifying is the best idea because the customer interacts with a game but also interacts with ads at the same time.
Facilitating the formation of a voting plan increases voters turnout because it mentally prepares and educates the voters on the processes they will follow during the voting day. Sharing their voting patterns would be more effective because the majority of people would not like to be left behind as others share their experiences. And since they would like to participate in sharing their pattern, they would feel obliged to take part in voting and this would definitely increase the turnout. Lastly, getting people to identify themselves is very important because, at first, people are educated on the need to vote, secondly, it makes them feel responsible for their future and this means that they would like to have a future leader whom they feel will meet their needs and to get that leader, they will have to vote.
I would comfortably share my contacts for a good cause. I like the idea of marketing via text messages. It is easy, quicker and a direct way of reaching the target customers. Besides that it is trackable and a person can easily reach the clients. I have received several marketing text messages and they are always informative. I have responded to several and even on several occasions used them when I needed the services or the products they advertised. I did not have to strain and spend time looking for products whose information I had received through text messages.
Generally, I am not a fun of games so most likely I will not play this one. However, I know most Millennials are fun of games and will certainly play this one. I am however skeptical about its effect will it really bring people to vote? Maybe yes and maybe no, but one thing that I am sure about is that it is a good platform to educate people.
Text messaging I think would be the most successful. One it is cost-effective, secondly the messages get to the citizens almost immediately and as proven by research, 83% of the messages are read within 3 minutes and lastly, citizens do not have to participate in any way to get the reminders, they get at the comfort of their coaches.
Yue Feng.
The fact that only 49% of eligible Millennial would like to vote is shocking. I believe it is so necessary for U.S. government to encourage eligible Millennial to vote. The three solutions to this problem are really involved with the behavior and psychology of Millennial.
The solution, helping people make a plan, increases the turnout because it decreases the difficulty of voting and provides people more motivates to vote. People who never vote may be influenced by this solution.
The method, sharing others voting pattern, is one of the six methods of persuasion, consensus. People were influenced by others who are similar to them. Telling one that his neighbors have voted can lead him to vote too.
What’s more, making people realize the importance of voting is the way like consistency. People would vote because they want to vote, and it is like a public commitment to them.
Marketing message via text could be an efficient way to increase the turnout because this method can reach our target, the eligible Millennial, easier and quicker than other methods. Also, it is a relatively cost-effective method.
As for gamifying Idea, I don’t think it is effective. Well, I like games but only the well-designed games. I usually play the mobile games for fun instead of the cash prizes, which sounds like the advertisements. If the game is not fun and popular. It can hardly reach our target Millennial.
Guo Yu
I believe making concrete plans no matter in what aspect, it will increase the follow through rate. I know myself I hate backing out of something I have planned ahead. I also facilitates the task if you know when, where and how.
Sharing voting patterns and letting people know that your neighbor is voting uses the consensus persuasion technique that Cialdini coined. This also creates a sense of community as well as social obligation that could be a strong motivation. But perhaps most important is the shame that non voters might feel, this because of the same analogy that we talked about with the weight loss experience. Scaring people seem to be a winning concept.
I believe that getting people to identify themselves as voters is the most successful approach because 1. The shame of not voting is eliminated and 2. Voters take pride in having an identity as a voter (especially Gen Z like to feel a strong sense of identity)
I would probably share my mobile number for a good cause, I am however not sure where I stand on marketing via text because I think that is an invasion of my privacy. I already get a lot of marketing emails. Although it would grab my attention better, I use text messages to communicate with my friends and family and think I prefer marketing efforts to stay out of that forum. I believe cause marketing has both differences and similarities to other marketing efforts. The main goal in marketing is to create a bond and relationship with a customer, which I believe is true for both cause marketing and other marketing. However, I do believe that cause marketing is more transparent than other marketing. Other from that the differences are small in my eyes.
I think the gamifying idea is a smart way to get millennials and Gen Z more involved. Like we learned in the reading this week, Gen Z in particular likes marketing where they can participate. So this is perfect for them. And according to the Huff post article, the game was even too popular for it’s own good. Granted, that could be because of a cash price. If the game is not stimulating or relatable enough, it could potentially have a short-lived time of fame.
If you look to the research the most effective approach is to get people to showcase their identity, or even question their identity. Shaming people into doing something sounds pretty bad, but probably is a pretty good way to influence voters. As I learned from the reading, Gen Z is very proud of their identity and making them more self-aware of their identity as a voter could be very successful.
In my opinion, Government should really take some actions. First of all, forcing schools to conduct relevant courses to educate students. In addition, make students aware of voting and why it is important for them to vote. 1. Exercise civil rights 2. Vote for their own belief. Second, I think it's a good way to make some advertisement online, in this way there will be more and more young adult, using social medias very often, figure out the voting. Not only on some social meads, but also on the streets. The more people see the ads the more they will be aware of. Third, government can form some organization forcing people to vote. For example, a department called voting education can be formed in a community or a school. In another word, make voting compulsory. After talking about the voters, I think one the other hand have more diverse background people from the electors is also very significant.
Overall, it's quite important for people to be aware of voting.
1. Why do you think helping people make a plan increases turnout?
With how chaotic our lives are, it only makes sense to plan it out as much as possible (within reason). By assisting voters to make a plan to vote by helping them have their polling location and hours or sending reminders through optional forms of communication, is a way to make sure we actually do it, like checking off a to-do list.
2. Why would sharing their voting patterns be even more effective?
By informing individuals of others participation, it could help raise awareness for the need to get more voters (if the turnout is low and they care about the matter), or by making them have a want to participate if they see others do it.
3. And why is getting people to identify themselves as voters the most successful of these three approaches?
If individuals make it clear they are frequent voters, than maybe there can be a way to reduce communication with them (to an extent) so they are not spammed. Also, it goes back to offering them a way to participate and be part of a community.
4. Will you share your mobile number for a good cause?
I would, and have in the past.
5. How do you feel about marketing via text?
I don't mind it and it helps, they are like little reminders.
6. Are you receiving marketing messages via text now?
Yes
7. Are you responding?
No, because they are not meant to be replied to in my case.
8. Is cause marketing different than other marketing?
Yes, because usually for-profit is very separated from non-profit sectors when it comes to marketing efforts unless related to CSR.
9. What do you think of the gamifying idea?
Games are fun and if you incorporate a prize who wouldn't want to play. It is a modern twist on marketing which has shown results among the younger generation.
10. Do you like games?
Yes
11. Will you play this one?
Maybe
12. Do you think others will?
Definitely because many people are constantly on their phones and manage to find ways to always be on them.
13. At the end of the day, which of these approaches do you think will be most successful and why?
Having experienced the gamifying approach, I feel this will truly be successful because I have experienced it before in an academic setting and professional setting as is the only way I have seen working for those with short attention spans and in many other situations.
- Andrea Alva-Araya
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