Presidential Hopefuls Sell Swag, Collect Data

“A campaign store is a very significant piece of a modern political campaign,” said Dale Emmons, president of the American Association of Political Consultants. Buy an item from a campaign store, and you are not actually purchasing a product; you are making a donation.

According to Federal Election Commission regulations, candidates are not allowed to sell items for personal profit, so the product is the “premium” you get in return for your pledge. As a result, when you put, say, a T-shirt or a coffee cup in your cart and go to checkout, you will, besides being asked for your full name, shipping address, phone and e-mail, be met with the statement, “federal law requires us to collect the following information”: employer, occupation and whether you are retired. So far, so like any other online donation. But when retail is involved, a little something extra is, too: personal preferences at a level beyond candidate. The choice of a product can reveal whether you are a beer drinker, a sports fan or what cellphone you use. It can suggest that there are a lot of joggers headquartered in a specific region of the country, indicating that a campaign may want to direct its health communications to that state; or that you really, really, hate the other guy. It can reveal that you have a baby, or at least are close to someone who has a baby. While the money is nice, the information is invaluable. “It’s all about learning who your supporter base is,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of the NPD Group. “How do they live? What are their trigger points? What words resonate with them? It’s worth its weight in gold, in the political arena just like the consumer arena. We call it demographic profiling, because voter profiling sounds like a dirty word, but that’s what it is.”