Mr. Stone’s group worked with the City of Atlanta to identify 30 undercounted local census tracts, and then used geolocation data to identify phones in the areas. Advocacy Data delivered census ads to apps on the devices, including the Weather Channel, Pandora, Sudoku, the soccer app Futbol24 and the translation app Reverso.
The ads appeared in the language selected in the phones’ settings — information made available to Advocacy Data when users opted in on the apps. The targeting technology is similar to what grocery stores use to track customers’ preferred aisles, Mr. Stone said.
In the first week, clicks on the Advocacy Data ads resulted in 3,210 calls to the Atlanta census office, culminating in 1,010 completed census responses and a cost to the city of $19.20 per response. Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, estimates that each completed census response will bring $2,300 in annual federal funding to Georgia.
Advocacy Data is now running similar campaigns in Erie County, Pa. (where many ads are being delivered in Arabic), and New Jersey. Targeted ads are also starting in Howard County, Md. (with ads in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese), and Delaware.
Other efforts have been more analog, and often free.
In Sioux Center, Iowa, the city paid to print brochures that were sent out with school sack lunches in the spring and summer. Census liaisons like Maggie Landegent sometimes volunteered to show up at school registration and open house nights last month and to solicit help from local landlords, library employees and medical centers.
“There’s an understanding communitywide of why this matters,” Ms. Landegent said.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/business/media/2020-census-advertising.html
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