Ted Cruz's campaign relies on 'psychographic targeting' to win over voters
Are you a "relaxed leader," a "stoic traditionalist," a "temperamental conservative," or a "true believer?" Ted Cruz's campaign thinks it has a pretty good idea which category you fit into. According to The Washington Post, Cruz's team is using "psychographic targeting" to win over voters — a kind of science developed by statisticians and behavioral psychologists that tailors campaign messages to individuals based on their psychological labels:
Cruz's campaign reportedly uses data from Facebook, its "Cruz Crew" app, and surveys to build "enhanced voter files" containing data points like a person's magazine subscriptions and food preferences — all of which lead the campaign to create a label for a voter that's similar to a modified Myers-Briggs personality test.
"There is no handbook for this. The conventional wisdom has been destroyed. What you can do is rely on data," Cruz's campaign manager Jeff Roe said.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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