Xaxis Politics makes APAC debut with Philippines elections

Arshan Saha, vice president of Xaxis SEA, said that knowing someone’s political affiliation is crucial for campaigns looking to reach reliable or persuadable voters.

“Xaxis Politics provides that critical advantage to political advertisers to target voters in real time; which is a dream for any politician,” he added. “Political advertisers will also be able to know which audiences are most interested in which issues.”

Scheduled to take place on 9 May, election campaigning in the Philippines kicked off on 9 February, with four presidential aspirants seeking the mandate to succeed Benigno Aquino, who is a popular leader but is prevented by the constitution from running for a second term.

Powered by Xaxis’s proprietary data management platform (DMP), Turbine, the offering is touted to enable advertisers to engage with voters based on a multitude of hot-button issues, political affiliations and other demographic information.

This means that political candidates can reach their most relevant voters across display, mobile, online video, digital radio, connected TV and social media. Campaigns can be locally focused or nationally scaled across digital inventory.

Laurent Goirand, head of digital at GroupM Philippines, said that knowing where, how, why and what voters are talking and getting concerned about is the crux of every politicians’ campaign.

“These insights not only help them communicate their messages effectively, but also craft the right message to the right demographic in a crowded digital space,” he added.

The insights and data exclusive to Xaxis and GroupM were collated from joint research in Philippines to identify and analyse the different segments in demographics that were skewed to each presidential candidate.

Besides using Turbine data, a survey targeting both in-country and overseas working Filipinos was conducted to further understand voter sentiments and behaviours.

Xaxis Politics was first launched in the United States for the 2016 presidential elections, billed as the first “targeted political advertising solution to reach voters across all digital channels without utilising personally identifiable information.”

“We have seen some very good results from campaigns that have ran,” said Saha. “We have taken that success and learnings and adapted it for the Philippines presidential elections, and we cannot wait to see the results.”