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. With Political/consumer “pleasure points”
To follow up an earlier post, here’s another bit from a recent New Yorker story about consumer behavior and political behavior. A John McCain piece mentions one of his strategists, 37-year-old Steve Schmidt:
At other times, Schmidt comes alive as a sort of political Rain Man. During one back-of-the-bus conversation, he explained that in 2004, when he was working for Bush’s reëlection, “we targeted voters not where they lived but how they lived their lives, in the same way that credit-card companies do.” He went on, “And so we know, for instance, that among independent voters there are life styles and behaviors that identify them as Republicans or Democrats. For example, the GMC Yukon is a Republican vehicle, and Volvos and Subarus are the most Democratic vehicles. Republicans have Fiji water preferences, versus Democrats, who have Evian water preferences. You have a huge grouping of consumer data, so you can micro-target messages to common groups, finding pleasure points and anger points on issues.”
I don’t think it’s any surprise that Volvos are supposedly more Democrat-ish than Republican-ish, but what about that Fiji/Evian split? What’s that about?
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Kim Fellner's book 
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Reader Comments
I can’t find the article, but I remember an NYTimes story from a few years back that said marketing data suggests more Republicans than Democrats buy Volvos. The lede was that pickups are the most popular vehicle among millionaires.
The public-facing search feature does not allow me to search by section, so if I could search just the Autos section, I could probably track it down. :P
Is it this:
link
Fiji for red states and Evian for blue states? Maybe it’s the packaging and product origins… More Republicans identify to exotic islands from their vacations, while Democratics gravitate toward European flavor from their favorite travels? Hmmm. I know, a stretch…. Wonder what brand of bottled water Independents prefer. We’ve got a Suburu in our house, but the bottled water is Trader Joe’s private label (probably filtered tap from Pasadena).