Microsoft Wants To Run More Political Campaign Ads On Xbox

You know those ads that you ignore on your Xbox dashboard? President Obama used them as part of his re-election campaign in 2012, and with midterm elections on the horizon, Microsoft is doing its best to try to convince more politicians that these spots are ideal places to run targeted campaign and other political ads.

The Washington Post reports that Microsoft was pushing the idea on political movers and/or shakers at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

Microsoft would take the demographic info it has gleaned about various Xbox Live users and use that info to give political advertisers the ability to send highly targeted ads to the users most likely to care about a certain candidate, campaign, or issue.

The advertisers would also be able to match up its own list of e-mail addresses with those of Xbox Live users, thus all but guaranteeing that the intended target will receive the ad.

The Post reports that Microsoft, which is also trying to sell campaigns on its other properties like Skype and MSN, is trying to make advertisers aware that 38% of its 25 million registered U.S. Xbox Live users are female, a demographic that has gone largely ignored in this method of advertising delivery, but which is often very important in determining election results.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.