From Politico’s Playbook:

 

FIRST LOOK – “Hill+Knowlton Strategies Launches Influence Point … Hill+Knowlton Strategies [today will launch] a new service called Influence Point … With H+K Influence Point, companies can serve online ads directly to individuals identified as influencers. H+K’s combined research and digital teams have developed a proprietary methodology for identifying universes of financial, media and political influencers. These audiences can then be served display, video and mobile ads. This allows companies to dramatically decrease wasteful spending on large online ad buys targeted at specific audiences, even on the most accredited news sites.

 

The tipsheet then offers a helpful “How It Works” translation:

 

The cookie-based system uses a proprietary algorithm, combined with consumer data, to narrow the number of people who likely influence public policy, would be inclined to buy a financial product, or who work in media. Factors include demography (age, household income), geography (urban, D.C.), and purchasing habits. It’s a corporate application of micro-targeting techniques pioneered by presidential campaigns.

 

H+K provides a slicker, more opaque take here. And Mark McKinnon, “a seasoned political advisor and global vice chair of Hill+Knowlton Strategies,” gilds the lily for The Street:

 

“H+K Influence Point fundamentally shifts how you run influencer-driven campaigns. We can now tailor targeting to the individuals you are trying to reach – creating more efficient advertising that finds the critical super-nodes in our real life social-networks.”

 

Critical super-nodes, eh? Sounds like something they oughta get removed.

 

The bigger issue, though, is how all those big shots will feel about being algorithmed and data-mined this way.

 

Let’s see, in other words, how the influencers like being influenced.

 

 

John R. Carroll is media analyst for NPR's Here & Now and senior news analyst for WBUR in Boston. He also writes at Campaign Outsider and It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.
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