The effect of an election campaign supported by augmented reality on voter preference

Political marketing benefits widely from marketing in order to be adapted in a new political context and mobilize social and political dynamics. In addition to that, the main aim of this study is to discover the effects of election campaigns which are supported by Augmented Reality (AR) applications on the voter preferences through mobile AR applications which are used for marketing. Political marketing is a multifaceted organization with an effort to enlarge voter's share, systematic and constant marketing, strong communicative action, and the tones of political communication. This study is supported with quantitative analysis derived from face to face surveys which were conducted with 300 volleyball referee and observer affiliated with Turkish Volleyball Federation. Furthermore, a qualitative analysis was applied to 10 people who have a high sense of AR. It is concluded that election campaigns which are supported with AR applications relatively effective on voter's behavior. Voters' inclining towards AR can be best explained by its rarity and relatively new usage of it in the political marketing field. Findings also indicate that political contents enriched with AR need improvement. Integration of AR into political communication field yielded a positive outcome on users and determined the direction of emotional value. When it comes to applications' ease of use, it is concluded that a political campaign supported with AR has a positive perceived value and will be internalized in a short period of time.