Digital strategists say the app more than served its purpose. Mitt VP app needs new purpose

The Romney campaign’s “Mitt’s VP” app said it would make sure supporters were “the first to know” when the candidate chose his running mate.

But the app’s push notification confirming the selection of Paul Ryan told those who had downloaded it seven hours after news outlets started confirming that Romney had picked the Wisconsin lawmaker.


( PHOTOS: Scenes from Romney's running-mate announcement)

Digital strategists say the app more than served its purpose: It gave the Romney campaign the chance to gather contact information from thousands of potential supporters and still sent the notification before Romney made the VP announcement in person.

“The app did exactly what the campaign wanted: They gained excitement around the VP announcement, and from the app they’re able to communicate now with thousands and thousands of people,” said GOP digital strategist Vincent Harris.

News outlets started confirming Ryan as Romney’s VP pick shortly after midnight early Saturday morning.

The app’s push notification went out at about 7 a.m. Saturday , Romney campaign digital director Zac Moffatt said. That was shortly before the campaign sent out a news release officially announcing Ryan as the VP nominee, and two hours before the candidates appeared together in Norfolk, Va.

Moffatt said the app did what it promised to do: It delivered the VP information to voters before the campaign officially confirmed it to reporters in the news release.

“People need to cut the campaign a break a bit,” Harris said. “I got the push notification about an hour before Ryan took the stage — and while some in the mainstream press had reported on the announcement by then, really the announcement was not of Paul Ryan specifically coming from the campaign until about that time.”

It’s also not surprising that reporters confirmed the Ryan news before the app sent the information out to mobile users. In 2008, the media broke the news that Joe Biden was President Barack Obama’s running mate long before the campaign’s text messages went out to supporters.

And giving a heads-up on the identity of Romney’s No. 2 was never really its most important purpose.

“It really paid off for them in terms of capitalizing on the interest in the announcement to get people’s contact info,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican digital strategist with Engage.

Plus, he added, mobile push notifications are a great and fast way to communicate with supporters — something the campaign can continue to do.

“It’s a very powerful way to communicate with people,” he said. “It’s potentially a way for [the Romney campaign] to communicate directly to their best supporters on mobile.”

The Obama campaign’s VP text program in 2008, too, helped it gather thousands of phone numbers — a resource the campaign still uses today.

What’s still unclear is what happens to the Romney app now that its primary purpose — announcing the VP pick — is over.

While Moffatt wouldn’t divulge details about future plans for the app, he said it’s something the campaign is actively working on.

“We’ve said consistently that we have a mobile app strategy,” he said. “Obviously, it wouldn’t make much sense to just leave [the app] as is.”

Harris said the campaign may look to use the app as more of a canvassing and organizing tool.

“I hope that they would kind of shift it a little bit from being social media-centric to being [get out the vote]-centric and allowing users to become their own canvassers,” he said.