US ad tech firm claims role in coalition’s May 11 victory

A Louisville, Kentucky, US company claimed that it had a hand in defeating a 23-year incumbent president in Guyana. El Toro LLC, a local advertising technology company, was hired to help with digital strategy to elect David Granger, a retired army chief, as the South American country’s new President in May.

US ad tech firm, El Toro claims role in coalition’s May 11 victory.

Though it’s not El Toro’s first political race, it is the first time the Louisville startup was hired for an international election, said Marty Meyer, Vice President of political campaigns and corporate outreach. El Toro has patented an algorithm that maps physical households with Internet addresses, allowing the company to precisely deliver online advertisements to specific IP addresses. (The company is featured as one of Louisville’s coolest office spaces in today’s weekly edition of Business First.) El Toro was hired by Brad Goodman, a political consultant for the Granger campaign, with whom the company has previously worked on American elections. Meyer said that campaigns usually target undecided voters with mail pieces or door knockers. El Toro does the same thing, but the efforts were online. For the cost of a mailer, the company can deliver 40 to 50 times the information to a home. “We’re the only people on the planet right now that can deliver the digital with such granularity,” he said. Meyer said the race was a long shot because of the incumbent’s two-decade hold on the government. In addition, the media are government-controlled in Guyana, so the campaign had no access to advertise on TV or radio. Meyer said it’s the first time Guyanese people have seen political banner ads, which added a novel aspect to the campaign. With more than half of Guyanese using mobile devices, El Toro also incorporated Facebook advertising and targeted mobile devices, according to a news release. “We implemented a multi-layered campaign and delivered several million impressions to reach voters across the entire country,” Stacy Griggs, president and CEO of El Toro, said in the release. “President Granger and his team were very digitally savvy and knew that online outreach, especially to the youth of Guyana, would be critical to winning the election.” Mayer said about 30 percent of El Toro’s business is political elections. Last year, El Toro was contracted in 426 campaigns in the United States, and it helped win 82 percent of those elections. El Toro currently employs 15 at its offices in Distillery Commons. Recently, it opened a one-person Australian office in Melbourne, where David Harry, CEO of El Toro Asia Pacific, works. (bizjournals.com)