Political App Might Strike Fear Into Advertisers

A smart phone app being released for the US Presidential Election could be the start of something that makes advertisers very nervous in the future.

Using the Super PAC App, US viewers will shortly be able to hold up their smart phones to their TV screens and identify who's behind election commercials.  While watching a political TV ad, they can also rate the ad and learn who and how much money is behind it and the claims it makes.

The app can also link to third party websites where viewers can check to see just how accurate those claims are.

Founders Jennifer Hollett and Dan Siegel hope their app can help viewers make sense of political advertising and bring greater transparency to the 2012 US presidential campaign.

The Super PAC App is being released in time for the Republican Party Convention at which Governor Mitt Romney will be crowned as the Party's Presidential candidate.

Read more here.

Let's see how the app performs on debut in the hothouse of an American election.

Of course if it works for political ads, with a little tweaking here and there it could be made to work for product advertising. 

And with viewers empowered to instantly check the accuracy of what an ad claims, advertisers in Australia and elsewhere are likely to become afraid, very afraid.