With an average of over 130,000 new designs uploaded every week, CafePress is often seen as a Cultural Barometer®. The Meter graphs track merchandise sales trends for each presidential candidate and believes that how people spend money on political merchandise says a lot about a candidate’s supporters and the way they will vote.
· On the last day of the DNC Obama tagged merchandise sales had spiked 5X as compared to his average daily sales the 30 days prior.
· Romney tagged merchandise sales only increase by 2.5X on the last night of the RNC as compared to his average daily sales the 30 days prior.
· Did Obama move the meter after his speech at the DNC – you bet he did. Last week Pro-Obama saw 57 percent of weekly sales, Romney came in at 38 percent with Johnson dipping to 5 percent. Week over week this accounts for a 21 point drop for Romney and a 24 point gain for Obama.
Over the last two weeks, CafePress has also seen several trending topics come to life via customer creations. How voters respond to particular memes or slogans is another interesting way to look at anticipated political behavior:
· Eastwooding
· Empty Chair
· I Built That
· Arithmetic