1. Data You Can Believe In
By JIM RUTENBERG

2. Big Data
Trip to Vegas …
In 2013, Senior members of President Barack Obama’s campaign team took a trip to Las Vegas.
Analytics Media Group (A.M.G.)
They were there to make money — specifically to land what they hoped
would be the first corporate client for their new advertising business,
Analytics Media Group.

3. Big Data Analytics Media Group (A.M.G.).
Its bland name obscures its relatively grand promise: to deliver to
commercial advertisers some of the Obama campaign’s secret,
technologically advanced formulas for reaching voters.
A Different Type of “Change.”
It was not lost on the Obama strategists that the “change” they were talking
about was not the kind “you can believe in” but rather the kind you can put
In a slot machine. …

4. Big Data Public to private
In a nonpresidential year, no political effort would have the money to
Finance what he described as the “huge R.& D. project” that the Obama
Campaign effectively became. The resources for that kind of project could
now be found only in corporate America. …

5. Big Data 2012 Changed the Political World
The “technology wizards” of the 2012 Obama campaign… “helped produce a
victory that defied a couple of historical predictors; they also developed a
host of highly effective marketing techniques that were either entirely new
Or had never been tried on such a grand scale.”

6. Political Marketing
Market Orientation in Politics: A Partys Orientation is defined by what it gives the public Three Options: 1) Product Approach: In terms of policies, the Party gives the Public what it (the Party) thinks the public should want or need. 2) Sales (Advertising) Approach: In terms of policies, the Party tries to convince the Public to support what the Party believes it needs. 3) Market Approach: In terms of policies, the Party gives the Public what it needs based on the public told them it wants.

7. Party Brands ? Product Approach: Party Policy
No clear connection between what a party does or thinks in terms of policy and what the public needs or wants
Public (Market)

8. Party Brands Sales Approach: Party Policy: One Way
The Party attempts to “sell” or convince the public that it should want (and thus support) a party’s policies, without consulting the public.
Public

9. Party Brands Market Approach: Party Policy: Two Way (Research Driven)
A party has the potential to provide the public what it needs, because it has researched what the public wants.
Public
Implications: Market Approach empowers a party to
respond to the public at the level of wants rather than needs.

10. Party Brands
Market Approach:
Party
Targeting
Public
Frames
Segments

11. Party Brands Market Approach: Party Political Branding
Policy and Promises (Loyalty)
Political Branding
Developing an idea, message, image, party narrative based on keen understanding of what certain market segments wants, and then building loyalty with that segment
Frames: Concerns, Values, Aspirations, Needs
Public
Segments

12. Party Brands Market Approach: Brand Failures Party Policy and Promises
Positioning
If policy/brand fails it can repositioned, or modified to reconnect or reaffirm concerns (frames) of the targeted segments.
Public
Positioning
Segments

13. Party Brands
Market Approach: Policy Example: Republican Party: Health Care
Republican Party
Health Care: Repeal
Political Branding
Developing an idea, message, image, party narrative based on keen understanding of what certain market segments want, and then building loyalty with that segment
Public
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Differentiation:
Not the DemoCRAT…Party; does not response to DemoCRAT voters.

14. Party Brands Market Approach: Republican Party Brand: Public View
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Party Branding
How the public views or experiences the party.
Health Care: Repeal
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Public
Segments

15. Party Brands Market Approach: Republican Party Brand: Party View
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Party Branding
The party brand story becomes the means through the party communicates, interactions and responses to its targeted segments
on specific issues.
Public
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Segments

16. Party Brands Market Approach: Republican Party Brand Republican Party
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Institutionalization?
A party brand story or narrative only works if in fact the party has a story, that is, it has agreed/decided as an institution to cohere around a particular political story.
Public
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Segments

17. Party Brands Market Approach: Republican Party Brand Republican Party
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Family Values, St Def
Republican Institutionalization: The Republican Party has a brand story or narrative:
Small Government
Lower Taxes
Family Values
Strong Defense
Date?
Public
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Segments

18. Party Brands Market Approach: Obama Brand 2008 Obama Obama Brand:
Change, Hope, Audacity, Post-Part/ lnclusion
Obama Brand:
Obama had a brand story or narrative in 2008:
Hope
Change you Can believe in
Public
Responsible govt, community values…
Segments

19. Party Brands Market Approach: Democratic Party? Democratic Party
??????????????
Dem. Party Brand:
The Democratic Party has talked about developing a brand:
2006: Ethical Politics (Rep Culture of Corruption)
Public
Responsible govt, community values…
Segments

20. Party Brands
Market Approach: Democratic Party = Obama Brand: 2010 Elections
Democratic Party
Rec Act, 95% Tax Cut, Obama, Middle-Cl Relief
Dem. Party Brand:
The Democratic Party did try to adopt the Obama brand in 2010 (Economic Policy)
2010:
Recovery Act
95% Tax Cuts
Obama
Middle-Class Tax
Relief
Public
Responsible govt, community values…
Segments

21. Party Brands Market Approach: Democratic Party = Obama Brand?
Institutionalization?
For the brand concept to work, it has be embraced (institutionalized) by the party.
Question:
Did the Dem. Party institutionalize the Obama brand?
Rec Act, 95% Tax Cut, Obama, Middle-Cl Relief
Public
Responsible govt, community values…
Segments

22. Party Brands
Market Approach: Democratic Party = Obama Brand: US Senate 2010
Democratic Party
Rec Act, 95% Tax Cut, Obama, Middle-Cl Relief
Institutionalization?
Leadership (White House, DCCC, DSCC): Yes.
Public
Responsible govt, community values…
Segments

23. Party Brands
Market Approach: Democratic Party = Obama Brand: US Senate 2010
Democratic Party
Institutionalization?
The 19 Democratic candidates running to retain party seats in the US Senate: NO!
Rec Act, 95% Tax Cut, Obama, Middle-Cl Relief
Public
Responsible govt, community values…
Segments

24. Party Brands Market Approach: Republican Party Brand: US Senate 2010
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Family Values, St Def
Republican Institutionalization: The Republican leadership (RNC, NRSC, NRCC) and 18 candidates running to retain party seats in US Senate: YES
Public
Small Govt, Lower Taxes, Personal Choice
Segments

25. Figure 1. Candidate Messaging by Issue: US Senate Election, 2010
94%
88%
76%
Percent
52%
47%
22%
16%

26. 2012: Big Data Changed in the Ad Game
Several of these “technology wizards” … were part of a singular breakthrough in the field of television-ad buying, where about 50 percent of the campaign’s budget was spent, or more than $400 million.
New Approach
The 2012 campaign took advantage of advanced set-top-box monitoring
technology to figure out what shows the voters they wanted to reach were
watching and when, resulting in a smarter and cheaper — if potentially
more invasive — way to beam commercials into their homes.

27. Big Data Big Data and the 2012 Obama Campaign
By mining data, “the campaign literally knew every single wavering voter in
the country that it needed to persuade to vote for Obama, by name,
address, race, sex and income.”
Targeted TV ads
“What’s more… the campaign had figured out how to get its
television advertisements in front of them with a previously inconceivable
level of knowledge and accuracy.”

28. Big Data Source of Data: Ask Voters Directly (2008)
In the Bush era, strategists boasted about how they could predict voter
behavior based upon car and sport preferences, a well-publicized bit of
political magic that captured the imaginations of politicians and journalists
alike.
Wagner’s approach, part of a broader move in politics, cut all of that
out; why engage in such divination when you have the time and money to
just call voters and ask them about their leanings directly?

29. Big Data Source of Data: Ask Voters Directly
In 2008, Wagner and his small team combined information from those calls with any other data they could find — census data, state voter lists and the like — and fed it into algorithms that produced support scores.
Scoring Voters: 0 to 100
One source ranked how likely swing-state voters were to support Obama on
a scale of 0 to 100, and another ranked how likely they were to show up at
voting booths. Those scores helped the campaign direct resources toward
the right voters, and Obama beat John McCain by 7 percentage points.

30. Big Data Does Big Data work?
There were skeptics within the Democratic Party, until the 2010 Senate Special Election in Massachusetts when the big data programs and algorithms predicted Democratic candidate Martha Coakley would lose.

31. Big Data The Evolutionary Jump: Determining “Persuasion Scores”
A newly robust and reliable “persuasion score” that identified how easily
individual undecided voters could be persuaded to vote for or against the
Democrat in a race, based on how likely they were to show shifts in their
preferences in telephone interviews conducted over time.

32. Big Data Obama, Big Data and the 2012 Presidential Election
Obama in Trouble: A Fifth of 2008 Vote now Undecided
Joel Benenson, the president’s national pollster, conducted a “benchmark” poll that had some sobering results. Roughly a fifth of Obama’s 2008 vote had shifted into the undecided column.

33. Big Data Obama, Big Data and the 2012 Presidential Election
Obama Facebook Strategy: Target Undecided Voters
Why not try sifting through self-described supporters’ Facebook pages in search of friends who might be on the campaign’s list of the most persuadable voters?
Goal of the Program: Deputize Supporters on Facebook
The campaign’s ultimate goal was to deputize the closest Obama- supporting friends of voters who were wavering in their affections for the president.
Example: Tagged Photos
What is in a tag?

34. Big Data Obama, Big Data and the 2012 Presidential Election
Obama ad strategy: Right Ad in Front of the Right Person
For instance, a campaign may need to win over those 5 percent of independent, female, likely voters who are still undecided, but there is no separate ratings category for them, no precise way to know which shows they are watching.