How Inline Communications Won it for Obama
Weber Shandwick European CEO, Colin Byrne discusses how Barack Obama's strategic use of digital and 'inline' communications played a central role in his historic campaign victory, highlighting valuable lessons that the PR industry must take on board in an attempt to harness the power of digital advocacy.
It is undeniable that we live in an ‘online’ era- where the world of digital has infiltrated almost every aspect of our being and is beginning to dictate the way we live our day-to-day lives. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign details exactly that, and highlights how an effective use of inline communications and digital strategy can transfer the online advocates of today, into real-time votes, influential enough to bring revolutionary and well-needed change to the world’s most powerful nation. As Guardian’s blog editor, Kevin Anderson quite rightly stated, this is ‘the first election the internet won’.
As Weber Shandwick’s own, Chief Digital Creative Officer, James Warren has also noted in a recent article, Obama’s digital strategy and the seamless convergence of online and offline communications highlight’s an important lesson that the public relations industry is beginning to learn. Online advocacy has revolutionised the communications campaigns of the modern world and should make everyone sit up and take note as it affects not only the politically inquisitive amongst us, but also the seemingly apathetic individuals.
Here is a brief look at what they did and how they did it:
They created a campaign brought to you by “you”:
Obama’s campaign focused heavily on the personal touch, making its theme all about “you” and not “I”. As a direct result of this empowering message over 3 million people were compelled to make personal donations to ‘team Obama’, many of whom gave less than $100. This powerful personalisation mobilised the masses, creating active advocates who were willing to help deliver the message and get out the vote. John McCain, who claimed not to use the ‘net’, subsequently lost a large majority of the under 30 vote.
As we all know, when it comes to an electoral campaign, millions is spent on developing what is considered to be a powerful brand image. Take the Tories for example, and their ‘interesting’ new oak tree logo or Labour’s easily recognisable rose emblem. Obama on the other hand, allowed his supporters to customise his logo in order to make it personal to their individual understanding of his message and ideologies. The most prominent example of this was the Artists for Obama, a collective of designers who put their stamp on the Obama brand through original t-shirt and poster design. The ability of team Obama to loosen the reigns and lose control allowed them to not only gain an insight into the creative minds of the nation, but also gain those well needed votes in the polls.
Met people where they were:
Many would claim that social networking sites have no real place in the political arena and, regardless of their mass audiences appeal (notably a young audience); those numbers will never be transferred into votes. Obama, however, proved the skeptics wrong entirely. By setting up an online presence on both large social networks – such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, but also niche networks such as LinkedIn, BlackPlanet, GLEE, Eons and MiGente – he expanded his potential audience and expanded his reach to communities across a wider social landscape. Again, this is a powerful medium that politicians and communication campaigns have yet to be effectively on such an epic scale.
Listened as much as they talked with social media:
As we all know, there is a tendency for politicians to prefer the sound of their own voices more than those of their constituents and supporters, but the key to Obama’s success was that he used social media not just to talk to supporters, but to talk with them. As a result some supporters with good ideas and suggestions even made the transition from social media supporter to paid staff.
With over 2 million Facebook supporters alone, they had no choice but to listen to the community if they were to maintain this support and attempt to transfer it into results in the voting polls. It also made it substantially easier to ask for help when they needed it most.
Fought myths and rumours head on:
If there was one piece of advice that all politicians and PR practitioners should use as their personal mantra it would be ‘learn from other peoples mistakes’, and that’s exactly what team Obama did. Not wanting to see a repeat of the 2004 John Kerry “swift boat” controversy, they knew that misinformation must be responded to quickly and forcefully before it escalated and spiraled out of control. By utilizing fact checking microsites such as www.fightthesmears.com fact and www.healthplanfacts.org to detail policy specifics, electorates were able to check their facts and team Obama were able to set the record straight, ensuring that there was always an equal dose of accurate information to cancel out the negative content. They also used search advertising as a rapid response tactic by buying up negative phrases such as “Barack Obama birth certificate” or “Barack Obama is a Muslim,” which clicked through to a page that debunked the myth and gave details on his Christian faith.
Leveraged the power of video:
We can all only imagine just how costly a nationwide electoral campaign can be in a small country such as the UK (Labour were said to have spent in excess of £15.2 million on the 2005 election campaign), so just imagine the inconceivable amount spent in a super-states such as the US, particularly where advertising is concerned. This is where the online video sharing facility, YouTube came to play a substantial role, providing Barack Obama with over 14,548,809 hours of free advertising; the equivalent of $46 million.
Not only were millions users tuning in to watch ‘The Obama song’ but also viewing footage of live events, creating mini documentaries and circulating campaign ads that never aired on American television. Essentially, these served as rapid response messaging ads for online and TV news consumption.
Built a mobile campaign for use on the ground:
As we all know, picking up your phone to hear an automated, robot-like voice, spouting out a generic, lackluster message, has never met with the warmest of responses, therefore the utility of mobile messaging was hailed as the next big thing in personalising campaign messages and targeting individual households. Team Obama managed to compile a mobile phone database of over 3 million phone numbers which acted as valuable tool in the swing states, and can continue to be a useful communication tactic for the new Administration.
If you couldn’t before see how the public relations industry could learn a lesson or two from effective and strategic political campaigning, I’m sure you now can! Although these strategies will continue to evolve as the digital landscape change, many of these tactics can easily be applied to the communications efforts that we, in the industry undertake on a daily basis. The importance of digital reputation and the power of the online community is one that is often underestimated and can result in a loss of communication with key audiences and influencer groups. This is something that all PR practitioners should never forget; as an industry based so distinctly on how best to target specific audience groups in exciting and innovative ways would be committing social suicide if it were ignore the success stories such as Obama’s. If we are to continue to expand on the recent successes of the Public Relations industry and to build on its solid reputation, we must ensure that we continue to create and influence advocates in every imaginable way and through every conceivable medium.
The ability to tap into this source and create a faultless ‘inline’ convergence can be the difference between a major campaign loss and an epic historical victory. That is why echoes of Obama’s message of ‘change we need’ and!’ yes we can!’ will resonate in the minds of the masses for years to come and why McCain’s is likely slowly fade into silent insignificance.
