THE REAL LESSONS OF THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

THE REAL LESSONS OF THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

In the weeks leading up to and following the 2012 presidential election... much has been said about the strategies and tactics employed by both parties

We learned something new about those we are looking to reach... Romney won a larger percentage of the white vote than any Republican since 1988and still lost badly. WE ARE A DIVERSE NATION. Ignore this at your peril. Just like candidates, companies need to understand the changing face of america and adapt their communications accordingly.

This time, we are seeing a data-driven election Those with the most data and the ability to digest it, will be able to pull ahead from their competition. The nominee who was outspent on TV was not, in fact, out-advertised. In the way it used research, this was a campaign like no other It s a big change for a culture that historically has relied on consultants, experts and gurulike intuition. From the beginning, [Obama s] campaign manager Jim Messina had promised a totally different, metric-driven kind of campaign in which politics was the goal but political instincts might not be the means. TV is where you look for the persuadable voter, and the Internet is what you use to mobilize your base. Erika Franklin Fowler, director of the Wesleyan University Media Project The national exit polls tell the story. Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the population. Their share of the vote expanded from 9% in 2008 to 10% in this election. The president won 67% of the vote four years ago. He increased that to 71% this year. In the past, there was limited money and unlimited airtime. Now there is unlimited money and limited airtime. Rick Wilson, Republican Strategist In the last few weeks, Romney changed his 2012 slogan to Real change. Day one. That was also a mistake because it just confused voters about what he stood for.

1. Values and Demographics What unites people on the inside is not what differentiates them on the outside But The Three Insights that really made the difference 2. All Relationships Are Local Even digital 3. Brand as Tiebreaker When the race is a tie, brand always triumphs

1. Values AND Demographics People Don t Buy What You Do. They Buy Why You Do It. Data Points Don t Vote, People Do. Obama delineated Romney s blind spots by occupying the ground the governor never couldthe realm of human experience. You need to connect to the heart, not just the head. Exit polls indicate that Romney s arguments on the economy were as effective as Obama s, if not more. But Obama won the contest of connecting emotionally, walloping Romney on the question of which candidate cares about people like me. Romney s tragedy was to embrace Rick Santorum s views on issues of gay marriage and contraception instead of embracing family, which is a core value among millennials. Super PAC ads often were so transparent in their motives that they rendered themselves ineffective For instance a 40-ish white woman at her kitchen table sighing about how ineffective Obama has been......in contrast, Super PAC ads going after Romney were more effective since they showed actual workers (or convincing versions of actual workers) who were angry about being laid off because of Romney s work at Bain Capital. Super PACs supporting Mitt Romney poured millions into swing states to convince voters that voting for Obama and other Democrats would be against their self-interest. However, many of these ads were crude and insulted the intelligence of targeted voters.

1. Values AND Demographics Culturally Resonant > Culturally Relevant To be frank, we re a party in a world. Chuck Warren, GOP Strategist Relevance Makes the Connection. Relatability Makes the Sale. The Spanish ads were mostly translated versions of Romney s English-language ads, tweaked to include references to his father s Mexican heritage and Soy Mitt Romney sign-off at the end. Obama s campaign produced nine unique ads focusing on abortion and 38 unique ads in Spanish compared to the Romney campaign s one and 18. Obama Obama emails were more finely tuned to digitally savvy consumers. I ll Be Damned was the subject line of a September email from Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, rejoicing that his Obama had out-raised Romney in August. Romney If you look at the typical Romney email, it s standard political letterhead, copyheavy, and lengthy. It feels like a direct mail letter. It s where we were with email 10 years ago. Kara Trivunovic, VP of Marketing Services, StrongMail Lena Dunham, star of HBO series Girls, creates a viral video about her first time votingwith references to losing her virginity. Simpsons C. Montgomery Burns, titan of corporate capitalism, endorses Romney the most effective spot of the 2012 campaign. Ace Metrix, a company that analyzes TV advertising Joss Whedon, director of The Avengers, releases a video warning of zombie apocalypse under Romney.

2. ALL RELATIONSHIPS ARE LOCAL Don t Just Talk Local. Be Local. Obama opened 800 field offices three times as many as Romney. Likes Create an Audience. Shares Create Participants. Instead of exploring social media for novelty s sake, the Obama team followed the data and then determined where to spend its money. As one number cruncher on the team told Time: Why did we put Barack Obama on Reddit? Because a whole bunch of our turnout targets were on Reddit. Romney Volunteer callers were met with angry hangups and answering machines just as much as actual voters on the other end of the line. It was a voter contact system that favored quantity over quality. At the same time, the campaign s door-to-door canvassing effort was heavily reliant on fired-up but untrained volunteers. Obama Obama organizers, meanwhile, had been deeply embedded in small towns and big cities for years, focusing their persuasion efforts on person-to-person contact. The more nuanced data they collected, often with handwritten notes attached, were synced nightly with their prized voter database in Chicago. In the final weeks of the campaign, people who had downloaded an app were sent messages with pictures of their friends in swing states. They were told to click a button to automatically urge those targeted voters to take certain actions, such as registering to vote, voting early or getting to the polls. Roughly 1 in 5 people contacted by a Facebook pal acted on the request... because the message came from someone they knew. Beyoncé makes her Instagram debut

2. ALL RELATIONSHIPS ARE LOCAL Data Shapes the Story. Local Frames the Experience. Global Strategy Local Execution Obama s campaign used a data system called the Optimizer to determine what likely and undecided voters were watching on television They also made sure not to waste money on people who were already firmly decided. We could [predict] people who were going to give online. We could model people who were going to give through mail. We could model volunteers. One of Obama s senior advisers on the predictive profiles built by the data Obama s top campaign aides sought out an East Coast celebrity who had appeal among the same demographic, aiming to replicate the millions of dollars produced by the Clooney contest And so the next Dinner with Barack contest was born: a chance to eat at Sarah Jessica Parker s West Village brownstone. If Republican leaders think of technology at all, they think top-down (lists) and broadcasting (alternate media). They aren t wrong to think of these things: they re just leaving oh so much on the table: it s kind of like using your ipad as a hammer, or perhaps only using it to play Pong. We had to build a plane while flying it, so we were constantly learning new things. Zac Moffatt, Romney s campaign Digital Director, National Constitution Center The longer you re analyzing data the smarter the data becomes over time The potent combination of data from social media and its email list enabled the Obama campaign to build a profile of potential voters and frame a compelling get-out-the-vote message, both online and off the grid.

3. BRAND AS TIEBREAKER Brand Counts from the Start. And Brand Message Must Be Consistent. Once you ve been defined negatively, it s very hard to come back... Obama s campaign spent money early and defined Romney as that Bain guy who took over companies and made millions. Romney never got out from under the Bain rock. The fall campaign is like Etch A Sketch. You can shake it up and we start all over again. Eric Fehrnstrom, Senior Aide to Romney This statement would haunt the Romney camp for the rest of the campaign as proof of Romney s flip-flopping on issues. 21 Moments That Defined the Campaign Obama s [campaign] was... historic for the sophistication of its targeting through both message and placement Obama s campaign ultimately won the air war by... deploying all the weapons in the advertising arsenal: timing, tiered rates and rates reserved for candidates, programming platforms, and the ad content itself. When it comes to countering rumors, psychologists have found that the best strategy is not to deny the charge ( I am not a flip-flopper ) but to affirm a competing notion.

3. BRAND AS TIEBREAKER Strong Brands Dominate, Even with Non-Users. Always Leverage Your Brand Equity. BRAND STRENGTH (Differentiation/Relevance) Even Romney supporters think there is something different about Obama... Curiosity New/Unfocused Leadership Obama among Romney fans Mass Market Fatigue Obama among Obama fans BRAND STRENGTH (Differentiation/Relevance)...Romney did not build standing among Obama supporters Curiosity New/Unfocused Romney among Obama fans Leadership Mass Market Fatigue Romney among Romney fans While the Clint Eastwood speech and the acclaimed director s lecturing of an invisible President Obama stole the media spotlight during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, it was Obama s terse response via Twitter that received the most re-tweets during the GOP s big event in Florida The president s tweet This seat s taken was re-tweeted over 50,000 times. That made it the biggest tweet of the convention, and the second most re-tweeted message from Obama s account. BRAND STATURE (Esteem/Knowledge) BRAND STATURE (Esteem/Knowledge) Energized RelevanceE Esteem Knowledge Energized RelevanceE Esteem Knowledge Differentiation Differentiation

The president s victory was a triumph of vision, not demographics That is why, despite the credit given to Mr. Romney for understanding the economy Obama was always significantly more trusted on qualities that matter to working Americans Americans made a choice to side with a set of values and principles. Joel Benenson, Obama s lead pollster

1. Values and Demographics Implications Demographics on their own are dead. We need to identify what unifies people on the inside, not what differentiates them on the outside. 2. Grassroots is the New Mass Media Done properly, a million small things with the same strategy equal something big. 3. Brand as Tiebreaker Brand is not just about image. It is the critical factor in winning the race.