Politcal Gastronomica

This morning, Matt Carter sent the last email from the Labour Party 2005 campaign – thanking me for my support and hard work this campaign. And, as suggested, the Labour Party sent two emails on Election Day – one from my good friend John O’Farrell and one from John Prescott. Again, it was focused on the goal – get-out-the-vote. The question is – did it work?

How do you measure the effectiveness of a campaign
Funny thing, the Internet. In the Valley, the world revolves around the perception that the Internet is a separate world (World Wide Web, blogosphere) – having its own dimensions, rules, mores and constraints.

In dotcom version 1, the understanding of the offline/online mix was torn between total takeover (read: The Internet will completely destroy the offline world with efficiencies not possible in the physical realm) to physical redemption (offline brands takeover online successes) to successful synergies (read: Dell, Walmart, online banking, etcera). But politics – this is another effort. This is an effort of brand persuasion that, based on the actions of the “company” over the past period, you have to overcome perception with messaging either positive for the company or negative for the competitor. Im political terms, this is called increasing the positives, or increasing the negatives.

Continue reading →

After watching the campaign emails all this time, I now am intrigued to post that the campaigns have steps up their efforts – at least from the Internet point-of-view.

Labour – Tony and Gordon communicate
As anticipated, the Labour Party sent out two emails – one for fundraising on Tuesday (since Monday was a Bank Holiday) and today, a communique from the two men who run 10 Downing Street. Interestingly enough, the campaign seems to be following the wisdom of the consultants – if the populace thinks that Labour will win comfortably, their supporters will not consider the vote important and ignore the polls. So, while staying clear of communicating action statements (“Labour will…”), they are using the threat of a Conservative government if people do not come out to the polls. Interestingly enough, Labour hit upon the true nature of the email campaign methodology once again – communicate to the audience (Labour supporters) a problem (potential voter apathy), outlined the potential bad outcome (Conservative government) and how the reader could help (get to the polls). All designed to play to the individuals who have been reading the emails – and to get them to act.

Conservatives – someone learned KISS
After watching the continuation of the Conservative email campaign, this afternoon (2pm GMT) the Conservatives sent one of their best emails – from Michael Howard with a more compelling subject line and using video communicating the tactics of Labour (using the fear of a Conservative government) versus the party of action which the Conservatives are positioning themselves. Attached to these video links are a eight-point plan as to what a Conservative government would do in power in the first two years. Keeping it Simple and easy to read.

Continue reading →