Online Ads: The benefit (Part Two)

 Tamara A. Small

Tamara A. Small (Mount Allison University) has published work on online election campaigning in Party Politics and in the Canadian Journal of Political Science and about Internet regulation in Election Law Journal.

Last week, I blogged about the Liberal Party’s online ad, Hey Stephen Harper, stop creeping me on Facebook. I have another one for you:

The video is the first episode on the YouTube channel, It's Over Steve!! According to the channel, “If enough women vote, Harper's Regime will fall.” As we saw last week, the gender gap remains important to electoral politics in Canada. It's Over Steve also encourages women to make their own videos and link them to the channel.

Not only are political parties and candidates producing web-exclusive ads, so too are interest groups and individuals. Independently produced online ads came to prominence in the 2004 American election. However, this phenomenon was magnified in 2008 with the growing popularity of YouTube. Millions of people watched videos like Vote Different and Obama Girl in the American election. While Culture en Peril was a gamechanger in the 2008 federal election. Produced by Québec singer, Michel Rivard, the French and English videos were viewed by more than half a million people by election day. These videos also received considerable coverage in the mainstream media.

Videos like these demonstrate the power and reach of the Internet for politics. Using technology freely available, individual citizens and organized groups can potentially get their political messages out to millions of people for little to no cost. This is something that would have been nearly impossible in the pre-Internet world.

Only a couple thousand people have viewed It's Over Steve in the first 24 hours of its existence. So it is not quite on the level of Obama Girl and Culture en Peril. Not yet. However, the video has already gone viral. I didn’t go looking for the video, it appeared in my Facebook feed this morning. Word of mouse can be powerful.

Seen any interesting independent online videos? Let me know.

Debates: It's how your friends see you

The Potential Impact of Debate Performance

By: André Turcotte, Ph.D
School of Journalism and Communication
Carleton University

As I was driving my kids to school this morning, I heard radio talk show hosts musing that the upcoming Leaders’ Debates “may be the most important ones we have witnessed in a long time.” For an election campaign largely devoid of excitement so far, the prospect of oratorical fireworks is both needed and appealing. But what do we know about the impact of Leaders’ Debates on electoral outcome?

In general, scholarship on the topic suggests that the impact of debates is minimal. While some leaders have experienced a surge in support after a good performance – Mulroney in 1984, Turner in 1988, Charest in 1997 - it is generally suggested that the positive impact is short-lived and dissipates by the time voters head to the polls. This is the main reason Leaders’ Debates are scheduled well-ahead of Election Day. However, we can identify some interesting dynamics when we evaluate this event through the prism of partisanship.

If we look back to the 2008 Leaders’ Debates, we know, from the Canadian National Election Study data, that 38% of Canadians watched the English Debate and 47% of Quebecers watched the French Debate. As  is customary, media coverage will focus on ‘who won?” In 2008, 28% of those who watched the English Debate gave the nod to Stephen Harper, ahead of Elizabeth May at 24% and Jack Layton at 19%. Only 8% favored Stéphane Dion. Among those who watched the French Debate, 34% said that Dion performed best, ahead of Gilles Duceppe (24%). Both Harper (7%) and Layton (5%) were far behind. But if we want to better understand the potential impact of the debates, it is more insightful to examine how the leaders performed with their own supporters.

Arguably, Stephen Harper consolidated his support with a strong performance in the 2008 English Debate. Specifically, 57% of Conservative voters thought Harper performed best – well ahead of all the other leaders. Both Dion and Layton were unable to do the same with their respective voters. Among Liberal voters, 26% believed May performed best, slightly ahead of Layton at 23%. Dion came in third (17%) amongst his own supporters and lost all hope of salvaging his campaign in English Canada. May also outperformed Layton among NDP supporters (38% vs. 31%). Needless to say that Liberal and NDP strategists will be glad to see the Green Party Leader excluded from this year’s debates.

In Quebec, Dion stopped further erosion in Liberal support with a stronger performance in the French Debate. In fact, 51% of Liberal voters in Quebec favored Dion at the time. The same proportion of Bloc voters gave the edge to Gilles Duceppe. Harper’s performance likely hindered Conservative growth in la belle province with a poor performance amongst Quebec Conservative voters (only 10% thought he performed best with 38% favoring Dion) and was poorly evaluated by Bloc, Liberal, and NDP voters.

With all eyes on them on Tuesday and Wednesday, Harper, Ignatieff, Layton and Duceppe will try to inject some life into a lifeless campaign. Party strategists will be paying close attention to how the leaders are seen through the eyes of their respective supporters.

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I’m rubber you’re glue

 Walter Wymer

Walter Wymer is professor of marketing at the University of Lethbridge. His academic work has helped develop the field of nonprofit marketing.

One traditional political marketing strategy is to negatively frame how voters think of your political opponent.  If your election consultant is able to identify a negative label that is believable to voters, then your strategy will be to repeat the negative label as often as possible.

 

In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, George W. Bush was able to label his opponent, John Kerry, as a “flip flopper,” that is, someone who changes his mind often.  While this may sound silly at first, when Republicans all used the same message and when this message was repeated exhaustively on Fox News and other partisan media (and also the mainstream media), the label stuck.

 

In the current election, let’s watch to see which candidate attempts to label his opponent.  When, instead of criticizing a candidate’s ideas, a politician tries to label the opponent as reckless or bad at math, you see this strategy at work.  Because Canada has a shorter election season, better campaign financing laws, a prohibition of lying on television, and a lack of prominent partisan media, the name calling tactic is often less effective in Canadian elections.

 

Unfortunately, I have noticed that reporters are simply repeating what name one politician is calling another instead of focusing on policy differences or the validity of the name calling.  Rather than telling voters that one candidate said his opponent was bad at math, why not examine the numbers of each candidate’s plan and report the truth?

Why Stephen kisses Laureen

 
(Photo credit: Chris Wattie, Reuters. Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/thewest/Harper+goes+Bollywood/4585024/story.html)

Alex Marland

Alex Marland (Memorial University) has published about political marketing in the Journal of Public Affairs, political talk radio in Media, Culture and Society, and about Newfoundland nationalism in the International Journal of Canadian Studies.

Did you see Laureen Harper’s Bollywood dance? Have you noticed that from the outset of the campaign that Stephen and Laureen Harper have been spending a lot of time together publicly? That she is present at photo ops? That they often kiss publicly?

There is more to this than celebrity-style gossip. Commenting on Mrs. Harper’s presence does not mean entering the private lives of our politicians, which tends to be out of bounds in Canadian political discourse. No, there is something strategic at play here, and it’s nothing sinister. Rather, Conservative strategists have put their fingers on something that works.

Like many leaders Stephen Harper has long had an image problem. He has lots of strengths, but shoring up his weaknesses is the job of image managers, who will tell you that you can only package the product you have. In other words, you have to work with what you’ve got.

In Mr. Harper’s case his wife seems to be the ying to his yang insofar as public images are concerned. He is cold, she is warm; he is aloof, she is outgoing; he is media-shy, she is media-friendly; he is partisan, she is apolitical. Including Mrs. Harper in photo-ops nicely addresses so many needs:

• she is photogenic and so refreshingly human in such a scripted bubble-like media environment;
• she likely resonates with female voters, whom have long been an Achilles heel of Stephen Harper and the conservative/individualistic ideology generally;
• unlike her husband, she probably does not generate anger among any segments of the electorate, even those who are fearful of a Conservative majority government;
• she has fans among Liberal and NDP politicos (maybe Bloc too, but I can’t be sure);
• she is widely liked amongst the press corps, whom have had an antagonistic relationship with her husband;
• she projects a First Lady status, which makes Stephen Harper seem more presidential, but does so in a Michelle Obama way rather than a Mila Mulroney manner;
• she plays well with the Conservative party faithful, especially when the Harpers’ children are included in photo-ops which communicates that compared with the other party leaders only they represent family values and concerns;
• she is a sharp contrast to Michael Ignatieff’s wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, whose presence could potentially add to Mr. Ignatieff’s image weaknesses of elitism and of ‘just visiting’ Canada; and
• Laureen Harper is a subtle reminder to Canadians concerned about Stephen Harper’s concentration of power that, like Aline Chrétien was with Jean Chrétien, she is likely a sharp political mind who is a good sounding board for the prime minister.

All of this is related to something called celebrity transfer. That is, when a celebrity endorses someone or something, the recipient becomes associated with the characteristics of that celebrity. It’s why athletes and Hollywood types are paid big bucks to endorse products – we think the products are better and thus are more likely to buy them. And it’s why politicians fall over opportunities to hobnob with celebrities. Think Paul Martin and Bono.

Laureen Harper has pep. The media seem to love her. She is a marketer’s dream. And in a world where personality politics often trumps policy, the Conservatives are rightly engaging one of their biggest assets in this campaign.

(Note: Perhaps a case could be made for Jack Layton and Olivia Chow, but it is my impression that they are not campaigning together the way that they did in past campaigns)

Delivery: The Quebec City Conundrum

Thierry Giasson

Thierry Giasson (Université Laval) has published about televised political debates in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, political journalism in the Canadian Journal of Communication, politicians’ image management in Questions de communication.

Do you know Régis Labeaume?

Régis Labeaume is the Mayor of Quebec City and the most popular/trusted politician in the province these days. Quebeckers appreciate his exuberant personality, his confrontational style and his profound dedication to the development of his city. He speaks very candidly about what he wants to achieve and his simple no-BS approach to politics has gained him legions of dedicate fans all over province. He wants residents of the Old Capital to be proud of their city. He wants to transform the municipality into one of the most thriving and attractive metropolis in the world. And he’s got a myriad of projects to achieve this goal. As all know by now, one of them is the building of a multifunctional arena to replace the decrepit Colisée, once the home of the Nordiques. Mayor Labeaume considers this new arena as the infrastructure Quebec needs to play in the major leagues (pun intended!). It would help attract large scale cultural events and rock concerts, contribute to an eventual Olympic bid and, maybe, bring back professional hockey to Quebec.

Labeaume was very acute at rallying public support behind the arena project. He made it the focus of his reelection bid in 2009, which he won by a landslide. Quebec not only needed the building to achieve its development goals, his argument went, but the city actually deserved it. Quebeckers ate his pride filled rhetoric up! The faith of the arena was sealed. From then on, it became the most prevalent political and economic issue for Quebec, its Mayor and its population.

Which brings us to the current Federal campaign. Last week, Prime Minister Harper launched his campaign in Quebec City, just as he had done in 2008. His entire speech focused on his government’s accomplishments in the region. As my colleague Jennifer Lees-Marshment reminded us last week, an incumbent administration as only but one task to achieve during a campaign: clearly demonstrate that it delivered on its electoral product. Delivery! Delivery! Delivery! The Tories hypercontroled and über-choreographed the  Quebec event followed this goal.

Yet there was another reason why Mr. Harper chose Quebec as his launching pad. Polls in the Quebec Metro region show his party trailing the Bloc by a significant margin. In the 2006 election, the Conservatives won 6 seats in the Quebec metropolitain area, all at the Bloc’s expense. In 2008, the Bloc regained one of these seats. Their prospects for 2011 in some Quebec ridings are uncertain (Charlebourg-Haute-St-Charles, Beauport-Limoulou, Lévis-Bellchasse) as the PCC’s market research must indicate. Which is why the Harper campaign made its first stop in Quebec. The party wants to maintain its hold on the Old Capital’s electoral market. This might be a difficult feat to achieve for this campaign. The problem: Delivery! Except this time the failure is not necessarily due to the Tories lack of achievements in the region, it’s associated to their incapacity to deliver on someone else’s promise!

The Québec City conservative caucus failed dramatically to insure federal funding for the construction of the Labeaume’s arena. Quickly, after his reelection in 2009 Mayor Labeaume and the provincial government announced that public funds would pay for the building’s construction. The Mayor declared that he was now waiting for some form of funding from the Federal government. Fast forward to the Fall of 2010. Following a meeting in Quebec City, the caucus of Tory MPs from the Old Capital posed for an incriminating photo showing 7 of them wearing Nordiques jerseys, thumbs raised in support to the prospect of a professional team coming back to Quebec. (See picture right, courtesy of CTV) 

Whoops! Many saw this ill-advised photo-op as a clear sign the MPs were in favour of the arena's construction and that the Feds would most probably contribute funds to the project. [UPDATE] Others, including the Bloc Québécois and some conservative talk radio hosts, saw in this photo a silent strategic message from the Quebec Tory caucus that laid out what was to come: "We know the arena is dedicated to a professional team, and we won't support it's funding!" In any case, the picture generated irate reactions in the rest of Canada and urged PM Harper to publicly close the door to any form of Federal contribution for an arena dedicated to professional sports. Remember, we have a deficit to pay off!

Yet, Josée Verner, minister in charge of Quebec City in the federal cabinet, kept the hope alive. For six  months, pressed by reporters, Minister Verner said that the government’s final decision had still not been reached and asked the Mayor of Quebec to submit documents and business plans detailing how private investments would be included in the funding scheme. The charade went on until Mayor Labeaume and Quebec Primer Jean Charest held a press conference in February announcing they were going at it alone. Labeaume had waited long enough for the Federal government. Things had to move. Furthermore, the Mayor did not hesitate to publicly express his malaise and anger at the inhability of the Quebec City tory caucus to defend the project in Cabinet. From then on, conservative support in the region started to decline.

As Prime Minister Harper indicated in his Quebec City speech last week, the Conservatives delivered on a number of their 2008 promises for the region. The arena? It wasn’t part of their platform then. Still, the party failed to recognized this impact of what became a dominating issue in the region. Sometimes, delivering your product is just not enough! Sometimes, you must also deliver on someone else’s product, especially if this other producer is a strong actor in the market you want to conquer. The situation in Quebec City illustrates that delivery must always be achieved on the electoral product offered during an election, but that emerging issues in the inter-election context must often be dealt with and answered as well for support to be solidified and insured. The Tories in Quebec can only claim success on the first part of the proposition.

So how do you resolve this conundrum? Is there a solution?

In the case of Quebec, the solution rests with the ubiquitous Régis Labeaume. This week Mayor Labeaume is expected to present a list of projects he wants to undergo in the coming years, including public transit expansion and a Quebec-Windsor Speed Train line. The Tories will have to broker a deal with him on at least one of these ventures, gain his support and have him say publicly that they are strong advocates for the city’s interest in Cabinet. Anything short of this could have detrimental electoral implications for those MPs, but also for Prime Minister Harper, who wants to cling to his Quebec seats in order to present, if a majority were to materialize, the image of a real pan-Canadian, national Conservative government with representation from all provinces.

They also need his support because they share a constituency. The white-suburban-middle-income-young family electors representing the main targets of Conservative marketing are the same voters who elected Mayor Labeaume in 2007 and again in 2009. They gave him his dominant majority in city council and most of them believe in his publicly funded arena project. In Quebec City, Federal politics is very much local politics. Labeaume’s support could therefore prove determinant in some close contests between the Bloc and the Conservatives. The Tories MPs from Quebec must make an ally out of him. But don’t expect to see them achieve this task wearing a Nordique’s jersey anytime soon!

What are your thoughts on the impact of local politics on product delivery? Are local issues also prevalent in your riding? Does Prime Minister Harper need a strong Quebec caucus to lead a majority government?

Online ads: the benefit

Tamara A. Small

Tamara A. Small (Mount Allison University) has published work on online election campaigning in Party Politics and in the Canadian Journal of Political Science and about Internet regulation in Election Law Journal.

 

Check out this new ad by the Liberal Party.

This is a web-exclusive ad, not aired or distributed through traditional channels like television or radio. This is a good example of the Liberal’s taking advantage of the Internet. Advertising is one of the most expensive aspects of election campaigning. Canadian political parties spend roughly half of their campaign budget on advertising. Online ads are comparatively inexpensive. The Internet is much cheaper in terms of hardware as well as production costs. Though the ad is very effective in its message, it isn’t particularly sophisticated. Unlike television advertising where parties pay for eyeballs, the cost on the Internet does not increase with the size of the audience. Indeed, this ad was viewed by almost 40,000 people in the first 24 hours of its release on YouTube Additionally, online ads like this can be produced very quickly, in order to react to very particular situations such as the Conservative party using Facebook to screen event attendees.

Not one ballot question but ballot questions

 

André Turcotte
School of Journalism and Communication
Carleton University

At a TED Conference in February 2004, Malcolm Gladwell spoke about the works of psychophysicist Howard Moskowitz. While Moskowitz is best-known for his detailed study of the types of spaghetti sauces that Americans prefer, Moskowitz also played a role in attempting to create the “perfect” Diet Pepsi. Many years ago, Moskowitz was tasked to find out what was the optimal amount of aspertane to put into each can of Pepsi to make the “perfect” Diet Pepsi. While this appeared to be a very straightforward assignment, Moskowitz concluded that there was no such thing as a “perfect” Diet Pepsi, only “perfect” Diet Pepsis (plural). Moskowitz went on to refine his understanding of consumer behaviour and horizontal segmentation is a common strategic framework in commercial campaign development. What is the relevance of this story to the current election campaign is a legitimate question to ask at this point.

As it is the case in each election campaign, a lot of focus was put in the early days of the 2011 election to try to define the ballot question. Pundits and commentators mused about whether “corruption”, “protecting the fragile recovery”, or “the fear of - or hope for - a coalition” would eventually emerge as the main question voters would be asking themselves on their way to the ballot box. What would be the defining question of the 2011 Canadian Federal Election? Defining the ballot question is an age-old strategic concern and owns much to Ronald Reagan’s famed “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” which led to his 1980 victory. In Canada, the 1988 election is generally seen as the “Free Trade” election while the ballot question in 1984 and 1993 was simply “Is it Time for a Change?” But things appear to be different this time around.

Party strategists appear to have decided that Howard Moskowitz was right. There may be no such thing as a “perfect ballot question” in this election and it is more strategically useful to look for perfect ballot questions. The Tory campaign in particular appears to be devoid of the traditional overreaching appeal and is focusing on giving key segments of their electoral marketplace with very good reasons to support them on Election Day. The Conservative campaign rhetoric has moved far away from last month’s budget and in the absence of an actual platform document, Tories are making sure that ethnic minorities – which will be so important in several close ridings – may be asking themselves whether the Conservative Party has become the most in-tune with their needs and demands. Fiscally conservative voters can applaud the prudent course presented so far and go to the ballot box knowing that Conservative promises will not kick in before the budget is balanced. The Liberal campaign is behaving in similar ways. Instead of promising to build a “Just Society, Ignatieff Liberals are clearly hoping that middle-class families, seniors and commuters on the Champlain Bridge find their way to the ballot box to vote according to very narrow economic interests.

Targeted promises are not new in Canadian campaigns. But in the first few weeks of the 2011 election, horizontal segmentation has clearly replaced visionary appeals as the preferred way to woo voters.

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Doubts about micro-targeting

Jennifer Lees-Marshment

Jennifer Lees-Marshment is a world-wide expert in political marketing who was visiting professor at McGill University in 2009, and who has conducted research and published on Canadian political marketing.

We don’t like it, and we argued in our book Political marketing in Canada that Canadian practitioners are wise in avoiding it, but there is no doubt that campaigns all around the world look to the US for ideas in how to win elections.

In an article in the Globe and Mail Andrew Steele commented that the Canadian Conservatives are copying how the US campaigns of 2004 and focusing on sending direct mail to voters in a very small section of the electorate, as little as 20 seats, as they will make the difference in the election result. Computer based voter profiling assesses voters depending on where they live, what kind of house they live in, who they live with, what they do in their life in terms of their job, hobbies and even the food and drink they consume.

This raises a democratic issue of course – as Steele noted, some voters get a lot of communication and attention, whereas others do not. Called micro-targeting, narrowcasting or hyper-segmentation, campaigns focus their resources on where they think they will count most. Academics criticise this for making some voters vote count more, eroding the idea of equality at the ballot box.

But it also raises the question: will 2004-US style tactics work in Canada in 2011? Three things make me suggest not:

1. Micro-targeting relies on assumptions about voters political views based on non-political characteristics which could be completely wrong. The Tories could be spending a lot of money sending the wrong messages to the wrong people.
2. The Tories are copying an old approach which may no longer prove effective in the US, let alone Canada. Hillary Clinton’s main consultant at first was Mark Penn, author of micro-trends. She didn’t win the nomination through this approach and they parted ways mid-campaign. In 2008 Obama moved away from this trend, and decided to connect with voters in every state, not just for democratic reasons but because he believed that the party could gain more support that way. He was building on the 50-state strategy employed by Howard Dean when chairman of the DNC to try to build a long-term relationship with voters. It worked – Obama won support in states where the Democrats had not won for 50 years or more.
3. Having interviewed practitioners who have used micro-targeting, including those working at the RNC in Washington, this tool is not the golden bullet. At the end of the day politicians need to offer a deliverable political product that meets the needs and wants of Canadian voters better than their opponents.

No amount of micro-targeting can get around problems with the Tory brand or delivery. Harper’s advisors would do well to remember that and focus on making sure their Canadian product is superior to their competition rather than focus on copying US techniques.

Twitter Fight Club

Tamara A. Small

Tamara A. Small (Mount Allison University) has published work on online election campaigning in Party Politics and in the Canadian Journal of Political Science and about Internet regulation in Election Law Journal.

 
What do the leaders of Canada’s two largest parties have in common with celebutante Kim Kardashian? Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper,  like Kardashian,  are now members of an inclusive group called the Twitter Fight Club. The Twittersphere has emerged as a venue for celebrities to duke it out. This twight, as it is sometimes referred to, is all played out in public for the whole world to see. Kardashian, for instance, has engaged in a war of tweets with Demi Moore and Scott Disick (one of her sister’s boyfriends).

During the first week of the campaign, Ignatieff and Harper exchanged 140 character barbs over a possible mano-a-mano televised debate.

pmharper: @M_Ignatieff curiously, my team proposed 1:1 to TV consortium today; however, your team did not speak up.

M_Ignatieff: @pmharper A one-on-one debate? Any time. Any place.

Others twitterers got involved. BQ leader Gilles Duceppe (@GillesDuceppe) claimed that Harper and Ignatieff were excluding Québec from the debate while CBC personality Rick Mercer (@rickmercer) entered the fray, offering the two leaders $50,000 for the charity of their choice if they participated. Though the fight was short, more than 350,000 people were ringside following the various participants.

While Twitter is the technology de jour, online wars of words are not new in Internet politics. During the presidential debates between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000, both campaigns had real-time fact checking. Within seconds of claims being made on television by either presidential candidate, the rival campaigns posted an online rebuttal. In the 2004 Canadian election campaign, the Liberals launched the site StephenHarperSaid.ca focusing on the controversial comments made by the then newly elected leader of the Conservatives. Within days, the Conservative party responded by launching TeamMartinSaid.ca, which focused on quotes made by then Prime Minister Paul Martin and members of his caucus.

This Twitter fight demonstrates one of the many advantages of the Internet for politics: the speed of response made possible by direct access to the Web for immediate distribution. Politicians can react to events as they occur, and in an instant, a tweet can be picked up by followers, journalists, and opponents.

While brief, this fight shows how much Twitter has become a part of this campaign. Throughout the 2008 election campaign, Canada’s party leaders mainly used Twitter as a unidirectional, broadcast technology in the 2008 election — a place to tweet the latest press release. Most leaders Twitter pages didn’t allow @replies in the first place; let alone engaging with one another. Though press release tweets are still abound, there is much more engagement on Twitter in this campaign, including the occasional twight.

Of Motors and Men

Thierry Giasson

Thierry Giasson (Université Laval) has published about televised political debates in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, political journalism in the Canadian Journal of Communication, politicians’ image management in Questions de communication.

This picture of Prime Minister Harper taken at a campaign event in Ontario today (Photo by CP) reminded me of another...

...great photographic moment in Canadian conservative history.

 

The rides are different, but the message of these two photo-ops is the same: 'Trust me, I can steer this country!'