Political Consultants

Kris Ankarlo - Building a Cohesive All Media Strategy

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:32:18 -0500

Kris Ankarlo - Building a Cohesive All Media Strategy:

Looking to build a winning digital strategy for your campaign? It begins and ends with consistency and a comprehensive approach, regardless of the platform.

A group of digital strategists and communications pros tackled the question during a Thursday afternoon session at C&E’s CampaignTech conference. Whether it’s TV, radio, print or online, keeping your message consistent across all platforms is just as important as finding the right media mix.

“It’s wasteful to use a shotgun approach in communication,” argued VOX Global’s David Payne. “You have a limited time to get it right and convince people you’re right.”

Payne spoke alongside Megan Whittemore, deputy press secretary for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.); Stephen Freitas of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America and National Media’s Jaime Bowers.

Among the most critical aspects, all agreed, is efficiency and finding a way to make use of different platforms at different times to spread your message.

Cantor’s office has focused on using Twitter to drive its message to specific audiences, noted Whittemore. The Majority Leader’s office, for example, uses a specific handle on Twitter to push stories out to the press and it’s Twitter feed amplifies the message Cantor is driving using other platforms.

“People are going to tune out and tune in whenever they have time,” said Whittemore, emphasizing the premium on message discipline. “Have a narrative and develop it over time and no matter what platform you use, make sure that narrative is consistent.”

In the majority leader’s Capitol Hill office, there is a Twitter wall that allows visitors to follow online conversations while waiting in the office’s common area.

“It has encouraged a lot of people to follow us,” said Whittemore.

Traditional media is also becoming more of a two-way conversation between advertisers and consumers, said OAAA’s Stephen Frietas.

A relative newcomer to the space, he said, is digital outdoor advertising, which has the added benefit of connecting advertisers with consumers where they meet and congregate. Seeing a digital message and being able to react to it with a group of peers in real time, acts an amplifier and helps facilitate a dialogue.

“All media need to figure out how to have that true dialogue,” said Frietas.

Katie LaPotin - Kids on the Campaign Trail

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:29:21 -0500

Katie LaPotin - Kids on the Campaign Trail:

A candidate’s offspring can be a potent media weapon in the race for the White House. Meghan McCain and Chelsea Clinton, for instance, campaigned for their parents in person and online throughout the 2008 cycle.

Political kids can help personalize their famous parents or defend them against attacks. Think Clinton telling a Butler University student ahead of the Indiana primary, “I do not think that’s any of your business” when asked about her mother’s response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Or McCain providing a colorful, if sanitized, behind-the-scenes look at her father’s campaign for readers of her blog.

Their parents’ campaigns met with mixed success, but the political kids’ work as surrogates made them media starlets and helped Clinton and McCain transition from politics to high-profile jobs in journalism.

This cycle, Jon Huntsman’s daughters could walk that increasingly well-worn path from would-be first child to media star. The photogenic girls, Abby, Liddy and Mary Anne, and their husbands have the highest profiles in the 2012 GOP field – at least among political offspring. They frequently tweet away under the monikers @Jon2012girls and @Jon2012boys – and have attracted more than 17,500 followers between the two accounts.

The three girls, who range in age from 23-26, have certainly attracted attention, although not all of it positive. They made national headlines for their music video “Huntsman’s Back,” which was set to the tune of Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack,” and their parody video of former presidential candidate Herman Cain’s “smoking” campaign ad.

But it remains to be seen if the girls’ online antics can help their father gain momentum ahead of the New Hampshire primary, which he’s bet his political fortune on winning.

Back in 2008, Mitt Romney’s five sons were a large part of their dad’s presidential campaign. Not only did they have their own blog, (appropriately titled “Five Brothers”) but they also frequently stumped for their dad in early primary states. While they did help personalize their notoriously button-down father, they also became somewhat of a liability ahead of the Iowa caucuses when the media focused on how none of the brothers had served in the military.

This cycle, the Romney boys have remained largely silent. The blog is no longer live on Romney’s campaign website and the brothers have only recently become a regular fixture on the campaign trail as the first nominating contest is now less than a month away.

Meanwhile, President Obama has worked to keep his daughters out of the media spotlight. And with Malia and Sasha Obama just beginning to enter their teenage years it is safe to say that they will not be the next political offspring to become campaign surrogates – at least during the 2012 cycle. But with campaigns becoming more personality centered and Web focused with each passing cycle, political children should expect to leave their footprints on the campaign trail.

Katie LaPotin is an account executive at Advocacy Ink, a full-service public relations, communications and political consulting firm in Alexandria, Va. Previously, she worked at a Republican polling firm and on several campaigns in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Katie LaPotin - As Social Media Tastes Change, Can Campaigns Keep Up

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:12:24 -0500

Katie LaPotin - As Social Media Tastes Change, Can Campaigns Keep Up:

In 2008 and 2010, Twitter was the social media drug of choice. The site and its 140 character posts steadily engulfed the political world after its inception five short years ago. Members began tweeting with sometimes embarrassing frequency. Think Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) pinging her followers during President Obama’s February 2009 address to Congress.

It has only gotten worse. Now, 80 percent of elected officials in Washington are on Twitter, according to one estimate. It is officially more popular among the political elite than it is among the social media-happy Millennial generation.

Still, it’s quite possible Twitter will have some competition next November as Tumblr continues its evolution in the social and political media world. The micro-blogging network, a cross between a traditional blogging platform and Twitter, has grown by 900 percent over the past year and now has more than 33 million active users - making it the largest blogging community online.

Just like a traditional blog, Tumblr users draft their posts, which tend to be multimedia-heavy, and publish them to their official page for others to view them and leave comments. What makes the site resemble Twitter or Facebook is the Dashboard feature. Located on the home page, the Dashboard provides a place for users to see their friends’ posts in a newsfeed format without having to go to each users’ individual page for updates. In the same way Twitter users can conduct a hashtag search for specific topics, Tumblr also allows its users to search for specific tags, such as “politics” or Occupy Wall Street.

Tumblr users tend to be more likely to fit a specific demographic profile than those of Facebook and Twitter. Three-quarters of all Tumblr users are white, 60 percent don’t have children and only two percent of all Tumblr users – the so-called “addicts” – make up 40 percent of all posts.

Politically, Tumblr’s users skew to the left, with large communities on Tumblr for progressives and feminists. Tumblr is also the main social network used by those participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement – the page “We are the 99 percent” is filled with pictures and stories of protestors. Many major media outlets, including Politico, Mother Jones and National Journal, also have Tumblr sites.

Tumblr counts among its most popular users several Hollywood celebrities and Barack Obama himself. Launched this past October, Obama’s Tumblr page serves as his official campaign blog and already includes videos of the president, answers to voters’ questions, submissions from supporters and more.

Obama may be the only candidate currently using Tumblr, but that doesn’t mean that it will stay that way. Four years ago presidential candidates from both parties focused their cyber energies on MySpace; it was the first social network to host a major presidential primary debate. Yet MySpace never adapted to the changing world of social media and is now virtually as obsolete as chat rooms.

There are similar websites out there, such as Pinterest, which have attempted to but failed to make a dent in Tumblr’s core audience. All the signs point to Tumblr being the next big competitor to Facebook and Twitter, and who knows, perhaps it may pass them in popularity one day in the not-so-distant future.

Kris Ankarlo - The Gamification of Politics

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:10:51 -0500

Kris Ankarlo - The Gamification of Politics:

Politics and video games aren’t typically discussed in the same breath, but digital strategists say gamification can actually be a powerful tool for identifying and engaging the public.

“67 percent of households are playing games,” said Jordan Raynor, vice president of media and public affairs at Engage. “Why can’t we make politcal advocacy fun?”

Raynor was part of a Thursday panel at C&E’s 2011 CampaignTech conference that examined how nonprofits and other advocacy groups are using online gaming to engage constituents.

The idea of weaving game features into campaign strategies isn’t necessarily new; after all, the basic premise of competition is at the heart of both gaming and politics. But now technology has enabled practitioners to take it to the next level.

“Marketing through games is acknowledging that there’s a tremendously large audience that engage with them,” said Michael Silberman, the global director of digital innovation at Greenpeace.

Silberman pointed to a campaign called VW Darkside, which is an effort designed to convince German automaker Volkswagon to support climate change policies. The campaign is a spoof of the company’s popular Super Bowl Darth Vader ads and enlists new members to join and bring friends into the fight as Jedi.

“Make the basic message as interesting and compelling to reach as many people as possible,” said Liz Mair, founder of Mair Strategies.

One way to make gamification more practical is engaging canvassers in competitions and encouraging attendance at campaign events.

“Gamification has a place for expanding the pie [for entertainment]” Raynor said. “In political campaigns I don’t think we’re looking to expand the pie, I think we’re looking to make the pie sweeter and more substantive.”

Tyler Harber - Five Tactics Your Campaign Can't Afford to Ignore

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:08:19 -0500

Tyler Harber - Five Tactics Your Campaign Can't Afford to Ignore:

Some consultants have become so entranced with the sexiness of online and mobile applications they forget that elections are won by employing a fairly simple strategy: identification, persuasion and turnout. There are certainly ways that the web can help a campaign connect with likely voters. But increasingly campaigns are exchanging proven tactics for these tech-heavy options that underperform.

Technology has its place on the trail, but campaigns need to remember that more than half of the American electorate is over the age of 50, with some 20 percent 65 and older. This means the use of online and mobile-based applications for voter outreach is problematic if it’s not combined with more tradition methods. From my experience, winning requires a calculated balance of tech-heavy solutions (online and mobile) and some of these more boring, underrated—yet still highly effective—tactics.

1. Phone Banks. The use of phones on a campaign is becoming a lost art. Some campaigns believe that texting and mobile apps can replace the old-fashioned volunteer phone call. That’s not the case. Several campaigns that enjoyed the national spotlight last cycle didn’t operate phone banks at all—and they lost handily to opponents who spent less money but made more phone calls.

The campaign phone bank should be the heart of the voter identification, persuasion and turnout program. The phone bank will help the campaign target its manpower, direct mail and even television and radio buys. A well-organized phone program can win elections, as it allows the campaign to reach thousands of voters each week, track their choice in the election, and then encourage supporters to go vote on Election Day. These are things that email, text messages and mobile applications cannot achieve effectively.

2. Door-to-door operations. The use of an integrated door-to-door operation has followed the phone banks into obscurity in the campaigns of many first-time candidates. The American campaign style is strongly rooted in retail politics, and nothing is more retail than meeting voters at their door. Most campaigns can reach approximately 40-60 percent of their voters via phone, and significantly less online. This makes knocking on doors the most effective voter contact tactic in a campaign’s arsenal.

An effective door-to-door program should be incorporated into the phone program. The phone bank will identify clusters of undecided or unidentified voters for volunteers to visit. Delivering a message in-person significantly enhances a volunteer’s persuasiveness.

3. Early voting/absentee voting programs. Few campaigns get this right, because executing an effective early voting or absentee voting program is difficult to engineer and track. Republicans and Democrats, however, have both notched surprising wins in the past decade that were only possible by running strong early vote and/or absentee voting programs. Many campaigns simply ignore this tactic because it requires a long-term investment of manpower and money. But these programs can be worth up to 2-to-4 points in a tight race—more than enough to win.

4. Get-Out-The-Vote pushes. The election isn’t won until a campaign gets enough of its voters into the polling station. Each cycle, more than a dozen campaigns come up short on Election Day not because they lost the message war, but because they didn’t execute a solid GOTV program.

Effective GOTV programs can involve direct mail, phone calls, emails, texts and even door-to-door. That said, some modern campaigns fail to recognize that emails, texts, and even direct mail do not have the effect that calls and personal visits have when conducting GOTV operations—particularly on Election Day.

5. Planning. With modern campaigns facing so many communication and strategic options, many choose to skip the planning process altogether. These same campaigns often fail to make it over the finish line. Most reliable consultants and long-time operatives will tell you that winning campaigns means being proactive, not reactive. Unfortunately, it’s impossible for a campaign to be anything but reactive if it doesn’t have a plan. Planning doesn’t necessarily mean writing and following a 300-page campaign strategy memo. It does, however, mean thinking through the options, scenarios and environmental conditions of your specific race. That alone can help a campaign devise a superior strategy that will carry it to victory on Election Day.

Tyler Harber is a Republican consultant and pollster. A partner at the Prosper Group, Harber has worked hundreds of campaigns in the U.S. and abroad. Follow him on Twitter (@THarber).

Ben Donahower - Selling yard Signs Can Mean Banking Votes

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:06:20 -0500

Ben Donahower - Selling yard Signs Can Mean Banking Votes:

Nikki Haley won the South Carolina governorship last year despite breaking with a longstanding tradition of successful campaigns. The Republican, amid a steady grumble from some old timers, charged supporters for yard signs. And Haley’s camp isn’t the only one asking for donations in exchange for what has long been a comp for activists.

In the last couple of cycles, it has become increasingly common for campaigns to ask for a contribution before they hand over a yard sign. The driving force behind this trend is cost saving, but there are many other benefits. With that said, there are also some potential downsides. A few things campaigns should consider when contemplating whether to pass the hat:

Show me a sign. Like anything that uses campaign resources, financial or otherwise, it’s important to consider the purpose of campaign signs. When you know why your campaign is ordering signs, then you will know whether it’s appropriate to ask for contributions for them or not.

If the campaign is interested in rewarding volunteers with signs or wants to strategically place them on the private property of community leaders, these are yard sign strategies where asking for contributions is inappropriate. On the other hand, if the campaign wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford signs or has decided that they’re of little strategic value, then it’s best to ask for donations.

Winning contacts and influencing voters. Campaigns can eliminate the cost of signs altogether by asking for contributions, but there’s an added bonus from the transaction. The campaign can also get the supporter’s contact information to make a small donor ask later or follow up during GOTV. Defraying the cost of the sign is great. but building a list of supporters who will convert into low-dollar event contributors and respond well to email or direct mail solicitations is even better.

These lists also add bragging rights at reporting time as the campaign can tout its grassroots support. Ultimately, hundreds of supporters requesting signs can result in thousands of dollars in small contributions. The same principle applies to adding supporters to the campaign’s social media accounts and email lists.

Asking for donations also reduces waste. Over many campaigns, I’ve encountered supporters who requested dozens of signs at a time. At least some of those supporters who went home with an armful of free signs left a few sitting in their garage or basement through Election Day. Likewise, fewer signs end up along the highway or other places where they are less valuable to the campaign. If the sign costs something, supporters will likely post it on their lawn where it has the most impact.

Breaking with tradition will mean hurt feelings. Many long-time volunteers and activists have come to expect free yard signs. I have literally been screamed at, had doors shut in my face, and been told that asking for donations for yard signs would cost the candidate the election. While these examples are extreme cases, those campaigns could have avoided some unpleasant conversations by simply handing over a yard sign free of charge. If some voters are willing to cause a scene at campaign headquarters over a sign, you have to wonder how many other voters complain to their friends and neighbors without the campaign knowing about it. A few dollars to print a yard sign is a small price to pay to keep those supporters happy.

The principle benefit of campaign signs is to increase the candidate’s name recognition. For candidates who have low name identification, signs are one tactic to increase it. If a campaign requires a donation for a yard sign, fewer supporters will take signs, thereby reducing their impact. To split hairs, the supporters who donate for signs will tend to be in more affluent precincts where the candidate’s name ID is likely higher than in lower income precincts where the signs are needed more.

Money isn’t everything. Campaigns that don’t feel comfortable asking for a donation, or have weighed their options and determined that it’s not the best strategy, should consider other ways to leverage campaign signs. Give signs to supporters who tweet about the candidate or who share an image of the campaign sign on Facebook. This will put the candidate’s name and the office he or she is running for in front of thousands of people quickly. In addition to social media strategies to leverage signs, another possibility is to give signs to volunteers, or require other non-financial contributions from supporters in exchange for the campaign’s merchandise.

Ben Donahower writes about campaigns signs from a political operative’s perspective at Campaign Trail Yard Signs. Some campaigns get advice about signs from a printer, but Ben makes campaign yard sign recommendations to candidates rooted in political principles.

Dan Kelly - Cleaning up the GOTV business

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:02:35 -0500

Dan Kelly - Cleaning up the GOTV business:

Like most New England states, Connecticut has a long tradition of running horrific paid GOTV programs. Veteran operatives have seen it all—mutinous canvassers, ACORN-style groups lying about voter contacts and local activists demanding cash to pay “their people” on Election Day.

Sometimes it’s better not to ask questions. But from my experience, there are ways to avoid replicating the common pitfalls of paid get-out-the-vote operations—the kind of pitfalls that can mean flushing thousands of dollars down the toilet or sending the organizer on a one-way trip to campaign finance purgatory.

Last cycle, we launched an effort to clean up the paid GOTV business. If you’ve got some of the same issues in your state, here are a few steps you can use as a starting point.

Play by the same rules: The key to running successful paid GOTV programs, wherein canvassers and drivers are recruited to knock-and-drag supporters to the polls, is getting every campaign that will run one to play by the same rules. For starters, discuss this at an early coordinated campaign table conversation. Once you agree, announce together that all campaigns in the state will operate the same way. If operatives want paid GOTV work, they will need to play by these rules. Push hard to do these programs the right way, but be sensitive that it’s a big change in some areas.

Work with community leaders, but on your program: Most communities have small-time political bosses or operatives who typically were given cash payments before Election Day and tasked with recruiting grassroots muscle. These local politicos—the practice goes—are the ones who dole out the cash to their staff independently. That’s problematic, to say the least. If you run into this, explain that your campaign is doing things differently and will be doing the hiring directly this year. Keep the leader involved by, say, asking him for suggestions, but then interview and hire these folks independently.

Moreover, explain to the leader that the people he recommends will be held to standards and let go if they don’t meet them. Also, let them know that you will ask for his help if problems arise. Operatives and community leaders can be a great source of recommendations, just sure they understand the expectations of the job and that their people aren’t untouchable.

Pay for specifics: This is a simple idea that requires additional planning on your part, but you should pay your staff by the hour or by the shift. Drivers who don’t do voter contact should be paid less. If a driver will knock, pay them the same, but offer a gas card.

Thinking of paying by the door knock, call, voter registration or absentee ballot request? Be careful—you’ve left yourself wide open to fraud. Bonuses and other forms of compensation can be tools to encourage performance, but basing an entire pay structure on knocks or voter registrations will encourage a system of manufactured results and faulty data.

Treat it like a real job: Don’t start a day of your operation until all staff sign real contracts that your attorney approves. The agreement should define the responsibilities, relationship with the campaign, payment process and termination policy. Work with your legal team to ensure daily reporting is a condition of the job. In states with longstanding paid GOTV programs, many workers will fight this, but this is non-negotiable. Doors knocked and basic results should be the minimum.

Staff should be trained before they start. As a baseline, the agenda should include the goals of the program and how each individual fits in, basic messaging, a thorough review of the script and walk sheets (with role playing) and administrative questions. A good training that sets a culture of accountability and helps the paid GOTV team feel like they are a part of the campaign is the first—and most important—step in quality control.

Do quality control, but don’t lose your mind: Well-trained staffers who feel like they are part of your team will produce better work. It sounds like a corporate cliché, but it’s also true in the campaign world. Accountability in a paid program, though, isn’t all about trust falls and singing “Kumbaya.”

Set clear standards, review progress each night with your canvassers and give clear next steps to those who aren’t meeting the goal. Don’t be afraid to fire early, and often, based on the standards outlined in your training and contracts.

Build in waves: Even if you can only afford a three-day advance start with a handful of workers, do it. Treat these first days as “dry runs” and replicate the schedule, reporting, quality control and payroll systems you’ll use during Election Day GOTV. It is easier to identify and fix problems when there are 15 canvassers then when there are 1,500. Ideally, the first trained canvassers will go on to become your canvass leaders.

Have a tight payroll system: Paying hundreds (or thousands of staff) is an enterprise unto itself. It will cost you time and money. Don’t tread lightly on this or you’ll lose staff and be answering tough questions from local TV reporters. If your operation is big enough, consider doing the payroll operations professionally—firms like PoliOps and others specialize in operations work for large projects.

Check cards have taken off, but you’ll run into problems when you use cards with high fees that aren’t universally accepted. I’ve seen campaigns lose staff when canvassers learned that their pre-paid check cards didn’t work in many locations.

If you do go the check-card route, consider that there will be fees. If you want to pay someone $100 for election day work, consider throwing in an extra $5 to make up for the fee, or tell people that they are actually being paid $95.

Dan Kelly has consulted on, managed, or led field operations on 24 campaigns in ten states and managed nearly 300 full time staff. In 2010, Kelly managed Dan Malloy’s campaign for governor in Connecticut, defeating two of the top ten self-funders of the cycle.

Tyler Harber - Exporting U.S. Political Tactics