Jaffe Juice

April 23, 2008 I challenge Barack Obama to reply to this blog post... Filed Under: New Marketing

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you're right. I quit

Posted by: Barack Obama

@ Jaffe

Obama has led one of the most successful grassroots campaigns in the history of politics. He has embraced and leveraged online media better than any candidate to date. He has smashed fund raising records -- not by collecting lots of 0's from a select few, but rather from engaging over 1.3 million everyday people to make small donations (e.g., $25). And, most importantly, he has come from behind as a challenger brand in world where "Clinton" was already well established.

He lost by 10 points in a primarily Republican state where Billary's shameless fear-mongering Pear Harbor, Bin Laden, tactics seem to resonate. He was down from the start, but obviously wasn't able to completely close the gap. Based on the numbers, hopefully it won't matter.

It's easy to criticize, but are you man enough to publicly recognize that he has accomplished more than any US politician in your lifetime in terms of embracing new media and change?

As a foreigner living in the US and a vocal member of the international community, you should be more supportive of his campaign rather than making overly dramatic attacks in hopes getting more eyeballs. The last thing our country needs is an "experienced" trigger happy "diplomat" that is already making reference to "obliterating Iran." God save us.

Posted by: The Ministry of Truth

Honestly...with all three candidates using shows like the WWE to spread their message with a tacky scripted dialogue, we are not surprised they are placing their money in the wrong places.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbaxHjxOlo4

Posted by: Brick Marketing

Hey JJ,

Thanks for listening - maybe there is something you could do - help get the word out on shark-finning. Is a problem all over the world including in South Africa!

Cheers,
Felix

Posted by: Felix Leander

Yeah, I'd have to say you're pretty off base on this one. And you even forced Barack out of the race now!! :)

But, no, he didn't misuse or not use social media because he was too busy spending money on television ads. He's built a more pervasive community and social media strategy than any candidate in history, and almost any brand for that matter. He's active in youtube, active on twitter, active blogging, active in mobile, has one of the largest communities on both facebook and myspace, and was the first candidate to turn his website into a social meetup site with my.barackobama.com. Even volunteering and phone banking operations are based on a wiki platform with social programs intertwined throughout.

John Herrington did an extremely good wrap up of all three candidates over at ChaosScenario.

http://www.chaosscenario.com/main/2008/02/the-biggest-d-3.html

Past that, in Pennsylvania, the people he's having problems with are lower income, rural voters who are less likely to (1)be on the web and (2)involved with social media. Not to say that means tv, but it does means grassroots. But, speaking from someone who has seen it from the inside, his grassroots organization is a friggin' machine. It's the main reason he's done so well, and will probably beat Hillary.

Either way, I suspect that his strategy in Pennsylvania was to run enough ads that it caused Hillary to run more, essentially bankrupting her campaign, which he did. She's officially in the red with a campaign that costs over a million dollars a day to run before the first spot is bought.

Damnit, Jaffe! You totally goaded me in on that one! You win again, Joe Jaffe. :)

Posted by: Paul McEnany

The majority of voters don't use social media. Ignoring them is a losing strategy.

Posted by: John Whiteside

As far as Barack Obama and web/digital/socialmedia/web2.0, "eschewing" couldn't be further from the truth.

And as much as we enjoy wagging our fingers at 30 second spots, spending money on them doesn't preclude a campaign from community, dialog, partnership, and the Conversation. While these are great values for any kind of campaign, I do think that TV spots (in all their one-way glory) have their place in presidential campaigns in terms of communicating a candidate's platforms, values, and promises. And what of the people who care and want to listen without necessarily engaging in Conversation? I may not love TV ads personally, but I can certainly try to understand and forgive them in some cases.

At the very least, with the presidency and the country at stake, couldn't you say we've already overcome the irrelevance factor? This is probably as relevant of a campaign to the target audience as any, whether the voters know it or not. I'd take these ads over marketers trying to sell me irrelevance any day of the week.

Posted by: AdPuppet

Apologies for bringing this away from the heat of the debate. But this is no different to a packaged goods advertiser clinging to their TV impacts - it's their security blanket; 'give me millions of impacts, I just need to interrupt, remind and annoy people that I'm here'. And right now, given what's at stake, its a brave Marketing Director or politician that makes the call to cut TV in favour of 'a richer media experience' (minus the TV numbers), given that 'the competitor' is bashing X plus cover.
In my experience, that is the biggest challenge; persuading marketers that more is not necessarily the campaign winner.

Posted by: Andrew Howells

All great points and I defer to you all for your insight, passion and knowledge

Let me also take this opportunity to clarify a few points:

- I'm not saying TV isn't important. I'm pointing out that when you outspend an opponent 2:1 and lose by 10 points, surely that money could have been allocated better

- No denying what Obama has achieved from a grassroots perspective. My comment was more about the Class of '08 politicians in general (of which Barack has done a better - if not the best - job)

- That said, my feel is that all of this is perhaps a little too tactical, disconnected and superficial. Perhaps candidates have been listening to one too many social media consultants ;)

@ministry of truth - you have me all wrong. I'm almost an American in any event and exercising my freedom of speech...not to attract eyeballs but to say, dude you can do MORE....you can do MORE.....you can win this by truly embracing change as an all encompassing commitment. And for what it's worth, I think Howard Dean did more in 2004 ;)

Posted by: Joseph Jaffe

I'm sorry but you need to apply some rigour to your argument.

'Surely money could have been allocated better'.

Some of it or all of it? Which bit fails to deliver?

You're dealing with life or death here as they see it. (And they didn't grow-up on facebook)

So where/how should the media be split? You've talked about the big numbers, how do they shake out?

And that's the point - you have no idea, how could you!

No one has ever been in this position before - momentum, black, social media vs traditional TV.

And I don't even get to vote

Posted by: Andrew Howells

@Jaffe

Joe, with all due respect...John nailed in two lines. But I'll expound upon it. :-)

No amount of incremental conversational engagement, "media" or otherwise, would have swung even a percentage point to Obama.

He won the 17-29 year olds...but they comprised only 10% of the PA electorate.

He lost the 53% of the electorate that doesn't have a college degree. Simple syndicated research pulls show a massive under-indexing for these folks with respect to their use of social media.

He lost the 40% of the electorate that is over 60...by 19 points, vs. 41 in OH. You don't think that TV advertising was THE factor in moving this needle?

It's easy to get "Urbanocentric" when we live in, live around, or frequently travel to major media markets...

And it's also easy, thanks to the media, to get caught up in the horse race. IMO, the Obama campaign is less concerned about the battles, the individual primaries -- and is more focused on the overall war.

A very interesting side benefit of the PA contest is that his spending forced Clinton to ante to a level beyond her plans/means -- leaving her effectively broke as of last night. Now, she'll raise good numbers over these next few days...but let's not forget that not only does Obama have a significantly larger number of total donors, but his percentage of folks that are't tapped out to the federal maximum is MUCH lower, as well.

So he can (and will) simply drop an e-mail to these folks and ask them to "beat Hilary's figures".

As Charlie Cook says, no one drops out of a race because they are losing -- they drop out because they are out of money.

And thanks in large part to a social approach to fundraising (led by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes), the campaign doesn't have to worry about that.

Posted by: Ryan Griffin

Ryan nails it. To be as reductive as to say that Obama outspent Clinton 2:1 and still lost by 10 points is to completely ignore a lot of blindingly obvious factors. The two biggest ones, just off the top of my head:

1) Older voters. The 45+ demo was the Kingmaker in Penn. Clinton won 54% of voters 45-59, and 62% of voters 60 and older. Obama typically wins out in all the demos that web 2.0 and digital-minded marketing tend to reach. He needed to look elsewhere to make his gains. Pretty simple.

2) Hilary started out with a 20 point lead in Penn, so Obama's 2:1 outspend was hardly for nothing. This state was Hilary's birthright coming into this election. Obama halved her gains in six weeks.

This is all politicking and marketing and common sense 101. For you to swoop in after the fact and pretend that if Obama had Twittered more he would have picked up more votes is the kind of over-the-top, blinkered proselytizing that gives Web 2.0 evangelists a bad name. Newsflash: other people exist. Some of those people aren't even on Facebook.

Posted by: MarkP.

Folks, maybe we should all look back at Marketing 101— it isn't the medium, it's the message.

For almost an entire year, Obama has been pounding out the same drumbeat that has produced a lot of noise but has provided very little substance. It’s a message that gets the blood pumping in a lot of youthful, exuberant political newcomers, but seldom motivates an older, more experienced political faction.

Obama has already gathered all the low-hanging fruit of youthful, idealistic voters eager to join in the "move to something new." But there are a lot of folks outside of the E-community who actually do have College degrees (and yes, some of us even have MBAs and PhDs) who eschew the myriad of over-opinionated blogs and politi-sites, and prefer to evaluate the news and commentary from national TV reports and more traditional media. And, that includes TV commercials. (Hal Riney may have died, but his brilliant salesmanship in “Another Morning in America,” and “The Bear” commercials will live for a long, long time in the minds of millions of Americans.)

If Obama's message delivered more than platitudes and put forward some convincing, creative ideas, I'm sure he would have been able to spend a lot less and had far greater impact.

But, then again, I only worked for Bill Bernbach, so what the hell do I know?

M. Lipkin

Posted by: Marty Lipkin

@MarkP - it's not that I disagree with you at all, but for the sake of continuing an open conversation, aren't you just justifying every reason why Obama didn't win other than make a media case for it?

Put differently, my central point behind this article is exclusively a MEDIA one i.e. from an efficiency and effectiveness standpoint, could the $4MM+ dollars have been better invested?

To claim that the money was justified in terms of helping thin the margin of defeat sounds crazy i.e. if he hadn't spent all that money on TV advertising, the loss would have been worse.

Also, and to restate this firmly:
1) I'm refering to ALL 2008 candidates' lip-service to conversational marketing, as opposed to isolating Obama, who has done one of the better jobs overall
2) I'm most certainly not saying...had he twittered more (ludicrous), he would have done better. I *am* saying that candidates this year did not go deep enough and did not strategically utilize community, dialog and partnership (as opposed to check off a cacophany of tactics on a checklist)

JJ

Posted by: Joseph Jaffe

PS @barack - don't quit; the country and world needs you. I'm not criticizing you...just trying to push you to maximize your shot :)

Posted by: Joseph Jaffe

I'm not justifying Obama's performance in any way. I'm contextualizing it.

Your point that he outspent Hillary 2:1 and still lost by ten points is only valid if you accept that they were on equal footing in Penn coming into the primary, which they clearly weren't.

Your point that Obama might have done better to disperse the money more savvily across web 2.0/digital-friendly territories is valid if you accept that that specific demographic was the one in play, which it clearly wasn't.

And yes, you could make a very good case that the money was justified in thinning the lead. I understand you're not American, Joseph, so I'll give you a bye on this one: when it comes to Democratic elections, the margin of victory (and therefore the total distribution of delegates across candidates) is much more important than whether you win a state outright or not. Therefore, losing by 10% is significantly more favorable outcome for Obama's bottom line than losing by 20%. They're fighting for delegates, NOT states.

And if by not television ads, I would love to hear your thoughts on how to better disperse that money to create a conversation with hundreds of thousands of disparate and remotely located 60+ aged voters in roughly six weeks. Seriously -- you've got 4m. Tell us how you'd spend it.

Posted by: MarkP

Great post!
Hillary started the conversation and continues to use Mass TV ads to drive to the web where she continues the conversation in the form of asking for donations, earned media /content and solutions suggestions.

She also launched an all our effort in North Carolina to continue the conversation and get input from people in up coming states. http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/153.aspx

The Hillary Speaks For Me Widget is a great way to promote her earned / fan media.

Hillary won't quit - as her supporters who have continued the conversation with her through digital will not allow her to.

Posted by: Joanna Pena-Bickley

@ Paul McEnany
"Past that, in Pennsylvania, the people he's having problems with are lower income, rural voters who are less likely to (1)be on the web and (2)involved with social media."

It is that attitude towards blue collar constituents that created a loss for Obama. After conducting a recent MySpace study that proved the their US numbers were high for lower income GenX and GenY audiences.

I received twitter updates from the Hillary campaign the last 2 weeks telling me where they needed help on the ground and reporting news that supporters could use to help.

Further more the most watched "consumer gen. media" for Barack are paid political backers. That is not to say there are not real earned media for Obama - but Hillary's efforts are a bit more grass roots as she has not paid people to make videos for her - her tactic has been to inspire earned media though conversation.

there is not a "birth right state". Al Gore did not win his state in 2000. If that were the case he'd be President.

Posted by: Joanna Pena-Bickley

Joanna. You just used the word 'conversation' four times in 20 seconds.

I'd love to know exactly what you mean when you say that, because in this case it sounds to me like a lot of marketing nonsense. Asking for donations is 'continuing the conversation'? Really?

Posted by: MarkP

"It is that attitude towards blue collar constituents that created a loss for Obama. After conducting a recent MySpace study that proved the their US numbers were high for lower income GenX and GenY audiences."

This would be an excellent point... if Barack Obama wasn't on Myspace. I just checked. Turns out he is! He's got 355,000 friends who've sent him 59,000 comments. Hillary has 198,000 friends who've sent her 20,000 comments. You've created a total straw man argument.

"I received twitter updates from the Hillary campaign the last 2 weeks telling me where they needed help on the ground and reporting news that supporters could use to help."

Yeah, I just checked her Twitter. She's got 3,300 followers -- NATIONALLY. And PS. she's "continuing the conversation" by following exactly zero people herself.

"Hillary's efforts are a bit more grass roots"

If you're going to make a statement like that, you need to back it up with meaningful data. Even still, I have a sneaking suspicion you're wrong on this one.

"there is not a "birth right state". Al Gore did not win his state in 2000. If that were the case he'd be President."

Fair enough, there are no birthright states. But nonetheless, Hillary had a 20 point lead six weeks ago, and now it's 10. What happened to erase some of that margin?

Posted by: MarkP

All the marketing money in the world won't sell the flawed product.

Posted by: Brett Rogers

@ Ministry of Truth...

since when is Pennsylvania primarily a republican state?

http://www.270towin.com/states/Pennsylvania

looks like PA has gone blue in the electoral college since '92, has one very moderate republican senator, and one democratic senator.

just curious.

Posted by: Brien

Bear in mind you are not talking about long term brand building exercise here, you are talking about people to show in one place at one specific time and make one decision. That changes everything. I think it's striking that social media have been used so much in this campaign, but you don't win elections in the US without television. I'm not saying that's good, just that it's true.

So if Obama had put much of the money spent on traditional advertising into social media... well, think about Ron Paul.

Posted by: John Whiteside

And as for Hillary not following anyone on Twitter - yes, bad form. But... it's honest. She's using Twitter as a way to send updates out. I've gotten several "Barack Obama is following you!" emails over the course of the campaign. My reaction is, "Yeah, right." It feels a little spammy, especially since it's happened multiple times.

Clinton's use of Twitter doesn't realize its full potential and is a bit clumsy, but it's honest - and other than the followers issue, identical to Obama's. (I just scrolled through five pages of Obama's tweets. No @ signs to be found. No conversation. It's a broadcast messaging play.)

Posted by: John Whiteside

One other thought (apologies for the serial commenting, but this crossed my mind while I was just getting more coffee!)...

I think that we're going to see social media have major impact on political races at the local level, not in these statewide and national campaigns. It will be a side thing in presidential races for a long time. But for people who are running for mayor or city council or state rep, it could make an enormous difference.

These candidates are already winning based on social media in many places... it's just that they are not online social media. They're the original social media - showing up at precinct meetings and talking to people, talking to people as they get off the subway, turning up at the senior center, and so on. That's where a natural transition to using online social media to reach out to younger and more tech-oriented voters makes a whole lot of sense. (I once changed my intended vote for DC city council based on a candidate approaching me on the sidewalk and saying, "Hi, I'm running for at-large city council...." and having a conversation about a couple of issues where his positions troubled me.)

Those races are already often won or lost because on one-on-one outreach.

Posted by: John Whiteside

@ Brien

Since 1900, 6 of the last 25 Pennsylvania Governors have been a Democrat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Pennsylvania

Since 1900, 3 of the last 13 Pennsylvania Class 1 Senators and 2 of the last 11 Pennsylvania Class 3 Senators have been Democrats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Senators_from_Pennsylvania

...and regarding your reference to the Presidential election -- since 1900, 11 of the last 27 contests have gone to a Democrat (admittedly the last 4). However, George Bush was on the Republican ticket for the last two, so who else were Pennsylvanians suppose to vote for? Plus, 2004 elections went 51%/49% with a President that has managed to top Nixon in the lowest approval ratings of all time. The bar may be blue, but the State certainly is not.

http://www.270towin.com/states/Pennsylvania

Posted by: The Ministry of Truth

Really really enjoyed reading this debate. My only $.02 on that subject is that unfortunately no amount of Conversation will substantively educate this country's electorate. They'll still vote as though it's a popularity contest -- who'd they'd rather have a beer with. I'd love to be proven wrong, but that's what this cranky east coast native has seen all too often.

On a lighter side, the NYTimes' Steve Heller did a somewhat cursory though still nifty look at the Obama campaign's branding through a conversation with Brian Collins:

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/to-the-letter-born/

(The Times' recent look into the differences between the campaign's websites, however, doesn't deserve a link)

Again many thanks to all for making this a great and informative read.

Posted by: marko bon

nope. I still quit

Posted by: Barack Obama

The last thing he needed in PA was to reach out to younger, millenial voters. He's got those. No, it was the older voters he needed and they definitely still watch TV. Probably all of PA's CBS affiliates would've brought him the audience he needed.

Posted by: Rob Fields

Screw this, I'm moving to South Africa... :)

Posted by: Paul McEnany

Hey Joseph, I promised myself I wasn't going to respond to this post...but...I think you're mainly off-base here. Obama needed to reach 60+ people. I don't think that's going to happen with a Web 2.0 approach, especially not in Pennsylvania. I made a lot of calls to Scranton and Philadelphia leading up to the primary, most of the people being 55 and older. For those that would actually talk to me (and not hang up on or ridicule me like so many Hillary "supporters" did), they got their information about the campaign from the TV and maybe newspaper.

I'm now calling Oregon and just got off the phone with a very enthusiastic 88 year old Obama supporter. Don't think she's twittering to her Facebook account, although she may be using email to reach her grandchildren.

And while I know I'm participating in the form of media more annoying than TV--outbound calls--I am getting a flavor for what people are thinking in a way that's different than via twitter, facebook, etc. because I'm actually trying to carry on a conversation with them. Using words expressed by the human larynx, not by fingertips. That conversation leads me to believe that more social media would not have reached that particular demographic more effectively than traditional media.

Having said that, I do think Obama should run a social media campaign for daughters that encourages them to talk to their boomer mothers. I think THAT would be extremely effective. Talk to any high school or college student about what their dinner conversations are like and they will almost all say they are for Obama, but they can't convince their mom to get off the Hillary kick. Obama's not going to change those women's minds with ANY traditional media. He's only going to change them through their daughters, or conversations with their peers. The Web 2.0 way into those conversations is via their daughters.

Posted by: Joel Greenberg

Joe,

Unfortunately TV isn't a dead medium in the political space and neither is direct mail or radio for that matter. That are still tons of voters that don't use the web to get political information and a recent study by iCrossing showed that TV is still the #1 source for political news. Plus, TV has the added earned media benefit where the press talk about ads and events.

The Swift Boat ads from 2004 was not a national buy but the press turned it into a national buy; that ad campaign is still pointed out as a significant reason for Kerry's failure.

The web is being used differently by all of the candidates. I can't go into details or analysis of their strategies for obvious reasons, but the three remaining campaigns have an excellent handle on voter segments and how to attract them. They have more data on customer segments than most private companies and know what messages to make and where to buy media.

Personally I wish they'd all spend more money and time on the web, but TV and direct mail have their place in 2008.

Eric

Posted by: eric frenchman

Hillary's margin was actually 9.2 percent, so it's more accurate to round to 9 percent than 10. This is a small but significant distinction, because of the spin value of being able to say she won by "double digits." In fact, she didn't.
RealClearPolitics data: http://tinyurl.com/2hykg3
Joseph, I've forwarded your challenge to a staffer I know in the Obama campaign, urging him to pass it up the line to someone who might be able to respond. I hope you hear from Barack himself!

Posted by: Len Edgerly

Obama is losing a great opportunity.

In the weeks before the Texas County Caucus (March 29), a small group of grassroots Obama supporters met with an official Obama representative. They went over the rules of the caucus, the timeline, what should happen, etc.

This person, Jenn Watts, was sent by the campaign to an area in South Texas that was about dominated by Hillary supporters. But still they came.

It didn't make one difference because it was still a total goat-fuck of a caucus but they tried.

So if Obama's spending so much money on things like this why can't he put money into campaigning online? Have people who don't just moderate his website but also go onto ours. Respond when necessary or feel out questions.

It's a great idea. It's the equivalent of Bill Clinton going on MTV in 92. Someone needs to tap his shoulder or forget the primary, he'll lose in November.

Posted by: Kristen

@Len - I appreciate it, but sadly I think BO has bigger fish to fry right now with this Reverend Wright kerfuffle.

Posted by: Joseph Jaffe

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