Enjoy this best-selling updated 8^th edition – packed with new material, keeping abreast with AI, AR, VR, MR, MA and other innovative approaches to marketing communications. All integrated with the world’s most popular SOSTAC® Planning methodology that delivers a reassuring sense of order in a chaotic digital world and also that delivers success from better, MarComms’ ‘information-based’ decisions.

In Part 2 – all ten marcomms tactical tools (incl ads, PR, sponsorship, Owned, Earned and Paid Media etc.)  has a sample SOSTAC® Plan at the end of chapter.

Ze Zook and I are so pleased with it.  So much new material including AI integrating with MarComms.  We’ve tried to keep the edutainment angle so readers actually enjoy discovering some cutting-edge examples, tips and tools throughout the book. Thanks to the team at @Kogan Page including: Alison, Donna, Bruna and  Jack, Jeylan, Susie and of course, Helen Kogan.

What New Marketing and What Classic Marketing is in the 8th ed.?

What’s new and what’s old in Marketing Communications 8th ed.?

20% author’s discount can be used legitimately by following these instructions.

1. Go to koganpage.com/MC8
2. Click ‘Add to Cart’
3. Click ‘Checkout’ on the top right corner of the screen.
4. Complete your Billing & Delivery Information
5. Click ‘Continue to Review & Pay’
6. Scroll down to ‘Review Items’
7. In this section, click the ‘Add an offer code’ button – bottom right
8. Enter your code AMK20 in the box provided
9. Scroll down to input your payment information
10. Click the ‘Buy Now’ button at the bottom of the screen.

Enjoy Your Book

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Are we being brainwashed? Is the dark web worse than subliminal seduction in the 1950s when brands embedded subliminal messages to unconsciously manipulate customers into buying their products? The Dark Web manipulates audiences  (some of which involves secret ads sent to perhaps illegally analysed voters/shoppers)  – particularly vulnerable, undecided audiences with secret messages/ads that no one else can see. The messages contain incorrect information – even lies, but are hidden from public eyes. The budgets that pay for some of these ads come from unknown sources and are deemed to be illegal and to have broken the law.

The Dark Web secretly influences opinions, purchases and votes.  It happened with Brexit and it happened with Trump’s 2016 election victory. See ‘How Trump Won’.  Will it happen again? Can it be stopped from happening again? This is marketing gone wrong. Can it be stopped?

And this is the brilliant Welsh journalist,  Carole Cadwalladr, calling out the “Gods of Silicon Valley” by name! I think it is amidst a Silicon Valley audience – perhaps someone can confirm?

Data Manipulation. Unknown/Unsourced funding. Lawbreaking. Changed Opinions & Beliefs. Wins Elections.

Possibly the best Ted Talk yet? Brilliant 15 mins. The transcript is worth revisiting also – all the facts listed in detail.

Carole Cadwalladr TED Talk

If you like this you might like:

How Trump Won  (using the magic marketing formula & Facebook and data)

The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD

How Obama Won Two Presidential Elections

The post Marketing Gone Wrong: Is the Dark Web Worse Than Subliminal Seduction? appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Here is some of the text from this shocking interview with Christopher Wylie, who worked for Cambridge Analytica the company that helped Trump and others.  This is part of the current row about data being manipulated unknowingly to us, citizens, and subsequently, us citizens being manipulated into making decisions. This is probably the clearest statement to date as to why we need the GDPR (see my full post on General Data Protection Regulations). You can see How Trump Won using data analysis, precision targeting and then the Magic Marketing Formula, IRD. Please remember that marketing is just a set of management processes and tools which can be used for good or bad.

We would know what kinds of messaging would work 

“We would know what kinds of messaging you would be susceptible to, including the framing of it, the topics, the content, the tone, whether it is scary or not, what you would be susceptible to and where you are going to consume that, and then, how many times we need to touch you with that in order to change how you think about something……

In addition to having data scientists, psychologists and strategists, they also have an entire team of creatives, designers, videographers, photographers…they then create that content.”

Targeting Team

“That then gets sent to a targeting team, which then injects it into the internet. Websites would be created. Blogs would be created. Whatever it is that we think that this target profile would be receptive to, we would create content on the internet for them to find.

And they see that and they click it and go down the rabbit hole until they start to think something differently. Yea.”

No More ‘Shared Understanding’

“Instead of standing in the public square & saying what you think. And letting people come and listen to you. And have that shared experience as to what your narrative is..

..you are whispering in the ear of each and every voter and you may be whispering one thing to this voter and another thing to another voter” [=IRD].

Creating a Fragmented Society

“We risk fragmenting society in a way where we don’t have any more shared experiences and we don’t have any more shared understanding. If we don’t have any more shared understanding, how can we be a functioning society.

If you want to fundamentally change society, you first have to break it. And it’s only when you break it is when you can remold the pieces into your vision of a new society. This was the weapon that Steve Bannon* wanted to fight his culture war.”

*Trump’s right-hand man – until he sacked him recently!

The Magic Marketing Formula IRD

You might be interested in my full post on General Data Protection Regulations).

Or   How Trump Won using data analysis and then the Magic Marketing Formula, IRD.

See How Obama Won Two Presidential Elections

Either way, please remember that marketing is just a set of tools which can be used for good or bad.

—end—

The post The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Continuing from How Trump Won – part 1 – SOSTAC ® Analysis, where we looked at the first three stages of the plan: Situation Analysis (where was Trump?); Objectives (where did he want to go?) & Strategy (how was he going to get there?), now let’s explore Tactics (the details of strategy); Action (how to ensure excellent execution) and Control (how do we know we are getting there?). In particular, we’ll explore how he used, what I call, the Magic Marketing Formula to win.

PR Smith’s SOSTAC® Planning Framework www.SOSTAC.org

Tactics

Tactics include the marketing mix and this includes the communications mix. So whether it is a facebook ad, a social media post or tweet, a conference speech or any tactical tool, the key (apart from targeting) is to ensure the right message is shared (or ‘reflected to the audience’). This is, what I call, the Magic Marketing Formula.

The Magic Marketing Formula – IRD

The Magic Marketing Formula: IRD

Here it is: Identify (needs); Reflect (those needs with solutions or sometimes just slogans) back to your audience; Deliver (a reasonable product or service).

Make America Great Again = Magic Marketing Formula

Let’s start with the general message (the slogan that was used everywhere). This was shared (or reflected back to all audiences).  We will look at other, more specific messages, including ‘dark posts’, sent exclusively to very specific audiences (that others could not see easily as they targeted discrete audiences after they had profiled the personality of every adult in the USA – 220 million profiles). More on this in Part 3. But, first, let’s look at Trump’s slogan.

“Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ was designed to make white working-class men remember when things were better for them or, at least, they thought they could remember.” Stephen Greyser, professor of marketing at Harvard Business School    Fottrell (2016).

‘Make America Great Again’ has a certain ‘darkness at the edge of that slogan as there is (also) a darkness at the edge of ‘Take Back Our Country’ (the Brexit Leave Campaign) & yet there’s also a glimmer of a legitimate & important aspiration in both of those slogans. … …. the legitimate aspiration underlying those slogans has to do with a sense of national community’ (Harvard’s Professor Sandel 2017). Trump addressed the people’s anger. Perhaps Clinton assumed the anger was against immigration and trade, and at the heart of that, is jobs. ‘But it’s also about even bigger things., about the loss of community, disempowerment, & social esteem (a sense that the work that ordinary people do is no longer honoured & recognised (& rewarded).’ Sandel (2017). So the need for community (national community), amongst other needs is reflected back through the consistent use of the slogan. Therefore appealing to hidden needs, needs that perhaps, many voters weren’t even conscious of during their voting. 

Professor Michael Sandel, speaking at Davos 2017

Professor Sandel continues: ‘The language of patriotism has been appropriated by the right for the most part. There’s no reason why centre-left parties can’t reclaim and articulate their own conception of national purpose, national community and shared identity & patriotism. What the elite missed was the sources of the anger & resentment that has lead to the populist upheavals in the US & Britain & many other parts of the world.

Pavlovian Conditioning?

Although Trump is part of a different establishment (business establishment) swing voters seemed to accept his carefully controlled positioning as a non-establishment politician (see part 1: Positioning) . Perhaps a Pavlovian conditioning – repeating the same message again and again and after a while his audience believed this, despite seeing Trump flying around the country in his “Trump” branded 757 plane. Perhaps because by doing so he showcased an aspirational lifestyle that appealed to white, working-class Americans (NB the magic marketing formula: identify needs/aspirations – reflect them back, ironically, via your own mobile media/your own private jet).

Is it possible that Donald Trump conditioned voters just like Russian physiologist, Dr. Ivan Pavlov, conditioned dogs back in 1902? www.PRSmith.org/SOSTAC

Tactics: Proposition: ‘Change’

The promise of ‘change’ worked for Obama previously & this time it worked for Trump too. Interestingly, both Trump and Obama (in previous Obama campaigns) identified that many people still want change.  Obama promised it in a positive light ‘whilst Trump used anger to get it across’ (Kanski 2016). However, this time, Trump went after the disenchanted relentlessly and rammed home his message of ‘angry change’.

“In the end it was a clear-cut message: If you’re happy with the status quo, vote for her; if you want change, vote for me,” said Dan Scandling, senior director of public affairs at APCO Worldwide. “That was what resonated.”
“She (Clinton) never effectively communicated how she was going to make people’s lives better beyond hanging her hat on the last eight years,” says Aaron Gordon, partner at Schwartz Media. (Kanski 2016).

Clinton’s more rational (and longer) economic and social arguments might have missed the attention span of those swing voters, as did the ‘Remain’ campaign in the UK’s now notorious Brexit referendum. Lord Heseltine (former UK Deputy Prime Minister under John Major and Secretary of State under Margaret Thatcher ) summed up short attention spans, lack of facts and policies, when referring to the UK’s Brexit, he pointed the finger at one of its ‘Leave Campaign’ leaders who has since become the UK’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, and said:

“How convenient to substitute a slogan in place of arguments you have not got.”  (Rogers 2016)

As our attention spans have shrunk from 42 seconds in 1960 (see How Trump Won part 1) to 5 seconds in 2008 and now 4 seconds, the words of John C. Maxwell (‘leadership’ author) resonate more profoundly:

John C Maxwell (leadership author)

Proposing What Audiences LikeTo Hear (IRD)

‘What that translates into is a constant iterative process whereby he (Trump) experiments with pushing the conversation this way or that, and he sees how the crowd responds. If they like it, he goes there. If they don’t respond, he never goes there again, because he doesn’t want to be boring. If they respond by getting agitated, that’s a lot better than being bored. That’s how he learns….. In that sense, he’s perfectly objective, as in morally neutral. He just follows the numbers. He could be replaced by a robot that acts on a machine learning algorithm’ (O’Neil 2016).

Through data analysis (big data) Trump was able to send different messages to different groups of voters with different needs. ‘Cutting immigration’ or “draining the swamp” of corrupt or incompetent politicians and bureaucrats – messages were targeted only at those that connected with these messages. (I’m going to have to do a Part 3 to explain how this worked).

‘Once up and running at the end of the summer, it was soon sending out tailored messages to 100,000 targeted voters every day’ (Marr 2017).

See the BBC video in Part 1 that explains exactly how Cambridge Analytica analysed the adult voting population of America (without them knowing their data was being used in this way) and subsequently targeting precise ads to each personality type telling them just what they wanted to hear.

Proposition, Message Credibility & Messages

Trump reached many disenchanted blue collar male voters by reflecting his messages in their language e.g. by ‘talking about the world and globalism in terms of winners and losers,’ Eric Bovim (Kanski 2016). Not everyone can understand social economics, but everyone understands the concept of winners and losers. Short. Simple. And not weighed down by actual facts or policies.

Having said that, if a significant proportion of the voting population do not want to hear long-winded arguments, then Trump just applied the Magic Marketing Formula (IRD) again and again, by keeping it short, tapping into fears and emotions, reflecting keywords that connect, but avoiding detail at all costs.

Trump Is A ‘Meaningfully Different Brand’

‘Meaningfully different brands’ are much more likely to be selected, to command greater premiums and to grow in the future,” says Christopher Murphy, chief client officer at brand analysts, Millward Brown North America.

Q1 Does the candidate meaningfully connect – either functionally or emotionally?

Q2 Is the candidate seen as different or capable of driving positive change?”

Trump, Murphy concluded, did both (Fottrell 2016).

Tactical Tool –  twitter

Trump’s preferred vehicle to spread his message was largely his Twitter feed. He built his momentum on Twitter, spreading the #MakeAmericaGreatAgain or #MAGA hashtag widely.  12 million followers (9 Nov –  now 16.4m)
Clinton’s Twitter feed (11.4m) felt more traditional and political (Kanski  2016). Clinton’s slogan ‘Stronger Together’ did not generate nearly as much traction. It is possible to predict which tweets/messages will get the most retweets (see IBM twitter analysis). Though I could have forecasted ‘Stronger Together’ was limp and wouldn’t gain much traction.

Tactical Tool –  Targeting Facebook Ads: 1,000% Increase in Sales

Jared Kushner (Trump’s son in law) who set up the stage 2 Strategy (see Part 1), database decision making and highly targeted facebook ads (& other cable TV targeted ads), also quickly learned how to continually refine the targeting of facebook ads. See 200 variables available to target specific messages. In fact, he quickly increased the sales of Trump merchandising (e.g. baseball caps with ‘Make America Great Again’) from $8,000 to $80,000 per day – ‘simply by refining the target demographic’ (Marr 2017).

ACTION

Build A Campaign Team 

Soon, Jared Kushner, was assembling a speech and policy team, handling Trump’s schedule and managing the finances.

Build A Data Centre

As mentioned in Part 1, within three weeks, in a nondescript building outside San Antonio, Kushner built what would become a 100-person data hub designed to unify:

• fundraising
• messaging
• targeting

They also tapped into the ‘Republican National Committee’s data machine, and it hired targeting partners like Cambridge Analytica to map voter universes and identify which parts of the Trump platform mattered most: trade, immigration or change’ (Bertoni 2016) . Forbes reported: ‘Tools like Deep Root drove the scaled-back TV ad spending by identifying shows popular with specific voter blocks in specific regions–say, NCIS for anti-ObamaCare voters or The Walking Dead for people worried about immigration.

Kushner built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface.’

Kushner built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface

Very quickly data determined decisions, so just like Teddy Goff and previous Obama campaigns, data dictated almost every campaign decision including:

• travel
• fundraising
• advertising
• rally locations
• topics of the speeches

Big Data is everywhere

Build A Disruptive Start-Up Culture

Kushner was unschooled in traditional campaigning, he was, therefore, able to look at the business of politics in the same way that so many entrepreneurs analyse and attack other bloated industries.

Learn Rapidly

Kushner knew what he needed to know. He knew what he needed to learn and learn it quickly. So in Kushner’s own words: “I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff? They gave me their subcontractors. I had them give me a tutorial on how to use Facebook micro-targeting.” Synched with Trump’s blunt, simple messaging, this would go on to work very well.

Constant Beta Testing 

Constant beta Testing = Constant Learning = Constant Improvement. Trump was selling $8,000 worth of hats and other items per day. Bit by bit Kushner learned how to improve this with better targeting via facebook ads.  Once they found something worked – they scaled it up. Result: sales grew from £8k to $80k per day thus:

• generating revenue
• expanding the number of human billboards

Constant Beta Testing requires a cultural shift which, in turn, requires constant monitoring and control (see ‘Control’ section). 

No Fear Of Failure 

The entrepreneurial spirit / disruptive start-up culture ensured that there was no fear of failure just a hunger for fast improvement & scalability.  “We weren’t afraid to make changes. We weren’t afraid to fail. We tried to do things very cheaply, very quickly. And if it wasn’t working, we would kill it quickly,” Kushner says. “It meant making quick decisions, fixing things that were broken and scaling things that worked.” (Bertoni 2016).

“We weren’t afraid to fail.” Kushner

Scale Up What Works  –  Tailor Targeted Ads

Scale What Works & Stop What Doesn’t – quickly.  Ineffective ads were killed in minutes, while successful ones were scaled up. Trump’s team ended up sending more than 100,000 uniquely tweaked ads to targeted voters each day.

Use Machine Learning 

Machine learning helped to boost their fundraising efforts. Kushner installed digital marketing companies on a trading floor to make them compete for business. If anyone has more information on how Donald Trump’s team used machine learning, please do let me know, as I will be doing a Part 3 about Big Data helped Trump to win. 

Control

Sales Revenues & Donations 

The Trump team monitored revenues every day. The campaign raised more than $250 million in four months–mostly from small donors. They kept monitoring and learning what worked best and then scaled up.

Constant Real-Time Analysis 

Constant up-to-the-minute voter data, provided both ample cash and the insight on where to spend it. ‘When the campaign registered the fact that momentum in Michigan and Pennsylvania was turning Trump’s way, Kushner unleashed tailored TV ads, last-minute rallies and thousands of volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls’ (Bertoni). See Part 3 (‘How Big Data helped Trump’.

Ask Great Questions

Kushner asked this seemingly basic question which really focussed the campaign team’s minds: “How can we get Trump’s message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?” FEC filings through mid-October indicate the Trump campaign spent roughly half as much as the Clinton campaign did (Bertoni 2016).

Monitor Bangs For Your Buck

Kushner even spent $160,000 to promote a series of low-tech Trump policy videos which generated more than 74 million views which equated $2 CPT (Cost Per Thousand people reached). In addition to getting more cost effective, Kushner was learning which video messages worked best.

Constant Beta Testing

“We played Moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI for the electoral vote,… Kushner

Monitor Twitter Streams 

Using 3,000 tweets from Trump and 3,000 from Clinton, here is Trump’s most frequently used words visualised in a word-cloud:

Trump’s Word Cloud identifying his most frequently used words

Here is Clinton’s most frequently used words:

Clinton’s Word Cloud identifying her most popular words

Trump’s most common words used in his tweets were positive (i.e., great, will, thank, as well as the hashtag #MAKEAMERICAGREATAGAIN). These all have positive meanings. Clinton’s most frequently used word on Twitter was trump (NB lower case disrespect!). What does this tell you?

Incidentally, it is possible to predict how successful* a tweet will be (or predict the performance of a selection of tweets and thus select the best one to send). * One success criteria is the number of retweets forecasted (within a certain level of confidence) Cortana 2016. If you enjoy data mining, you might enjoy this from Microsoft’s machine learning people. Everything generates feedback and learning, which is fed back into the system to update the situation analysis, refine objectives, inform strategy and tactics as you can see in the diagram below.  part 3 will explore how door-door canvassers fed back data regarding which message worked best for each household.

Control monitors and collects feedback which is constantly used to update all other sections of a SOSTAC® plan.

In the end….

crystal clear positioning and targeting driven by clever use of data layered on top of the Magic Marketing Formula combined with a ‘disruptive start-up’ attitude’ always ready to learn and constantly improve every hour – delivered Trump, the outsider, the most unexpected of wins (despite winning less than 2 million votes than Clinton). As Forbe’s Bertoni reports:

‘If the campaign’s overarching sentiment was fear and anger, the deciding factor at the end was data and entrepreneurship.’

‘Trump looked at the US and correctly saw an anxious populace that was ripe for facile answers, scapegoats and a narrative of unjust victimisation. So he pounced.’ Frank Bruni, New York Times, 14 Dec 2018

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See How Trump Won part 1 – Situation Analysis, Objectives and the critical Strategic choices (the BBC video explaining how Cambridge Analytica analysed a nation of voters).

You might also enjoy How Obama Became America’s First Black President

You might not enjoy, but perhaps need to read:  The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD

How SOSTAC® Works – a 4 minute video by PR Smith

How SOSTAC® Works – a 4 minute video by PR Smith

Become a SOSTAC® Certified Planner  visit www.SOSTAC.org

The SOSTAC® Guide to your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan

The new SOSTAC(r) Guide for Digital Marketers

Sources:

Bertoni, S. (2016)   How Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House , Forbes December 20

Cortana Intelligence & Machine Learning (2016) Data Mining the 2016 Presidential Campaign Finance Data, Cortana Intelligence and Machine Learning Blog, 10 Oct

Economist (2016) The post-truth world: Yes, I’d lie to you, 10 Sep

Flood, A. (2016) ‘Post-truth’ named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, The Guardian, 15 Nov.

Fottrell (2016) How TV reality star Donald Trump won the election with his ‘disruptive’ brand, MarketWatch.com 11 Nov.

Grassegger, H. & Krogerus, M. (2017), The Data That Turned the World Upside Down, Motherboard, 28 Jan

IBM (2016) Trump and Clinton may have used some Machine Learning, DataScience.ibm.com , 21 Dec  http://datascience.ibm.com/blog/election-2016-data-analysis/

Kanski, A. (2016) Change and authenticity: The messages that won over American voters, PR Week 09 Nov.

Marr, B. (2017) Why Big Data Wasn’t Trump’s Achilles Heel After All, Forbes 9 Feb

O’Neil, C. (2016) Donald Trump is like a biased machine learning algorithm, Mathbabe.org 11 Aug

Rogers, D. (2016) The Politics of Fear, in an interview with Lord Heseltein, PR Week, April 2016.

Sandel, M. (2017) ‘ Why The Democrats are so out of touch with the People‘, World Economic Forum, Davos 2017 – (a very interesting video).

The post How Trump Won (Part 2) – using the Magic Marketing Formula – a SOSTAC Planning Analysis appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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‘This seat is taken’ – a clever caption combined with a creative photograph – this image (plus caption) went viral during President Obama’s last campaign.

Recruit The Best People

When president Obama invited Teddy Goff to be his Digital Director, Obama took a big step towards becoming America’s next president.  Goff is the best in the business.

Have a Great Product

Equally, Goff only backed this horse, since he knew he had a great product (Obama) to market. Being a great digital marketer won’t work if you got a lousy product.

Combine Analytics With Creative Thinking

Interestingly Goff and his team spent a lot of time on analytics and segmenting and targeting messages as you’d expect. They spent even more time on creative thinking creatively about how to keep the information fatigued audience excited and invigorated sufficiently to (a) vote (b) encourage a friend to vote (c) perhaps get involved in the campaign. For more on Engagement see the Ladder of Engagement (Smith & Zook 2016, Marketing Communications). Here’s Teddy talking to me about all of the above. I apologise about the video (visual) quality. Please try to ignore it and just listen to what Teddy has to say.

Use Big Data

Everything they did was informed by data.  This helped Goff et al to give their followers a better experience. To serve their supporters with the best experience possible.

With literally, millions of volunteers on the ground. Goff: “We wanted to use the stuff that people were telling us about. So if someone clicks on this email rather than that one, it’s probably because they are a little bit more interested in this, rather than that.” They consequently would segment and target relevant content that matched the precise interests of people with similar interests (segments).  It’s not rocket science. Goff’s team used the knowledge they gathered from digital behaviour to infer broaden patterns e.g. ‘does it seem that people who care about veterans are more likely to vote for the president?’ I apologise about the poor quality visuals – try to focus on what Teddy Goff actually says. It’s gold dust.

So the same principle was applied to offline e.g. millions of volunteers knocking on doors, understanding what were the key issues and interests of undecided voters, helped campaigners to have more relevant conversations. This campaign had to integrate offline with online. For more on integrated marketing communications see the end of this post.

Target Multiple Self Referencing Sub Cultures with Distinct Value Propositions

Ok let’s call it multiple niche marketing! Think about what people care about and the dimensions around which they want to self-organise (group together). Goff and his team tried to create a platform which helped people to organise themselves around particular interests in particular areas e.g. women, interested in a certain issue, all from a certain state. And “let them form connections that they cared about rather than force them into relationships that might not be as meaningful to them.” says  Goff. Apologies for the poor visual quality of this video.

Use The Magic Marketing Formula

This is what I call the ‘Magic Marketing Formula. IRD.

• Identify Needs
• Reflect those needs (through ads, social media or any comms tool)
• Deliver (a reasonable product or service

Once a customer’s (voter’s) need (topic or issue) is identified, it can be reflected by either presenting solutions to that issue or by helping people to set up groups dedicated to this particular issue. This information can be collected from door-to-door conversations or even from digital body language (or click behaviour which is revealed by, for example, spending more time on certain pages/topics/issues than others).

Social media, and facebook in particular, generated 34 million Obama fans who in turn were connected with  98% of the facebook population of the USA. They could reach almost everyone, whereas no other media could do this.

Be Relevant – Target Different Segments With Different Messages

Goff’s team worked hard to break their audiences into dozens of discrete segments – so they could target more relevant messages to each group. They also never sat back. They kept trying to keep the connection, keep the engagement, keep the relationship with individuals. Look at the subject lines (headlines) in this fascinating graphic from NY Mag

Subject lines form Obama’s emails worked hard to keep the relationship engaging and friendly

Treat Your Staff Well

You might have noticed Teddy saying earlier (in the first video) that their primary focus in this campaign was on their supporters. Many of these were volunteers. Many of the rest could at least spread the word. As they say in business: ‘Happy Employees = Happy Customers = Happy Shareholders’, well you could argue the same principle applies here too.

Or perhaps there are alternative tactics such as Democrat, Hilary Clinton secretly funding, Republican, Donald Trump?

A SOSTAC® Summary Of The Election Campaign

PR Smith’s SOSTAC(r) Planning System

Situation Analysis: Team Obama used Data Analytics & Big Data to analyse the situation in great detail. In fact, all ‘decisions were data driven. Key issues are analysed and identified. Key phrases are analysed and identified so they can be used (or reflected) during the campaign. undecided voters were analysed and their key issues identified.

Objectives: Clear objectives were broken down from quarterly goals, to monthly goals, to weekly goals and daily goals.

Strategy: Most of the strategic components of TOPPP SITE were used. President Obama was positioned as an agent of change. [Positioning] Interestingly Teddy’s team focussed primarily on supporters. Segmenting them and serving them very carefully with relevant content. [Targeting]. Engaging them with regular relevant content. Engaging them by empowering them to set up and run their own clusters [Engagement]. He ensured he had a developed, credible product (Obama) before attempting to raise visibility [Sequence]. When he needed to raise visibility, he prioritised social media since it could reach parts of America that traditional media simply could not [Tactical Tools]. He used analytics and big data (all their ‘decisions were driven by data’) [Process]. Offline was integrated with online events and activities e.g. The President dining with 3 dollar voters was an offline event but when video recorded, it generated a lot of coverage online via social media [Integration].

Tactics: This the details of strategy, e.g. the marketing mix. At the heart of this is the product. Obama was a good product.In fact Teddy Goff recommendation to young people in marketing is to ensure you have a good product before doing any marketing. All the other elements of the mix needed to be managed carefully.

Action: This is the details of tactics. How to ensure continual excellent execution, day in, day out. This can be a work culture (so treat staff well) e.g. a relentless A/B culture continually testing and improving to find what works half a percentage better, and then optimising on what works best. it can also include checklists, procedures, training & motivation plus internal communications to ensure excellent execution.

Control: The objectives set earlier were  broken down and measured continually. A team was allocated to monitor and report on key variables on a daily basis e.g. any blips in sentiment analysis (an aggregate score of the mood of the American nation with reference to the presidential candidates) would have been spotted and brought to the attention of the campaign team.

For more on SOSTAC® Planning System and Certified SOSTAC® Planners see www.PRSmith.org/SOSTAC

See How Trump Won

See The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD

For more on Integrated Marketing Communications, The Ladder Of Engagement, Social Media , Marketing Content, Big Data, Segmentation, the Magic Marketing Formula and how to write the perfect plan see Marketing Communications, by myself and Ze Zook.

The 3 Things You Can Learn From Jeb Bush’s Disaster by Chris Matyszczyk

1. Understand Your Customer and Your Competitor

Bush seemed to grasp neither. He, like many other professional politicians, had no idea why Donald Trump was so popular. He therefore had no idea how to compete. Should he ignore him? Should he try and fight him toe-to-toe? Should he appeal to his essential reasonableness? In the end, Bush fell between all stools. He had no feel for a market that was fueled by anger at the system, rather than at any specific issue or policy. He came as off as slightly bemused and unable to cope alone. Trump was right. When you have to bring your mom and your brother on stage, you’ve lost confidence in yourself.

2. Develop Credibility Before Raising Visibility

‘They’re learning this one in Silicon Valley too. They think that all they need to do is raise a ton of money from gullible VCs and everything will be fine. Bush seemed to have the largest coffers. However, the more money was coughed up, the more the candidate stumbled. Until he was humbled. In the end, it’s the person and the idea that is tested. It isn’t the scale of finance behind them. Bush was too nervous in front of the camera and had no idea how to handle the fact that his brother had been something of a controversial figure when he was president. Strategy and execution are more important than money.’

3. The Logo Matters.

One of Bush’s very first steps was to attempt to hide his Bushness. Instead, he released a logo that was garlanded with an exclamation point. Jeb! That exclamation point was everything Jeb Bush isn’t — except for perhaps slightly old-fashioned. The logo came from the past. The Republican electorate is worried about the future. The logo suggested tradition, when people were sick of politicians’ tradition of doing nothing while lining their own pockets. The logo shouted, whereas Jeb Bush twitched and bristled. Your branding should reflect you. Yes, like Donald Trump’s gold faucets.

See more on How Target Marketing using up to 200 variables Can Save Money & Boost Results.

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The post How Obama Won Two U.S. Presidential Elections appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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The Enormous Impact of Age & Gender Detection

Marketers must not ignore the enormous impact delivered by the new Age & Gender detection tools.  Yes it’s back to basics ie demographics. Knowing ‘Who?’ is your customer is one of 3 critical questions alongside ‘Why’ (they buy/visit/bounce) & also ‘How’ (they buy).  All marketers answer these questions. Good news: It’s getting easier to identify your customer demographics which, in turn allows some marketers to create competitive advantage by getting closer to their customers and helping them with more and more relevant information.

Here’s  some tools that help detect age and gender of your audiences:

• Facial recognition software*: uses rules similar to those rules we use when identifying if someone is male or female and whether they are old or young
• Microsoft:  App   How Old Do I Look
• Google Analytics: Free customer analytics
• Facebook insights: Free customer insights
• DOTS Name Validation 2 determines gender from your name
• Commercial Analytics like Japan’s NEC (deliver age, gender, behaviour & more for $900 p.m.)

* Facial Recognition Software will improve. However, it currently has some flaws. I used ‘How Old Do I Look?’ called  How-Old.net and inserted the photo on the left below. I promise you I am not 64 (thanks ‘How Old’ robot)!

What can we do with these new demographic analytics?

• see who’s buying your product
• see who’s visiting but not buying
• create tailored pages for different genders/ages (This is part of my magic marketing formula: IRD)
• create tailored email for  different genders/ages (IRD ditto)
• other suggestions are welcome (please post a comment/suggestion – below)

The Magic Marketing Formula (IRD)

Many years ago it dawned upon me that there is a simple, yet powerful magic marketing formula. I call it IRD: Identify needs, Reflect them & then Deliver a reasonable product or service. We can apply it here by identifying ‘Who’ and then helping them with much more relevant content/messages/products/services. See how IRD works in:  Shock TV Ad Uses Magic Formula & Goes Viral .

Use Demographics & Be At The Forefront Of Digital Marketing

As Alexis Ternoy says in his excellent post* ‘Someday, using demographic data in your marketing strategy will be non-negotiable, just as having an online presence has become today. Start collecting it, tweak your analytics software to make use of it, and you’ll be putting yourself at the forefront of online marketing.’  Temoy, A. (2015) The Marketer’s Latest Tool: Age And Gender Detection, Digital Doughnut 30 July.

You might also like:

Shock TV Ad Uses Magic Formula & Goes Viral  to see the Magic marketing Formula being used to change behaviour and save lives by stopping speeding driver.

How To Target Very Very Specific Audiences On Facebook – the power of facebook profiling

You can get a detailed list of customer analytical tools (many of them are free) in the SOSTAC ® Guide To Your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan (paperback or ebook).

The post New Analytic Tools: Age & Gender Detection appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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The Magic Marketing Formula

Here is my Magic Marketing Formula: IRD. It always works.

• Identify Needs
• Reflect These Needs (through ads, sales presentations, key phrases etc.)
• Deliver (a reasonable product or service – that meets the promise made)

If you identify key phrases people use when searching for your type of product or service and then if people see these phrases appear alongside your web site in the search results (in the SERP – the search engine results page), they enjoy a Eureka moment. You know the feeling? That buzz when you see EXACTLY what you are searching for appearing in the SERP.  That’s the Magic Marketing Formula in action.

Think of ads. If Coca Cola identify people need to be loved they reflect this by showing ads of people drinking Coke and/or having a good time (whether polo bears or people). If a B2B IT supplier identifies a segment’s main need is, say, security, then it reflects ‘security’ in its ads, exhibitions, social media and optimises for these key phrases. Here is a shock example of the magic marketing formula in action in a very serious ad campaign – one that can save lives. Warning: This imagery in this ad might upset you.

Magic Marketing Formula Begins With Research 

Here’s a shocking example of the Magic Marketing Formula in action. Road deaths from speeding drivers is an issue in Northern Ireland. In-depth research by the Department of the Environment, revealed that ‘speeders feel it is their right to drive at whatever speed they want. They won’t change this for anything. ‘What about if you killed someone?’ No this would not stop them. ‘What about if you killed a child?’ A resounding silence. The idea was born. These shocking ads reflected this.

The ad went viral. Speeders are slowing down.

Going Viral

Ad showed Tues night on TV in Northern Ireland during ‘Dentist’ – no reaction; Played again at half time during half time in England v Uruguay game (19 June) .

7,000 youtube views (19 June).

Rang ad agency next morning (20 June) – by the end of the phone call 23,000 views;

53,000 end of the day (20 June)

4 days later 2.2m views (24 June)

2 months later 3.9m views (23 Aug)

How Do You Measure Return On Investment?

With the economic cost of a death estimated at £1.68m (source: Oxford Economics) and the campaign cots of  £400,000 you can see that this ad can be justified on a purely economic basis. On an emotional basis you might find this disturbing, but it does increase awareness and, most importantly, change behaviour.  In fact, the economic payback is £42 per £1 invested in advertising (4,200% ROI) when the full cost saving is calculated (this includes ‘human cost’ of a death).

Global Impact

In fact, AdWeek praised the one-minute ad for “driving the anti-speeding message into the public conversation far beyond Ireland. Many tweets say this ad goes too far. The debate continues on a reddit thread dedicated to the ad (apologies in advance for any fowl language used). What do you think (please leave a comment at the end). Regardless, I personally think if it saves one life, it is an excellent piece of work by Lyle Bailie International and driven by research commissioned by the Department of The Environment. Thanks to Bridin Beckett (DOE) and Paul James (Lyle Bailie) for this fascinating case study.

All comments are most welcome (please do scroll down and ‘leave a comment’).

You might also like: The Rise and Fall of Owned and Earned (but not ‘Paid’ Media) – World Cup Marketing Wars

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The post Research Driven Shock Ad Uses Magic Formula & Goes Viral appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.