pr-media-blog.co.uk

Even top talent at the head of your online marketing campaign is no guarantee of winning, as delegates at The Future of Digital Marketing event learned this morning.

Keynote speaker, Eric Frenchman, Chief Internet Strategist for the online political agency Connell Donatelli Inc and online consultant to the John McCain presidential campaign, is clearly no slouch in the field of online political marketing. But why did McCain lose?

Thanks to various attendees tweeting from the Congress Centre, London during the speech,  we were treated to an insight into the online machinations of US politics.

Frenchman called search marketing “the great equaliser” and the “one place where you can compete or even beat your competition with less money” - a critical issue in political campaigning where your budget is only as good as the funds you raise. As he told the audience, search is not the sexiest but is the lifeblood of your digital campaign.

But some online tactics can backfire. So popular was the click through rate on a “hippy Hilary Clinton” ad used by the Republican campaign, it had to be switched off for being too successful.

As for Obama, he had 90 staff working on his digital strategy - according to Frenchman - and managed to tap into Facebook and online video in a way the Republicans failed to. Creating useful tools, such as “register to vote” widgets on Facebook helped Obama to reach 3.1m followers against McCain’s 610,000. And the Yes We Can video clocked up 18.2m views, alongside the millions of views for “home made” Obama films - equating to an alleged $40m  equivalent of TV advertising spend.

Frenchmen also voiced his frustration at the McCain campaign’s use of Twitter, which rather than focusing on engagement and conversation erred on the side of broadcast or one-way communication.

Though clearly fascinated by the material, some delegates tweeted their concern about the “questionable tactics” of political search, US campaigning and the presence of Frenchman himself.

James Sandoval tweeted: “Why is Eric F of John McCain’s losing digital campaign marketing efforts the keynote? Does this represent FODM - Hmmm”. Anna Rafferty’s “feeling a bit sick about all the childish tricks used online during the US election” got the re-tweet treatment while the nausea theme continued with Tanya Goodin who mentioned a certain “queasiness” about US political video: “We’re just too cynical in the UK for this stuff to work!” she said.

Despite some clearly brilliant and clever online strategy, the Republicans lacked the most important element: a winning product.

Michelle Goodall noted an earth tremor or floor wobble towards the end of the keynote speech. Was it a tube train or the restless ghost of John McCain’s election campaign?

Thanks to all tweeps above, plus @johnmac71, @thetafferboy, @linusgreg @jake_hird, @cragster.

His hiring skills may be in question today, but President Barack Obama has passed the most fundamental of PR tests with flying colours.

However, I’d like to warn readers that the following paragraph contains graphic language which may shock and cause people to wonder whether the President is, in fact, a politician at all.

Mr Obama - and I reiterate, a person elected to public office - said: “It was a mistake; I screwed up.”

If you are still there, without the aid of smelling salts, well done. And well done to Obama for understanding that if you have messed up - in this instance with the hiring of Tom Daschle as part of his cabinet - then say it as honestly, clearly and quickly as possible. While your credit rating is high, take the opportunity to show your failings, along with your resolve to put it right. Not only will they forgive you, but it puts you way ahead of the usual slipperiness of tongue that distinguishes elected officials the world over.

Yet again, Obama provides a masterclass. Let’s just hope he gets his HR sharpened up, and spots those references to “tax problems” buried at the bottom of the CV.

Talk about a rock and a hard place.

US President elect, Barack Obama, has finally spoken out about the crisis in Gaza, saying: “The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me.” But, for some, his comments are too little and too late.

The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall - not one for rash pronouncements - had already questioned the Obama’s ”keep shtum” strategy, suggesting that his silence may give the impression he either “shares [George] Bush’s bias [in favour of Israel] or simply does not care.” This image, surely, would be unthinkable for the man voted in on a platform of “change” and of reaching out to a world divided by US foreign policy. And how would Obama’s delayed response play in the Arab world? 

Middle East-based English language news source, Al Jazeera, was on Obama’s case before the close of 2008, quoting Mark Perry, Washington Director of the Conflicts Forum group with the damning: “Silence sounds like complicity”.

According not only to protocol but, apparently, also to the US constitutution, there is ”only one president at at time”, so hampering anything Obama may actually want to say on the Gaza situation.

Problem is, those looking for the soon-to-be leader of the free world to take action - or at least take a stance - are not interested in presidential protocol.

Saying something or saying nothing: before he has the elected authority to do anything about it, neither is a palatable option for Obama on an issue as complex as Israel and the Palestinians.

But from his 20 January inauguration, his credibility and fulfilling of the promise he presented at election time will hang on talking and acting clearly and quickly.

As soon as the polls start to close this evening the world will hear tha Obama has won the popular vote in the US presidential election and will take the electoral college with a landslide victory.  PR Media Blog is ‘calling’ the vote at 14.42 GMT well ahead of polls closing.

Since the 1990s the media have had the ability to accurately predict the popular vote which has meant that we don’t have to wait for the votes to be counted to know the outcome.  But in the last two presidential run offs, the vote has been close and in 2000 the votes were so close that it was days before the supreme court ruling resulted in the Bush victory over Al Gore.

This year the margin of victory will be significant and we can be fairly certain because the social web has provided ordinary people with the tools to predict the outcome.   Take the site Iftheworldcouldvote.  On the surface it is a bit of fun allowing anyone around the world to cast a vote and showing how different countries would cast their ballots.  One of the coutries is the USA and in effect this is a poll that shows Obama gaining almost 80% of the vote.  OK the poll is biased towards the web literate and in theory voters could post multiple ballots, but this is a sample size of over a quarter of a million and the margin is enormous.    

If we are to believe conventional media there are enough swing states and undecided voters to keep the race open but this is simply not the case.  Newspapers, radio and TV want to keep us guessing, because that is what will deliver circulation and audience but the social web is telling us the America has decided and Obama will be the 44th president of the United States.  

The United States presidential election has been the first major democratic process anywhere in the world where the use of social media has played a significant part in communications.

Of the eighteen candidates running in the primaries for the two main parties, nine had blogs, including both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.   Involvement in social networks was significant from the earliest days. Republican Mitt Romney was the first prospective candidate to launch a Facebook profile,  Democrat John Edwards set up a campaign headquarters in the cyber world of Second Life.  This resulted in a bizarre web 2.0 event when it was vandalised by the avatars of his political opponents.  Clinton used her web site to launch her campaign.

It was Barack Obama though who was the prime mover from the outset.  He engaged with most of the high profile social networking sites including MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  On the day that Barack Obama announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee in January 2007, student government co-ordinator Farouk Olu Aregbe created a group on Facebook called “One Million Strong for Barack”.  The social web was critical to the Obama campaign in another fundamental way.  It played an important part in the funding of his bid for office.  In a campaign video directed at his supporters he said “Instead of forcing us to rely on millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, you’ve fuelled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20, whatever you can afford, and because you did, we’ve built a grassroots movement of over 1.5 million Americans.”  Obama’s success raising money via these small donations was achieved in a way never before possible as part of a U.S. presidential election campaign.

The 1960 election of John F Kennedy was thought to be point at which television became central to the democratic process.  2008 may well be the year that sees the critical intervention of the social web

Imagine my surprise when a video from a US cable news outlet popped into my inbox, containing a news report blaming ME for Barack Obama losing the US election!

It’s absolutely brilliant and is a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) initiative from the Democrat leaning MoveOn.org, an organisation set up in the late 90s to drive people behind particular causes by using the potential of online communities.

You watch it, can’t believe how clever it is, send it on to loads of your friends and probably largely people who wouldn’t want McCain to win.

Ok, ok , I realise I don’t have a vote in this election but if you and me would be motivated to pass this on, imagine how many folk in the US would.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

Coming out from under your boiler or out of a blocked drain, it’s plumbers’ turn to have their time in the sunshine: the US presidential race, no less.

 ”Joe the Plumber”, the ultimate American regular guy, who got face to face with Barack Obama over his tax plans was purloined by John McCain and his campaign team as the exemplar of those whose American dream would turn nasty if Obama ever makes it to the Oval office.

So powerful did McCain’s team consider the plumber, his name came up 25 times during the final presidential debate.

But while hanging his hat on Joe, I wonder if McCain knew that the plumbers’ union had already pledged its backing for Obama, way back in January this year?

Maybe he did, but the lure of using the plumbing “everyman” and unlikely media star to bash Obama was too much to resist. So, was it a clever tactic or desperation?

McCain wants to associate himself with and show that he’s batting for the regular Joe. It reminds me of former UK prime minister, John Major, who in the early 90s evoked a British image of “cricket grounds, warm beer and invincible suburbs” and “old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist” along with his moralistic “back-to-basics” campaign to tap into the mindset of Middle England.

A few Tory party scandals later and he was out on his ear.

What an interesting autumn of politics lies ahead. Here, the Labour party conference kicks off in a week while ministers re-run the Mutiny on the Bounty and, in the States, the final reckoning for Obama and McCain.

BBC4’s series about American politics last night featured the 1972 Robert Redford film, The Candidate, which looks incredibly prescient about the way politics has evolved in the UK. In it, a fundamentally good bloke with honest convictions gets absorbed into the business of winning elections, complete with the “style over content” manipulation of voters that Gordon Brown probably wishes he’d picked up from Tony Blair. Telling indeed is the final scene when, on realising he’s won, Redford’s character turns to his campaign manager, pleading: “What do we do now?” So much for the manifesto, then.

Meanwhile, in the US presidential race, a clear distinction has emerged between the candidates’ strategies. Michael Tomasky’s blog in The Guardian explains how McCain’s campaign is focused on winning the “news cycle”, in other words, attacking Obama through adverts and generating stories in the mainstream media. Obama, conversely, is concentrating on grass roots politics by having a greater number of local offices than his opponent in every state, registering voters and building support in advance of November 4.

These contrasting approaches seem to illustrate some of the tensions between old and new media tactics; whether it’s better to have the traditional media on your side or get through to people directly, as in the social media world.

Question is, will it work? As one of the campaign managers in The Candidate says to a bemused Redford: “We know this is all bullshit, but at least they’re believing it.”

As candidate for the biggest job in the world (that’s President of the United States, by the way), which commentators would keep you awake at night? The big journalist guns of the New York Times or Washington Post, perhaps? Or might it be a 61-year-old Pennsyvanian housewife and part-time (wait for it…) BLOGGER? Keeping journalists out of a recent Barack Obama campaign event in Pennsylvania clearly lulled the presidential contender into - well - saying what he really thought.  Unfortunately for him, the 37 cataclysmic words of his speech which included references to small town people being “bitter” and somewhat attached to “guns” and “religion” were reported on an influential liberal blog by Mayhill Fowler - an Obama supporter!

Within a day, the post had 100,000 hits and the Clinton PR machine was in full swing to capitalise on Obama’s comments.

Despite having zillions to spend on the best comms strategists in the business, Obama has learned the hard way about the new reality: in the world of citizen journalism, everything is fair game