5 ms·

Corporations Want Obama's Winning Formula

54 points by imjared 14y ago

dmix 14y ago
Step one: be one of only two options on the marketplace. Bonus Step 2: make everything you promise non-binding, so you never really have to follow through with anything your marketing said in order to make the sale.
- shardling 14y ago
  What the heck does that have to do with the article?
  - dmix 14y ago
    Well how can you draw marketing analogies from something, when your business faces a completely different marketing environment? For example, what business gets free press 24-7 for months?
    - redthrowaway 14y ago
      I'm guessing you didn't read the article. The people who are being hired are those who did analytics and social media for the campaign.
      - dmix 14y ago
        It's true I gave some what of an ad hominem attack. But lets apply the social media marketing analogy to Pepsi. Does Pepsi have an active social media audience that is feverishly reading their tweets and is very open to promoting them to their friends the same way Obama does? I doubt it. I pulled some more quotes from the article: > “Politics is a direct-response business,” Goff says. “People do things if you ask them to do it, and for the most part don’t do it if you don’t ask.” And then talking about using their facebook page over direct phone calls: > "5 million voters were contacted this way (via Facebook)" How many people are going to openly receive direct-marketing messages from a corporation like Pepsi about their products via Facebook? TLDR: The tools sound the same but political marketing is VERY different than business marketing. The type of audience you are reaching and their engagement is everything.
        waterlesscloud 14y ago
        These are valid points. For a megacorp, a lot of what OFA did just won't work. A political campaign is able to build a very personal connection, and not just with the candidate. There was a mention in another article that fundraising emails 'signed' by campaign manager Jim Messina did very well. People built that connection with another person, an individual. Some companies might be able to pull that off. If Elon Musk had a consumer company that needed that kind of marketing he'd be able to do it. Jobs could have, and in a way he did. It would be very difficult for Pepsi to pull it off. Not impossible, I can imagine it being done, but it's very unlikely. I wonder if at some point in the future there's demand for a C level exec with populist charisma in the megacorps. Maybe.
        dmix 14y ago
        > I wonder if at some point in the future there's demand for a C level exec with populist charisma in the megacorps. Interesting point. It's true corporations tend to hire celebs strictly from promotional pieces. But it's easy to see past the phoniness of the message because you know they were hired to say it. But if that person was an executive who worked directly in the business it would definitely add credibility.
        nhebb 14y ago
        > I wonder if at some point in the future there's demand for a C level exec with populist charisma in the megacorps. Well, there was this company called Apple ...
      - Shivetya 14y ago
        I will not be the first to think it or even post it, but in the end they weren't the reason he won. He has never faced a truly critical press. If anything far too many in the media are still enamored with him and he also has one fall back which is even being exploited today in regards to other members of his administration, race. Simply put, he cannot be criticized without risk of those who do so being branded bigots or racist and that inhibits many from who can be unbiased but critical from speaking out because fear is a great was to stop people before they move. Yes he had good people working his campaign, but they didn't really have that hard of a job cut out for them. This guy is part cult in his appeal and had a small portion of the vote automatically locked in. He didn't have to win over as many voters as the other guy, and again the GOP ran their Kerry / Gore / Dole / Mondale. Politicians who are easily defined by others because they cannot define themselves face an uphill battle.
        erickhill 14y ago
        "Politicians who are easily defined by others..." Oh, come on man. Romney couldn't even define himself for more than a few months at a time, if that. That was part of the problem. He had been on both sides of some of the key "litmus test" issues. Rightly or wrongly, the current narrative likes it when politicians don't change their minds about hot-button issues (like medical care, abortion, etc.)
        sxcurry 14y ago
        Sorry, but I completely disagree. Did you read any of the extremely critical articles over the last few years, even in the mainstream so-called "liberal" press. Obama was strongly criticized over his policies and actions. One example - the drone program. He was and is roundly castigated about this. I really don't agree with your "cult appeal" statement either. The people I know who support Obama are smart and well-informed, and made a conscious decision that he was and is the best choice for the country. You may not agree, but please don't fall into the trap of dismissing his appeal to many people.
        illuminate 14y ago
        "Simply put, he cannot be criticized without risk of those who do so being branded bigots or racist" If you can't speak without making people feel uncomfortable or appealing to certain dogwhistles ( http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwate... ), that isn't Obama's fault. "He has never faced a truly critical press." His centrist policies haven't, certainly. His liberal policies have been attacked and rolled back consistently to match the media narratives.
    - ams6110 14y ago
      What business would want to hire anyone associated with one of the most anti-business administrations in a long time?
      - illuminate 14y ago
        "one of the most anti-business administrations in a long time" Simple, it wasn't and isn't. It's very pro-big business. As with the Republicans, you privatize profits, socialize losses. Nobody shakes that system up, they just say that "the other guy" is to blame.
    - illuminate 14y ago
      "For example, what business gets free press 24-7 for months?" There may be PR, but the media is making a KILLING off these campaigns. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/political-ads-expensive-inefficient-and-essential-20120814 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/...
- rcavezza 14y ago
  This sounds extremely similar to the Mitt Romney formula.
- temphn 14y ago
  Step 0: Spend $3.6 trillion dollars on $2.3 trillion in revenue. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
- guscost 14y ago
  Step 3: erode enough support from the other option to make up for your own eroded support.
paulhauggis 14y ago
I'm waiting for the non-biased responses here on HN...
btilly 14y ago
My thought upon seeing the title is that this is a huge business opportunity for Optimizely that they should take advantage of.
Swizec 14y ago
Not being an American and thus never having heard either candidate speak on "issues", this image gallery perfectly illustrates what makes Obama a successful politician. http://imgur.com/a/X6186#0 http://imgur.com/a/X6186#0 He's just so ... human. I don't know whose fault that is, but it's a winning touch imho.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  There's a theory that the most charismatic candidate for president usually wins. Looking back over history it's pretty hard to argue with that.
  - Androsynth 14y ago
    Thats a valid theory, but only going back to the dawn of TV/Radio. Before that politicians actually had to have some content in their messages. for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates The format for each debate was: one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, then the other candidate spoke for 90 minutes, and then the first candidate was allowed a 30-minute "rejoinder." The candidates alternated speaking first. As the incumbent, Douglas spoke first in four of the debates. Those were 3 hour debates. Now all a politician has to do is look good holding a football. (this is basically paraphrasing Neil Postman's work from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death)
    - dmix 14y ago
      There's a good book on this subject from 1985, where the author explores how the requirement in politics is no longer real action/results it's entertainment. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X/ http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Busi...
    - batgaijin 14y ago
      Well I mean it's a joke today... the fiscal cliff wasn't mentioned in any of the debates.
pella 14y ago
"5 Ways The Obama Campaign Was Run Like A Lean Startup" ----------------- 1. They measured every single thing. 2. They used A/B testing. 3. They used behavioral targeting to increase engagement. 4. They streamlined the checkout process. 5. Their marketing was nontraditional. http://www.fastcompany.com/3002973/5-ways-obama-campaign-was-run-lean-startup http://www.fastcompany.com/3002973/5-ways-obama-campaign-was...
- Androsynth 14y ago
  Its interesting that theres another thread right now about how being unwavering on political issues. Isn't A/B testing about as far from that as you could possibly get? If you are trying to get elected at the national level and you are A/B tesing, isn't wavering exactly what you are doing? Isn't it it essentially well-targeted and opportunistic populism? Isn't this very, very bad? (this comment isnt aimed at pella, more aimed at the idea of politicians a/b testing)
  - gnaritas 14y ago
    > Isn't A/B testing about as far from that as you could possibly get? No, A/B testing doesn't mean flip flopping on the message. You'd want to test various campaigns delivering the same message different ways to see which one converts better. Maybe one set of words gets more donations while another gets more volunteers while another barely gets anything.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Since when is giving people what they want, in a democracy, "very, very bad?"
  - actsasbuffoon 14y ago
    I don't think that's how it works, but I'm loving the image of the following: We need to <%= state.color == 'red' ? "bomb" : "negotiate with" %> Iran.
- mike_ivanov 14y ago
  How is it different from directly buying votes?
stcredzero 14y ago
I thought Obama's IT formula came from the corporate marketing world, but was adapted to use in a political campaign. I've been hearing about sorting people into "cohorts" using statistical correlations for over a decade, and yet when I first heard about it, it was already decades old and originally based on pre-internet data from dead-tree media like magazine subscriptions and even so it was already very scary in terms of what they could tell about you.
- Gustomaximus 14y ago
  I thought the same thing. As someone in marketing I was thinking if corporations are not doing this stuff already you are well behind the game. The thing to note with the Obama campaign is not the strategy but more how well they executed it.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  Well, there's that, but most corporations don't really get IT right, IT is a cost center that should be held at arm's length. Obama's IT formula came from Google and Facebook, where IT is front and center.
lubos 14y ago
This article reminded me blog post on Coding Horror back from 2007 called "Falling into the pit of success". This is exactly what Obama has created for his staff: "a pit of success". His staff had to merely just fall into it. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/08/falling-into-the-pit-of-success.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/08/falling-into-the-pi...
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  This is interesting, and a good read, but I'd suggest that being elected in an election that's nothing more than one gigantic mutual smear campaign is less like succeeding and more like helping someone else fail. Winning, to me at least, implies that you have done something and that the result of your actions placed you above your competition. These guys didn't compete at anything aside from who could generate the most bad publicity for the "opponent." That just doesn't strike me as the kind of action deserving of words like "success" or "winner."

54 points by imjared 14y ago

dmix 14y ago

Step one: be one of only two options on the marketplace. Bonus Step 2: make everything you promise non-binding, so you never really have to follow through with anything your marketing said in order to make the sale.

shardling 14y ago
What the heck does that have to do with the article?
- dmix 14y ago
  Well how can you draw marketing analogies from something, when your business faces a completely different marketing environment? For example, what business gets free press 24-7 for months?
  - redthrowaway 14y ago
    I'm guessing you didn't read the article. The people who are being hired are those who did analytics and social media for the campaign.
    - dmix 14y ago
      It's true I gave some what of an ad hominem attack. But lets apply the social media marketing analogy to Pepsi. Does Pepsi have an active social media audience that is feverishly reading their tweets and is very open to promoting them to their friends the same way Obama does? I doubt it. I pulled some more quotes from the article: > “Politics is a direct-response business,” Goff says. “People do things if you ask them to do it, and for the most part don’t do it if you don’t ask.” And then talking about using their facebook page over direct phone calls: > "5 million voters were contacted this way (via Facebook)" How many people are going to openly receive direct-marketing messages from a corporation like Pepsi about their products via Facebook? TLDR: The tools sound the same but political marketing is VERY different than business marketing. The type of audience you are reaching and their engagement is everything.
      - waterlesscloud 14y ago
        These are valid points. For a megacorp, a lot of what OFA did just won't work. A political campaign is able to build a very personal connection, and not just with the candidate. There was a mention in another article that fundraising emails 'signed' by campaign manager Jim Messina did very well. People built that connection with another person, an individual. Some companies might be able to pull that off. If Elon Musk had a consumer company that needed that kind of marketing he'd be able to do it. Jobs could have, and in a way he did. It would be very difficult for Pepsi to pull it off. Not impossible, I can imagine it being done, but it's very unlikely. I wonder if at some point in the future there's demand for a C level exec with populist charisma in the megacorps. Maybe.
        dmix 14y ago
        > I wonder if at some point in the future there's demand for a C level exec with populist charisma in the megacorps. Interesting point. It's true corporations tend to hire celebs strictly from promotional pieces. But it's easy to see past the phoniness of the message because you know they were hired to say it. But if that person was an executive who worked directly in the business it would definitely add credibility.
        nhebb 14y ago
        > I wonder if at some point in the future there's demand for a C level exec with populist charisma in the megacorps. Well, there was this company called Apple ...
    - Shivetya 14y ago
      I will not be the first to think it or even post it, but in the end they weren't the reason he won. He has never faced a truly critical press. If anything far too many in the media are still enamored with him and he also has one fall back which is even being exploited today in regards to other members of his administration, race. Simply put, he cannot be criticized without risk of those who do so being branded bigots or racist and that inhibits many from who can be unbiased but critical from speaking out because fear is a great was to stop people before they move. Yes he had good people working his campaign, but they didn't really have that hard of a job cut out for them. This guy is part cult in his appeal and had a small portion of the vote automatically locked in. He didn't have to win over as many voters as the other guy, and again the GOP ran their Kerry / Gore / Dole / Mondale. Politicians who are easily defined by others because they cannot define themselves face an uphill battle.
      - erickhill 14y ago
        "Politicians who are easily defined by others..." Oh, come on man. Romney couldn't even define himself for more than a few months at a time, if that. That was part of the problem. He had been on both sides of some of the key "litmus test" issues. Rightly or wrongly, the current narrative likes it when politicians don't change their minds about hot-button issues (like medical care, abortion, etc.)
      - sxcurry 14y ago
        Sorry, but I completely disagree. Did you read any of the extremely critical articles over the last few years, even in the mainstream so-called "liberal" press. Obama was strongly criticized over his policies and actions. One example - the drone program. He was and is roundly castigated about this. I really don't agree with your "cult appeal" statement either. The people I know who support Obama are smart and well-informed, and made a conscious decision that he was and is the best choice for the country. You may not agree, but please don't fall into the trap of dismissing his appeal to many people.
      - illuminate 14y ago
        "Simply put, he cannot be criticized without risk of those who do so being branded bigots or racist" If you can't speak without making people feel uncomfortable or appealing to certain dogwhistles ( http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwate... ), that isn't Obama's fault. "He has never faced a truly critical press." His centrist policies haven't, certainly. His liberal policies have been attacked and rolled back consistently to match the media narratives.
  - ams6110 14y ago
    What business would want to hire anyone associated with one of the most anti-business administrations in a long time?
    - illuminate 14y ago
      "one of the most anti-business administrations in a long time" Simple, it wasn't and isn't. It's very pro-big business. As with the Republicans, you privatize profits, socialize losses. Nobody shakes that system up, they just say that "the other guy" is to blame.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    "For example, what business gets free press 24-7 for months?" There may be PR, but the media is making a KILLING off these campaigns. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/political-ads-expensive-inefficient-and-essential-20120814 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/...
rcavezza 14y ago
This sounds extremely similar to the Mitt Romney formula.
temphn 14y ago
Step 0: Spend $3.6 trillion dollars on $2.3 trillion in revenue. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
guscost 14y ago
Step 3: erode enough support from the other option to make up for your own eroded support.

paulhauggis 14y ago

I'm waiting for the non-biased responses here on HN...

btilly 14y ago

My thought upon seeing the title is that this is a huge business opportunity for Optimizely that they should take advantage of.

Swizec 14y ago

Not being an American and thus never having heard either candidate speak on "issues", this image gallery perfectly illustrates what makes Obama a successful politician. http://imgur.com/a/X6186#0 http://imgur.com/a/X6186#0 He's just so ... human. I don't know whose fault that is, but it's a winning touch imho.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
There's a theory that the most charismatic candidate for president usually wins. Looking back over history it's pretty hard to argue with that.
- Androsynth 14y ago
  Thats a valid theory, but only going back to the dawn of TV/Radio. Before that politicians actually had to have some content in their messages. for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates The format for each debate was: one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, then the other candidate spoke for 90 minutes, and then the first candidate was allowed a 30-minute "rejoinder." The candidates alternated speaking first. As the incumbent, Douglas spoke first in four of the debates. Those were 3 hour debates. Now all a politician has to do is look good holding a football. (this is basically paraphrasing Neil Postman's work from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death)
  - dmix 14y ago
    There's a good book on this subject from 1985, where the author explores how the requirement in politics is no longer real action/results it's entertainment. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X/ http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Busi...
  - batgaijin 14y ago
    Well I mean it's a joke today... the fiscal cliff wasn't mentioned in any of the debates.

pella 14y ago

"5 Ways The Obama Campaign Was Run Like A Lean Startup" ----------------- 1. They measured every single thing. 2. They used A/B testing. 3. They used behavioral targeting to increase engagement. 4. They streamlined the checkout process. 5. Their marketing was nontraditional. http://www.fastcompany.com/3002973/5-ways-obama-campaign-was-run-lean-startup http://www.fastcompany.com/3002973/5-ways-obama-campaign-was...

Androsynth 14y ago
Its interesting that theres another thread right now about how being unwavering on political issues. Isn't A/B testing about as far from that as you could possibly get? If you are trying to get elected at the national level and you are A/B tesing, isn't wavering exactly what you are doing? Isn't it it essentially well-targeted and opportunistic populism? Isn't this very, very bad? (this comment isnt aimed at pella, more aimed at the idea of politicians a/b testing)
- gnaritas 14y ago
  > Isn't A/B testing about as far from that as you could possibly get? No, A/B testing doesn't mean flip flopping on the message. You'd want to test various campaigns delivering the same message different ways to see which one converts better. Maybe one set of words gets more donations while another gets more volunteers while another barely gets anything.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Since when is giving people what they want, in a democracy, "very, very bad?"
- actsasbuffoon 14y ago
  I don't think that's how it works, but I'm loving the image of the following: We need to <%= state.color == 'red' ? "bomb" : "negotiate with" %> Iran.
mike_ivanov 14y ago
How is it different from directly buying votes?

stcredzero 14y ago

I thought Obama's IT formula came from the corporate marketing world, but was adapted to use in a political campaign. I've been hearing about sorting people into "cohorts" using statistical correlations for over a decade, and yet when I first heard about it, it was already decades old and originally based on pre-internet data from dead-tree media like magazine subscriptions and even so it was already very scary in terms of what they could tell about you.

Gustomaximus 14y ago
I thought the same thing. As someone in marketing I was thinking if corporations are not doing this stuff already you are well behind the game. The thing to note with the Obama campaign is not the strategy but more how well they executed it.
seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Well, there's that, but most corporations don't really get IT right, IT is a cost center that should be held at arm's length. Obama's IT formula came from Google and Facebook, where IT is front and center.

lubos 14y ago

This article reminded me blog post on Coding Horror back from 2007 called "Falling into the pit of success". This is exactly what Obama has created for his staff: "a pit of success". His staff had to merely just fall into it. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/08/falling-into-the-pit-of-success.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/08/falling-into-the-pi...

obviouslygreen 14y ago
This is interesting, and a good read, but I'd suggest that being elected in an election that's nothing more than one gigantic mutual smear campaign is less like succeeding and more like helping someone else fail. Winning, to me at least, implies that you have done something and that the result of your actions placed you above your competition. These guys didn't compete at anything aside from who could generate the most bad publicity for the "opponent." That just doesn't strike me as the kind of action deserving of words like "success" or "winner."