business opportunities in online political campaigning (product development roadmap)

Lucian Despoiu

Business Opportunitiesin Online Political Campaigning

(Product Development Roadmap)

Agenda1. About Kondiment2. Politics and the Internet3. Political campaigns in the 21st century4. How big is the online political communication market5. Major Lessons learnt during the past 20 elections6. What has been done so far7. A Paradigm Switch (from services to products) - Collaborative Model8. Introducing Kombo

1. ABOUT Kondiment

Kondiment Group is one of the most successful Performance Marketing Agencies in Eastern Europe and one of the first agencies in EUROPE to focus on (online) Political Marketing.

Our dedicated team of specialists offers integrated online marketing and communication services, as well as technology solutions and services to parties, independent politicians and political consulting firms.

About Kondiment

Kondiment’s Core Industry Expertise

Key Members of Kondiment Group

Recent Political Projects

Our offices

2. POLITICS AND THE INTERNET

Politics and the Internet

How many of you voted at the last elections?

(Most of you consider politics… “not relevant” for your business, right?!?Me too )


In fact…

We are wrong: Politics and Politicians ARE massively influencing

OUR playground/BUSINESS ECOSYTEM

Politics and the Internet- Online media, portals: cookies usage is under political

decision now- eAdministration (how we pay taxes online, register

companies, sign digitally) is under politics and politicians decision

- Anti-Trust, Acquisitions approval- Microsoft, Google Fees in Europe

All these…and more… in the hands of those that don’t understand technology, internet, online marketing, etc


Quick example: TV Channels – perceived as “strategic” for political acts, for political communications, for voters decision processes.

This is WHY politicians are very careful IN HELPING them

3. POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Political campaigns in the 21st century - The Context

Internet has changed political campaigns and party management drastically:

On one hand, voters turned digital in their media habits• Hyper-atomization of media channels• Everything goes social or mobile (or both )• Content has been re-elected as... king

Political campaigns in the 21st century - The Context

Internet has changed political campaigns and party management drastically:

On the other, parties and candidates found themselves facing new challenges/issues:• media is now entertainment harder to become relevant as politician• richer information flow in the digital ecosystem harder to identify, manage and keep voter’s attention• no internet marketing and communication skills @ the party, campaigns level• excess of data available (web, internet, analytics). No relevant data on voting habits

Political campaigns in the 21st century


THE FUTURE… IS NOT ONLINE


THE FUTURE… IS NOT OFFLINE


Integrating ONLINE And OFFLINE efforts

E-mail (voters management) Telemarketing

Social Networking Door-to-door campaigning

Applications Traditional media

Advertising Community organization

Party management Mass meetings, rallies

Internet lobby Offline lobby

PRODUCTSSERVICES


While traditional means of political marketing remained mostly the same, a new trend has emerged in online media:

Giants such as Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft have engaged in offering specialized tools and features to politicians, parties and voters alike.

The shift:

4. HOW BIG IS THE ONLINE POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

MARKET

(online) Political Marketing How big is the market?

• Presidential Elections• Parliamentary Elections• Regional Elections• Local Elections

EU Cities By Number Of Inhabitants

Facts on EU alone1. EU’s total population is of about 503 million people2. And 44% of these people reside in cities of 50,000 inhabitants or more3. To be more specific, there are:

• 20 cities w more than 1 million people• 33 cities w between 500,000 and 1 million people• 395 cities w between 100,000 and 500,000 people• And about 1350 cities w between 50,000 and 100,000 people

Local Election Campaigns in EUAssuming an average of 3 parties and/or independent candidates facing off in the local elections, and an average budget availability of services and media:

1. About $ 50,000 for 50,000-100,000 cities 2. Aprox $ 100,000 for 100,000-500,000 cities3. Some $ 200,000 for 500,000-1m cities4. And probably $ 500,000 for cities w 1m inhabitants or more

We get a total spent of more than $ 370 million (and again, that’s just for the local elections alone)

Europe Potential Market Size (media, services and technology)

Local Election : 500 Mio USD (every 4 years cycle)Regional Election: 300 Mio USD (every 4 years cycle)Parliamentary Election: 40 Mio (every 4 years cycle)Presidential Election: 30 Mio (every 4 – 5 years cycle)

TOTAL PER YEAR: approx. 220 Mio USD

And that’s Europe alone, but…

5. MAJOR LESSONS LEARNT DURING THE PAST

20 ELECTIONS

Major lessons learnt during the past 20 elections

1. SETTING ADEQUATE KPIsEach campaign and candidate have different KPIs that need to be set up accordingly and to take into consideration the political platform and overall image of the party or candidate.

•Website&Blog: unique visitors, new vs returning, bounce rate, emails etc.•Facebook & Social Media: ads served, clicks, fans, reach, emails, app users etc.•Emails & sure voters data base: emails, open rate, unsubscribes etc.•Activism: active people, emails etc.•Online Media Press: AdServer impressions, clicks, widgets installed etc.•MLV & VRM: no. of active supporters, no. of sure voters, emails collected etc.


2. DEALING WITH NATIVE DIGITAL VOTERSThere are millions of voters out there – native digital voters, people that spend a lot of time online and that have developed a certain digital sense that helps them filter information better and faster. They have to be taken into consideration when developing online political campaigns.


3. CATEGORIES OF VOTERS TO BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATIONThere are 5 categories of voters: sure voters, likely voters, undecided voters, likely voters for the opponent and sure voters for the opponent.A campaign should be started and ended focusing on likely and sure voters and actions should be taken to convince them to Go Out To Vote (GOTV).


4. CONTINUOUS CAMPAIGNINGAn efficient political campaign is by no means built 45 days prior to the elections. You need time to reach visible results.


5. MICROTARGETING AND OPTIMIZATIONAn efficient online political campaign has to be micro-targeted and to permanently be optimized (included here are: messages, media channel, web presence, data collection, targeting, retargeting).

6. WHAT HAS BEEN DONE SO FAR

What has been done so farGoogle Politics & Elections

Focuses on the empowerment of voters. Voters now have, in one spot, news, information and knowledge required to become active participants in the country’s democratic process.

What has been done so farPolitics & Elections Ads Toolkit

Four screens to victory:Efficiently engaging users through mobile, TV, computers and tablets

What has been done so farPolitical Campaign Toolkit

Easily connect with voters by creating special, targeted ads.

What has been done so farGoogle + Politics

All followers get important and relevant information on political issues.

What has been done so farPolitical Contributions

Candidates can now collect contributions from supporters

What has been done so farAdWords District Targeting

Politics now goes local; politicians can create ads and target them on districts

What has been done so farConsumer Survey Election Center

Google Insights for events for the 2012 election.

What has been done so farCivic Information API

Google allows developers to build applications that display civic information such as polling place, candidate data, early vote location etc.

What has been done so farVoting Information Project

Offers tools to provide voters with access to customized election information to help them navigate the voting process.

What has been done so farPolitical Insights

Displays political issues by aggregating queries submitted to the U.S. version of the Yahoo! web search engine (May 2010 - January 2011)

What has been done so farPolitical Search Trends

Classifies search queries according to political leaning

What has been done so farMicrosoft Government

Campaign Ready - customizable campaign web page, the possibility to improve and keep track of fundraising online and options to connect with staff and constituents with e-mail, integrated social networks, and more.

What has been done so farCampaign Cloud

A web-based operating system that consolidates the functionality of multiple web-based applications

What has been done so farRock The Vote

Engage and build the political power of young people.

What has been done so farXbox LIVE Elections

Live coverage of major political events.

Until recently, Kondiment has offered services:

1. We’ve created Facebook Pages for parties, party leaders and independent candidates

2. We’ve created and published content:• About• Timeline• Photos & Videos

3. We’ve created Tabs, Apps & Badges4. We’ve created and published Events & Polls5. And of course, we’ve created Ads and ran

Ad campaigns

PAGES

•About

•Timeline

•Photo

•Video

ADS

•Page Ads

•Post Ads

•Sponsored stories

APPS

TABS

EVENTS

POLLS BADGES

What has been done so farSteps We Followed

VOTERSIdentify Target RegisterMAINTAIN RELATIONSHIP

Identify categoriesParty members, voters, supporters and activists

Define/Develop convincing messages for sub-targets (women, youngsters, intellectual elites, retired, jobless etc) and use the internet to turn them into “active supporters”

What has been done so farObjectives

Copy

Targeting

Segmenting

Analyzing

Optimization

Strategy• Micro targeting (age, gender)• Analyze conversion rates by

demographics • Target opponents’ supporters• Target by interests (if there is

relevant data in the panel)• Permanent optimization of the Ads,

image/copy testing• Find the most active demographic

groups (voters, possible voters, anti voters, non voters)

What has been done so farAds

What has been done so farAds

7. A PARADIGM SWITCH(FROM SERVICES TO PRODUCTS):

COLLABORATIVE MODEL

A Paradigm Switch: from services to products

From our experience:- A cross-channel approach is mandatory;- Working alongside party members is of the utmost importance;- We need to start channeling our efforts (in a collaborative way) in the Product Development - Online efforts go hand in hand with the offline efforts of the party and all their promoting activities

WHY EXTEND?Internet has changed the way political campaigns work.Our experience offers us a head start: we know what parties need, when they need it and how they need it in order to easily manage data and integrate different campaign tools

7. A Paradigm Switch: from services to products

Analyzing what political parties we work with needed, we arrived to three conclusions:

1. All parties’ activities need to be properly managed

2. A party needs a strong, coherent media presence and a constant dialogue with supporters, potential members and voters

3. A party needs specific tools to reach its voters, coordinate and activate them.

4. Content/Massages to be sent by parties/politicians needs to be hyper-local

7. A Paradigm Shift: from services to products

We developed a cutting edge suite thatintegrates media management, voters management

and party management into one simple, easy to use tool: KOMBO

We share Kombo with partners, developers, re-sellers or trainers together with our experience and knowledge.

Kombo Collaborative Model

8. INTRODUCING…

Kombo (Empowering Politics) is a suite of products and services that can be used together or individually, helping party officials and politicians:

to better organize their internal staffto more efficiently structure their campaign,to mobilize votersto keep them updatedto monitor voters behaviorto properly manage their media campaigns

6. Introducing Kombo

The modules that constitute Kombo offer answers to all specific political questions:

• How am I going to win? • What do the voters care about? • What issues are they interested in, and where do

they stand on those issues? • What is the perfect message for campaign? • How do I share my message?

6. Introducing Kombo Suite

The 6 Kombo Modules are:1. Web Presence 2. Media Manager3. Treasure4. Voter Manager5. Party Manager6. Social

Web Presence

Key benefits of the “WEB PRESENCE” module

• Allows politicians to engage party supporters and voters by building a community and letting them share opinions and suggestions.

• Offers the ability to use social media channels to reach voters trough the right channels

• Allows party members and politicians to build a coherent and accurate online reputation, to attract new political supporters and keep in touch with existing supporters

• Offers the possibility to efficiently use the online medium as the fastest way to spread news about the party’s activity and to react to other events

Media Manager

Key benefits of the “MEDIA MANAGER” module

• Politicians and party representatives can now use available reports to select the communication channels that have the maximum impact for their voters

• Raises the voters engagement in different activities• Offers a better use of campaign budget• Reduces overall media budget in an efficient way• Offers advanced tracking systems to identify your voters and display ads relevant

to them

Key benefits of the “TREASURE” module

• All the general data of a country is gathered in one place for politicians and party representatives to use in an efficient manner

• The data of the platform is gathered in a format that can serve all other campaign tools

• Offers the possibility to segment voters by different criteria• Represents an efficient way to keep your campaign costs to an absolute

minimum• Offers all the information needed at once- no need for more databases• It is a cost-effective solution that can easily be integrated with other systems

Key benefits of the “VOTER MANAGER” module

• Offers a decrease in overall campaign costs• Allows party members to gain knowledge on voter’s interests.• Parties can now get accurate feedback on the solutions they offer• Parties can centrally manage direct communication with voters• Politicians can protect sensitive data by consolidating multiple security systems

into a single reliable structure.• The module allows party representatives to save time and financial resources• Access to visual display of statistical information about voters’ structure on a map• Overlay statistical data and learn relevant facts for the campaign

Key benefits of the “PARTY MANAGER” module

• Party representatives gain control over all aspects of party operations & track every individual operation

• Improves collaboration and information sharing• Provides active party members with the tools they need• Offers a clear division of responsibility, an easier, cost-effective way to manage

and to track memberships• The system accepts credit cards for payment of membership fees as well as

general donations• Provides politicians and party members with a better control of the entire

processes: the information they want collected and those who have access to it

Global and per country SOCIAL INDEX of• Politicians & Parties• Government & Parliament• Political NGOs & Petitions

Focuses on Facebook (later also on Twitter)

PRO version (for political campaigners)

Represents the perfect TOOL to drive AD Sales (Politicians love to COMPETE: “The Likes Syndrome”).

Kombo Social

6. Meet Kombo

Kombo – platform What’s NEXT? – development and training a network of “specialized interactive agencies”, applications developers, political consultants across Europe and Africa (phase1), Asia and South America (phase2)

Down The Road

Contant:

Facebook.com/Despoiu

[email protected]