This year, Ozean’s top staff will be presenting their own “Year in Review of 2020” comprised of their top takes in three areas: Digital Media, Political Research, and Political Data.
This is Alex’s review of 2020 in political research, data, and digital media. Three topics that caught my attention during 2020 and none of them COVID related. Okay, some of them are COVID related.
Digital Media
The year of the virtual campaign. 2020 was…unique and forced change into how campaigns are run. It hastened the world of dispersed technologies for volunteers and staff (phone banks, text banks), temporarily changed response rates in polling, and hastened budget swings towards digital outreach.
I think we will look back at the 2020 campaign cycle as the cycle digital media came of age.
This year, digital media spends accounted for less than 75% of total political ad spend; however, digital media experienced explosive growth (most of it in smaller donor solicitations).
As digital marketers continue to experiment with using digital in persuasion messaging, we expect digital marketing budgets to continue to grow.
Political Research
In the journal of Political Psychology, an interesting experiment caught my eye this year.
The Influence of Identity Salience on Framing Effectiveness: An Experiment conduct by Emily P. Diamond of Duke University.
This was an interesting online experiment beginning the explore frame effects of messaging on highly polarized topics. In this case, the author explored framing effects of identities on climate change. Specifically, if a parental identity is primed before asking about climate change would it have an effect on political behaviors?
As the study concludes, “communicating messages when partisan identities are highly salient is likely to increase polarized responses, while communicating while nonpartisan identities are salient may be helpful in depolarizing responses.”
This gels with my belief that when an issue(s) is highly polarized, going directly at it in any partisan manner will likely get you nowhere – especially if you are attempting to persuade or change behaviors.
While, there is still much work to do this in this area such as researching how long these effects linger, if at all. I mean, as soon as a partisan identity takes over – you may be back to square one.
But for now, if you want to talk about highly partisan issues with an eye to persuade or change behaviors, you may need a trojan horse, ie or a different frame.
Political Data
Google announcing the phase out of third party cookies is my data story of the year, and it was announced at the beginning of 2020.
At the beginning of 2020, Google announced their timeline for phasing out third party cookies from Chrome.
Third party cookies are the little bits of data that companies put on your computer to “make ads more relevant” to the user….also known as “tracing them”. It is these little bits of data that allow digital agencies to target users on in individual manner.
While third party cookies have also been banned by Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla, Chrome is well over half the browser market, so this is a major change to the entire digital landscape.
The death of the cookie has been whispered about for years, and we all kinda knew it was going to happen….just not exactly when.
Now we know: Google says it is a phased approach not to take full effect until 2022.
What does this mean for digital advertising? It means first-party data is at a premium, and this move is likely to strengthen the hand of the “walled gardens” of ad tech – like….google, facebook, microsoft.
But for now, we continue to monitor the changes and watch closely how the advertising industry adjusts to a soon to be cookie free world.
Admittedly, I have been slacking in writing. This is due to workload and frankly falling off the writing wagon.
I will try and do better, but in the meantime, I was asked to look at Republican Turnout in Florida. I only explored those voters currently registered in Florida that voted in the 2016 primary.
I only explored those voters currently registered in Florida that voted in the 2016 primary.
I chose to look at the turnout by Florida DMA – and you see the critical nature of the heralded I-4 corridor. Nearly 1 out of every 2 Republican primary votes came from the Tampa/Orlando DMAs. On the flip side, there is the poor old Gainesville DMA. (No wonder we are ignored and don’t get to see many cool TV commercials.)
Next on tap is to project the anticipated turnout for 2018 – that is a little more involved and not for publication.
Besides my cynical problems with authority, I get a little flabbergasted when people take flippantly very complicated concepts, especially things we do as political consultants.
In an attempt to be more patient, please allow me explain myself.
The Science of Going Viral
Besides Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, there are two main books to look at when attempting to understand why and how things “go viral”:
Principle 1 – Simplicity – an idea stripped to its core.
Principle 2 – Unexpectedness – we must generate interest and curiosity
Principle 3 – Concreteness – sticky ideas are full of concrete images
Principle 4 – Credibility –
Principle 5 – Emotions – we must make them feel something
Principle 6 – Stories – we tell stories
If we look at Jonah’s 6 principles:
Principle 1 – Social Currency – How does it make one look to talk or share?
Principle 2 – Triggers – what trigger are we going to use?
Principle 3 – Emotion – some emotions increase sharing, others actually decrease it.
Principle 4 – Public – can we see others engaging in our desired behavior?
Principle 5 – Practical Value – How can we craft content that seems useful?
Principle 6 – Stories – What broader narrative can we wrap our idea in?
“There are six principles of contagiousness: products or ideas that contain Social Currency and are Triggered, Emotional, Public, Practically Valuable, and wrapped into Stories.” (Contagious, Berger)
So as we can see, there is a bit of actual science and heavy lifting that goes into creating a viral video. It is no flippant matter.
I would highly recommend reading all three books, but Heath sums up the main issue we have with politicians & their desire to “go viral.”
As Heath writes, “The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern.”
According to Alex Patton’s Grand Unified Theory of Political Communication, in order to get a voters attention in this fragmented, cluttered world – we must be novel or shocking (break a pattern).
Immediately, we run into issues with a stereotypical politician’s request to “go viral” !
The Risk Tolerance of Politicians
If you have done any work with politicians, you will find the most risk adverse set of clients you will ever come across.
Let’s think back to our stereotype.
Do you think that guy’s natural inclination is to take wild risks and break patterns?
Getting a politician or candidate to agree to even explore the fundamental requirement of going viral is extremely difficult, at best.
Political Positive Deviance – Going Viral
Let’s search out some positive deviance to learn from specifically from the political world:
A Google search of “Political Viral Videos” is illuminating:
Why is is illuminating? In the top 2012 videos – not a single one of them was made deliberately by a politician. Yes, several of them star politicians, but none of them were designed or created by a politician. NOT ONE.
There are two three examples that I can recall off the top of my head of politicians purposefully creating ads that went viral. They also happen to be some of my favorite ads:
We are Better that that! – Dale Peterson
Demon Sheep Ad
We may even include a third:
Pigs – Ted Yoho
What do all of these have in common?
The candidates were desperate enough to take risks.
I’ve spoken with the gentleman that created the Demon Sheep ad, and they were desperate to change the conversation at the time of the ad.
Dale Peterson had little money, little name ID and was most likely going to get creamed. What did he have to lose?
Ted Yoho was running against a 27 year incumbent in a Congressional primary and did not nearly have the resources available to him. At the time of the ad, according to what polls you believe, he was down 5-9 points.
Again, ALL DESPERATE enough to take risks and break patterns.
Interestingly, when you study risk & human behavior, humans become MUCH less risk adverse when they “have nothing to lose.”
Conclusion
There is a point to this post.
In every case in which our firm has won national recognition, it was because a client was willing or desperate enough to take risks.
There is something about having your back to the wall.
The problem with risk? We may fail. And as we all know, when one fails on the Internet, one fails for all of mankind to witness and share.
So, before you flippantly request your political consultant to make you a digital media campaign that will go viral, you need to assess your tolerance for risk.
Because, the only way to make a video of your talking head tax presentation ‘go viral’ may be to loosen the screws in your chair so that it collapses ending in an uninterrupted stream of your cussing while a cat slinks by to close the video.
PS Finally, IF we are lucky enough to strike gold and have something go viral, we may want to discuss the value to your campaign of getting 100,000 karma on reddit and 1,000,000 you tube views comprising of people outside your voting district. (but that is another post)
Ozean was surprised and honored to be mentioned in Campaigns & Elections Magazine as one of their “Consulting blogs to bookmark”
Ozean Media Political Consulting Blog
Ozean Media itself is not exclusively a political consulting firm, but part of its focus is on Republican political campaigns. The firm devotes a section of its blog to political consulting, and frequently posts updates on topics relevant to the consulting world. Be sure to check out the Friday posts where the blog goes in search of a “Eureka” moment.
I must admit, I think I may be maturing or mellowing in my age.
The past year/18 months has been a period of intense study in an attempt to answer the question “How do people REALLY make decisions, especially political decisions?”
This has lead to a more intense reading period than I can remember even while in college. It has lead to books and scientific papers on behavior decision making theory, statistics, Bayes statistics, cognitive thinking, irrationality, biases, political branding, story telling, critical thinking tools, Neuromarketing and philosophy.
It has been a true meta-experience, and “Thinking about thinking” has lead to an incredible personal and professional journey.
Distilled, here is what I am learning:
Our brains are complex, incredible and a big fat gigantic liar sitting atop our shoulders.
Essentially a synthesis of all the literature I have read is that we bump along life taking shortcuts that allow us to make sense of our world and unless we expend tremendous effort and are aware of our mental short cuts, we don’t do much heavy thinking. Even when we think that we are making a major decision, we are often making most decisions at a sub-conscience, affective, irrational level and then “confabulate” (my absolute new favorite word) a story in order to rationalize our decisions.
In fact, we have to force ourselves to do heavy thinking and even THEN, our brains still try and cheat and take short cuts.
For a very long time, I have been blissfully operating under my very own set of biases: personal and professional. Combine these biases and shortcuts with a healthy dose of ‘expertise’ and you had a person that did not deal well with ‘amateurs’ in the political field.
I was easily frustrated, dismissive, and impatient with others when it came to political and campaigning suggestions.
Then I spent a 18 months being humbled by science when you suddenly realize that the splinter in some amateur’s eye is completely blinding you to the log in your own eye.
The Change
I am attempting to personally commit myself to improving my decision making process and improving the way that I handle dissenting views proffered by others.
When you start treating your brain as benevolent well meaning liar, you approach things differently.
In all of the past 20 years, one question is helping me more than anything. The question?
“What if THEY are RIGHT?”
This simple question forces me to break my thinking patterns, at least some of them.
By not dismissing someone who does not agree with you out of hand, you are entering into a new way of thinking about an issue.
Quick take inventory of your own biases, think about your decision process:
Did you satisfy?
Did you seek only confirmation? Did you only goto your favorite website and find the first article that agreed with you and send it out as definitive proof?
Did you even consider a differing opinion?
Did you consider that you could be wrong?
What is the probability that you are wrong?
What are your critical underlying assumptions?
The key is to slow the decision making process down.
Before rejecting the person’s thought, idea, or comment immediately out of hand, I quickly ask, “What if THEY are right?”
How did they come to their conclusion(s), what was their process, what is their information, what is their reasoning? All questions that pop into your head when you ask “What if they are right?”
Even with this effort, I still forget to ask it sometimes hence the hanging of the post its around my workspace.
I am attempting to use this with my clients, family, my friends, and my political opponents.
Honestly, it is a struggle, because it is hard and takes more mental energy than one realizes.
But, I am starting to see the rewards. It is making me more patient (a little) and I think it is helping me make better decisions.
I find myself less interested in being right and more interested in making the best decision possible, and I think this alone will serve my clients, my family and my friends better.
I still may not agree with the person, in fact considering your side of the issue may make me further entrenched in my position but that is a complete other blog post.
For now, let’s just say I am making the effort.
Final thought on Thinking about Thinking
Please, don’t take my word about any of this; after all, my brain could be lying to me. He’s kinda of a rascal like that.
Welcome to ‘science time’ with Ozean Media (Yes, it normally it is Science Friday, but I have recently become aware of NPR’s Science Friday so we must re-brand!)
While we re-brand, I came across some literature that I found interesting. We are embarking on a messaging discovery phase for a client, and I began to wonder what studies are out there on structure of messaging and the reception of those messages .
Basically, does rhetoric influence reception of the message?
This question lead me to Max Atkinson‘s research on the 7 rhetorical devices and the applause they generate. This lead me to a paper by John Heritage and David Greatbatch from the University of Warwick who used Atkinson’s research. This paper reviews Atkinson’s research and applies it to political speeches made in Britain.
It is an interesting read, and you can download the entire paper at the end of this post; however, in summary:
70% of the applause produced is associated with 7 rhetorical constructions.
The relationship between the rhetoric and response is independent of party, status of speaker, and the popularity of the message.
Performance Factors (the speaker’s actions) are found to influence the likelihood of generating a response strongly.
What the findings are showing is that audience responses to political speeches are influenced by the verbal structuring of the statements that are being made. Statements that use 1 of the 7 rhetorical devices were “between two and eight times as likely to be applauded as those who did not.”
In fact, the verbal structure had more to do with the applause and response generated than did the actual argument.
The 7 Rhetorical Devices to generate applause
1. Contrast – This is the Daddy Mack of devices, the mother sauce if you will. If you take away nothing else from this post, remember CONTRAST / ANTITHESIS. It has been used since the Greeks for a darn good reason: it works. Contrast works so well because the core assertion is said twice – in the negative and the positive – and the audience knows exactly when to react.
2. List, in three parts – This is the Daddy Mack, Jr. of devices. In the use of item1, item2, and item3, the “AND” signals to the audience the conclusion of the point and primes them for applause.
3. Puzzle-Solution – The speaker establishes a puzzle, and then provides the answer with the answer being the core message.
4. Headline-Punchline – Similar to Puzzle Solution, but more simple and less potential for elaboration (think soundbite).
5. Combination – combining all the devices above, with most combinations using contrast together with another device.
6. Position Taking – describes a state of affairs that the speaker is expected to take a strong stance with the description containing little to no overt evaluation. At the end, the speaker unequivocally praises or condemns the state of affairs.
7. Pursuit – When all fails, if an audience fails to respond, speakers may actively pursue applause by simply priming the message and then restating.
The Results of the Study of Rhetoric
As you can clearly see, contrast by far is the greatest deliver of applause – the mother sauce.
In summary, the study states about the table above:
Taken as a whole, table 5 provides impressive general support for the hypothesis that political messages that are packaged in rhetorical formats embodying emphasis and projectability are more likely to be applauded than messages that are not so packaged. The distribution of applause in association with the various formats described is generally stable regardless of political party and type of speaker. This conclusion is qualified only by a slight tendency for more practiced political speakers to gain a higher proportion of their applause from rhetorical devices than run-of-the-mill conference participants. These results suggest that there is a fundamental tendency for audiences to respond to political statements that employ the rhetorical devices and that experienced political speakers use them more often, or more appositely, or deliver them more effectively.
Additional Finding
As you may guess, the politician’s skill at delivering the speech greatly affects the outcome.
Something as simple as eye contact was greatly noticed. When a line failed to generate applause, the researchers were “struck by the repeated failure of many speaker to sustain eye contact with the audience when making significant points.”
Tucked into the study is the following conclusion: “while they (the audience) may have been able to recognize that a significant point was being made, were generally reluctant to respond to it in the absence of any additional signal from the speaker that the point was of real importance.”
Speakers can do this by the stress they place on their points, and speakers generate this defined stress in 5 main ways:
gazing at the audience at or near the completion point of the message
delivering the point more loudly than the surrounding speech passages
delivering the point with great pitch or stress variation
delivering the point with marked speeding up, slowing down, or some other rhythmic variation
delivering the point accompanied by the use of gestures
Conclusion
While every politician or aspiring politician may not be able to hire a full time speechwriter, there is no excuse NOT to learn the basics.
It is clear, The mere way one structures & delivers an argument has a huge impact on the effectiveness of an argument.
Any politician would improve their stature not with long, boring litanies of facts, but rather with an understanding of how to construct an argument using these 7 rhetorical devices. Then one must practice, practice, practice delivering them.
OR
As my Mamma said, “Son, it is not what you say, but how you say it!”
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