29th Jan 2008
Advocacy in the US election
My first Irish News column appears today and after last Saturday’s primary result I thought it would be a good idea to look at the role of advocacy in the election. I have drawn on material which I have used before to emphasise the shifts in campaigning and communications since the last presidential election. The changes are nothing short of revolutionary and will impact on politics and business way beyond the United States. I am a guest columnist because of my office in the CIPR. Over the coming months I will try and discuss the role communications is playing in our society and how the seismic changes which we are all witnessing are creating unprecedented opportunities for my profession.
This is the article in full:
With the race for the democratic nomination still wide open after Barack Obama’s comprehensive win in South Carolina the impact of new communications and campaigning techniques is clear to see. The last time America went to the polls the bloggers were the new kids on the block. Today, you are nobody in US media or politics if you don’t publish in cyberspace. Blogging is more democratic than traditional media - the Irish News will give me 800 words a month whereas I can publish that in a day on my own blog. But it’s only in the past two or three years with the emergence of social and digital media platforms such as MySpace, Facebook or Netvibes, that readers can share their favourite blogs and track others with as much ease as you can read this paper. This is what is making the US election so very different in communications terms and is most likely the reason why many traditionally hard to reach groups such as ethnic minorities and young people are reconnecting with politics and coming out to vote in record numbers.
Such a change in communications is the classic tale of evolution. The first cars did what horses did, only quicker. The first word processors did what typewriters did, only easier. And the first wave of digital communications technology did what print and broadcast media had already done - share information - only faster and farther.
At first, in other words, new technologies enhance the performance of existing tasks. The real revolution comes when people use the new technologies, not to improve existing tasks, but to create new possibilities. That’s the key difference between this US election and last.
Public relations caught the first wave of this communications revolution by adopting new technology to spread information. We showed how it no longer makes sense to send a message to the many, to persuade the few. But that first wave, sharing information with more segmented audiences, is cresting. A new one, a fundamental transformation of communication from information to advocacy, is gathering pace. For the first time, individuals looking for news, information and cues are relying less on institutions, or even this paper and more on each other. Three drivers show why:
First, the news media aren’t dictating the “news” anymore. Instead of merely accepting what’s presented on traditional media from conventional sources, people are increasingly turning to each other for information and validation. Top US market researchers used a simple Google search on the world’s 20 largest brands to prove the point: Less than 20 percent of search results were linked to the companies themselves. About half were related to experts, the media and other sources. The remaining and growing 26 percent came from consumer generated sources such as blogs and product reviews, which are playing an increasing role in what the public learns and thinks about current affairs.
As individuals take control, they’re demanding more, which brings us to the second driver - “pull” now overrules “push.” Amid information overload, pushing messages is not enough. We need to pull people toward the ideas we want to convey in a true exchange. What’s required is engagement. Individuals the world over are increasingly striving to fulfill higher needs and more actively shape their own futures. As consumers, they’re looking for deeper total experiences delivered by companies that share their values. And values are something only personal engagement can convey.
The need for personal engagement helps explain our third driver: the law of the few. Initial forecasts said the new media would produce isolation, not interaction. As it turns out, people may not have as many close acquaintances, but they have multiple “core ties” to others they turn to and confide in. In this networked society, individuals don’t take their cues from centralised, institutionalised experts. They come from influencers, connectors, bloggers, activists and simply anyone willing to stand on top of a soapbox to voice their opinion, virtually or otherwise, anywhere in the world.
As the game changes, campaigning has changed too. Obama has been particularly successful at recruiting advocates, forging emotional bonds and higher levels of involvement from supporters — active, vocal, proud, informed, experiential.
Those vying for the world’s biggest job have grasped this potential, as have the planet’s biggest brands. The first technological wave, the acceleration of information, has crested. The second, the use of information to transform individuals into advocates, is rising and advocates are playing a central role in this year’s election.
Consumer advocacy is certainly rising. If you want to take part in it and engage the most influential individuals in any target audience you should try http://www.beesandpollen.com . Bees and Pollen is an online search engine to find and contact the most influential individuals within social networks. The one having highest trust among their friends network.
Hi Conal,
Congrats on the column. Only 1 month to got to the off!
F.
Interesting column. I agree that the way in which the net is being used has changed dramatically over the last few years (more networking, more multimedia, a deeper connectivity and so on). You explain clearly that big brands and politicians are beginning to see how this changes the game.
Clearly the way information (commercial, promotional, political, news, and so on) is transmitted and received has changed. The change is both democratisation and fragmentation. What affect will this have on the information itself? Up to now you knew a little about the source of the information - whether NY Times or Cable channel. So you knew at least a little about their agenda or the pedigree of their impartiality. And if they were plain wrong or lying you knew who to come back to or their might be a channel for complaint (such as a broadcasting commission). Or indeed in certain cases there might even be recourse to the courts.
With the new democratised media the channels are far vaguer and multifarious are they not. What affect will this have on the ‘quality’ of our information? And what new tools or abilities do we need in order to be able to filter it, to assess its veracity, or to place it in the spectrum of hidden agendas?
[...] hear me go on a lot about the shift from traditional public relations to advocacy. We have been tracking this global shift in Weber Shandwick for a couple of year and last week we [...]