Comment by chishaku | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chishaku | Hacker News Reader

Disclaimer: Not a political statement, just hypothetical and simplified observations on the use and efficacy of digital technology employed by election campaigns.

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The prevailing narrative has been that data and analytics has powered a more effective ground game and digital strategy for recent candidates often giving them the edge (Obama).

It's safe to assume that Hillary Clinton's campaign has the most (winning) experience and resources in this respect as she inherited many of the operatives from the Obama camp.

For this reason, it would be really interesting if Hillary ended up losing the nomination. It would signal what we already know which is that there is some limit to marketing and advertising.

Voters/consumers often discern the difference between the candidate/product as it actually is and the perceptions of the candidate/product that the advertising campaign attempts to manufacture.

Especially for younger generations, people are increasingly immune not only to the content of advertisements but also to the tracking technologies utilized to effectively deliver those advertisements.

It will be interesting to see how these trends play out (increased reliance of campaigns on digital advertising and increased immunity to ads by younger generations).

I think this will be a very interesting question even if she ultimately wins as she's certainly had a tough time given her resources.

Personally, I don't believe people are building direct immunity. I think they are updating their self image to avoid cognitive dissonance which leads to identity confusions, like the shocking number of people I meet who seem to think they are in all sorts of long tails when they seem quite average.

As such, I do think quantitative based analytics will eventually win out. But not in terms of direct targeting ads to the correct voter. I think broadcast (or pseudo broadcast) ads are essential and the sophistication will be in analyzing the social affects and trying to do this in smaller tests without "using them up". I.e. eliciting bad defenses from an opponents supporters on twitter is far more powerful than randomly bringing up points privately to the independents you are after. In the first case, we are all forced to cement an argument if only to clarify why we think someone is an idiot.

I have some personal experience here. Worked with the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns and knew a few guys in the "Cave" (their analytics and big data initiatives that helped direct strategy) The biggest thing to remember is that ultimately the big decisions and spends are made by leadership. Their emphasis, hiring, and personal relationship to the teams crunching the numbers, suggesting policy and strategy based on those numbers, and building the tools is what makes a difference.

My guess would be Hillary has a lot more of her team coming from the DNC than former Obama staffers and that its far too soon to make a judgement about the cohesion and effectiveness of her digital strategy operation at this point. There won't be much ramp up on that front until after the primaries. Its probably a skeleton crew right now.

You are asking the interesting question. I have nothing to add.

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