RE:THINK

Who is Ben Self you ask?

Ben Self was the Digital Strategist for Barack Obama in the US Presidential Campaign; and unless you have been living under a rock - this guy was at the centre of raising over US$300m online (Barack Obama raised over $700K in total, and 47% was raised online).  Ben’s thinking, strategies and team were at the centre of the single most successful online campaign in our history!  He is also a Partner at Blue State Digital in the US.

We were lucky to have Ben out here in Australia for the last week, and hear him share some insight from the Obama 08 Campaign.

I made it to Canberra to hear Ben speak about his experiences…and I got the following ‘nuggets’ from the presentation;

• Money, Message, Mobilisation - these are the 3 ‘end games’ for using the internet in a political campaign!
• The starting point for all activity online is ‘to get an email address’ - then you can develop a relationship with a reader/supporter and mobilise them to make a real difference!
• Grass roots match - we have all seen the campaigns where if you give $1 to a charity or cause, a celebrity or organisation will suposedly match this donation; ultimately doubling your contribution and fundraising effort.   This is supposed to make us feel great about our donation, however Ben (rightly so) suggested that we don’t really trust this.  And so they adopted a ‘grass roots match’ where any supporter who wanted to donate money was matched with someone ‘down the road’ or in the same community who had not donated, and they would then match the original donation made - this made the fundrasing effort very real, and connected like minded people who could then talk online and share their reasons for donating…SUPER initiative!
• Clever Adwords campaign - especially for the Fight the Smears website.  The beauty of this initiative is that the Google ads appearsall over the web; including in your Gmail Account inbox!  These ads are of course content sensitive, and so the ads you see in your gmail inbox will be related to the contents of your inbox.  So if you received an email from a Republican supporter laying claim to the latest (supposed) Obama slip up…fair chance an adwords ad would be on your gmail account pointing you to the ‘Fight the Smears’ website…VERY CLEVER!
• Using Google Maps to recruit offline support -  The other tactic I simply loved was the use of Google Maps.  When you registered your support, the Democrats would request your address, and match your whereabouts with other registered supporters online.  You would then be sent a Google map with the details of other Obama supporters in your local area, and you would be encouraged to go and knock on their door to meet face to face - a simply CLEVER use of an under utilised technology to help people connect.

The final few thoughts from Ben were the most profound and were what mean the most to me;

“The concept of engaging with people does not just apply to politics” and Ben reminded us all that technology is all about focusing passion!

Ben’s team defintiely used technology to focus a passion - a passion for change, and they managed to engage with the voters like never before!

(I was just chatting with Ben on Facebook, and he has been run off his feet with a mad schedule - we hope to chat on the phone further when he gets back home next week!)

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