By Paul Berney, Managing Director Europe, Mobile Marketing Association
May has been a month that everyone in the UK will remember for election fever and scrutiny of the electoral system.
Once the dust has settled around our new Lib-Con government though, perhaps the political parties’ respective communication teams should turn their attention to the tools which they use to connect with the great British electorate, addressing the missed opportunity that was the UK’s first “digital election” and integrating the most personal and interactive campaign tool known to marketers - mobile.
When President Obama was elected in 2008, many hailed the role of new media in literally mobilising the electorate to get out and vote. So much so that US website mobilemarketer.com named him mobile marketer of the year.
The Obama campaign used SMS, mobile internet sites, apps, mobile video, mobile advertising and Interactive Voice response to get its message through to a previously disinterested, disaffected or disenfranchised electorate; clearly to great effect. It was thought that the Democrats’ use of mobile would change modern political campaigning forever, with political parties everywhere switching to copy them.
This was not the case in the recent UK election however. Instead of using mobile devices for targeted communications, that would have enabled the parties to establish a relationship of interaction based on value and utility, electioneering focussed predominantly on traditional media such as direct mail, billboard advertising and TV.
I received nine different mailers from the Conservatives, three from Labour and one from the Liberal Democrats, which had a grammatical error in the opening line. It seemed that no party was ready for change that embraced the mobile era. In fact, the Conservatives were the only party to enable you to sign up for text updates from ‘Dave’, but they were bland in the extreme.
It was not, however, as if the campaigning was devoid of new ideas. Almost all the parties were prepared to develop almost every area of marketing to gain votes. Despite the traditional media focus, they invested heavily in some emerging options with full vigour.
Social media for example was an area in which the parties competed strongly for bandwidth. Channels such as Twitter and Facebook opened the possibility of speaking to voters directly to capitalise on changes in momentum, particularly through the election debates.
YouGov research highlighted that nearly one in four respondents aged between 18 and 24 years old commented on the election using social media.
Given that a good proportion of this figure would have been doing so from their mobile devices while watching the leaders’ debates, there is clearly enormous scope for political parties to connect with their electorate using mobile, especially since the YouGov research also found that 20% of those surveyed would be more likely to vote if they could do so using their handset.
This is the key to discovering mobile’s power - using it as an access point for consumers to answer their demands for convenience and need, and to enhance and extend other channels such as print and TV.
One area of mobile that was investigated and adopted to limited success was the creation of mobile applications. Each party appeared to fall into the same trap that many brands encounter - throwing all their efforts into creating an iPhone app without really thinking through in any detail where mobile could be used to extend, enhance or replace existing communications.
They did not look at the full range of mobile marketing capabilities as the Obama team did, working out how to deploy each, but instead fixated on a handset owned by 3% of the population rather than the near 100% who can be reached through messaging.
Each of the iPhone apps were flawed both in terms of functionality and, more importantly, in deciding who the target audience was. Where was the app which gave me the ability to argue with friends in the pub, comparing policies or providing me with facts to back my argument? That would have made me sit up and take note of the party helping me to understand their policies in a simple, timely and effective way.
This was a missed opportunity for all the parties. A large part of the UK voting population doesn’t own a high end smartphone or use mobile data, but many voters do own a mobile phone that can receive SMS.
According to MMA member Airwide’s Jay Seaton, Obama’s campaign had immense success using this lowest common denominator in mobile, sending its supporters in New Hampshire three SMS messages over the course of primary day to remind them to vote and to encourage their friends to vote for example.
There, Obama won the 18-to-24-year-old bracket by nearly 40 points - the largest split of any age bracket. The messages were simple, targeted and personal, and had an instantaneous effect.
Indeed, the Obama campaign had some of the highest voter turnout during the elections, which was widely recognised as being the result of the campaign’s grass root efforts according to mobile marketing agency, iLoop.
While political candidates struggle to establish a personal connection with the voter and differentiate themselves using traditional methods, mobile appeals to key demographics that have made it a daily part of their lives, as well as easily integrating with other media channels, bringing an element of interactivity to print, broadcast, outdoor and other digital marketing channels at low cost.
Mobile presents itself as one of the single most important campaign tools - allowing immediate, targeted and measurable communication with the majority of the voting population.
We may have to wait another five years for the next true test of how UK political parties get to grips with mobile, but it is clear that they must get smart if they are to engage an increasingly time-poor and technologically savvy electorate and their need for concise, targeted information.
If political parties can start to use mobile to communicate their messages in a way that is contextual; based on time, location, need and the individual; as well as demographics like age and gender, and which respects consumer choice and privacy then they will find that mobile offers a fantastic opportunity to interact and engage.
With the rapid proliferation of mobile devices and smartphones, it is likely to be the difference between winning and losing the next election so they must start now to centre their campaigns firmly around a digital, ‘always on’ society. I look forward to seeing the results.
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