The times they are a-changin’. I listened to Anita Dunn at Guldäggs week, and was very impressed about the transparancy from her speech and the Barack Obama Campaign.
Anita Dunn, Democratic political consultant, Squier Knapp Dunn Communications top adviser to the Barack Obama campaign along with David Axelrod, David Plouffe, and Robert Gibbs held a presentation at Rival and the Guldägg week, 30th March.
In 2006 Barack Obama went to a small political team to win the candidacy. It was improbable for Obama, the underdog named Hussein. He was black. Actually – it was freakin’ impossible. But Impossible is only impossible until proven the opposite. For the team, for Anita Dunn, was it possible.
Anita Dunn handled communications, strategy and policy for the Obama campaign. The big star of the communications strategy was Barack Obama. He new what he wanted to say, what he wanted to accomplish. Anita Dunn doesn’t take that credit away from him, she is honest and up front with that message. Barack Obama also won the AdvertisingAge Marketer of the year 2008 to prove that! Way in front of Apple in the year of iPhone.
The remarkable in Anita Dunn’s and their campaign is that they actually made the strategy and communication work all the way down to the 5000 co-workers in all states and all the millions of voters. To get the message out to different target audiences, with different key political issues.
The key consistent concept as you know was simple: Change. And came from a 2004 speech held by Obama on a democratic keynote.
TV is the biggest channel to advertise and promote in US presidential campaigns since the 50s. TV is strong in all its forms. The campaign also made Obama participate on 60 minutes, not only once, but three times! And a 30-minute long commercial with Obama talking. Just him. It was new and stood out, with a great personality and speaker as Obama, it worked excellent. Of course the regular shortform spots was used.
But as in all political campaigns TV and press interviews is cut down to 1,5 minutes pieces and the message isn’t there anymore. Dunn and her team made the interview on line for the voters, minutes after the live session. On their site barackobama.com and on youtube in its full lenght. Transparent. Comments. Even the voters, the grassroots made suggestions to the campaign, change it, made it better. Transparancy. The people are in control. We are in control.
A question that appeared on the conference was the issue on regulating comments on the web and false acquisitions on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn that Obama used on a daily basis. Did Anita moderate it, censor it? No, because then the media channel it’s not working as it should. But, she said, the other members on the forum answered the questions, if they were false or inaccurate. So it lived it’s own life and work out great for the campaign. They also used a seperate web Fight the Sears to prevent false information and have a forum for questioning.
Anita Dunn: - Because you can’t get away with it anymore. The truth will come out.
They also used targeted radio spots in all the states and of course the grassroots door knocking to get out and vote on election day. I don’t have the facts but I think most of the media budget went to TV. Second to radio and third on the internet. I think that will be the case next election as well, but I could be wrong. However the conversation, the transparancy and the facts checking etc, was probably very high online.
The speech Anita Dunn made at Rival on the Guldägg week was great and had a lot of insights. I was surprised of the openminded Anita Dunn and of the campaigns approach; work with what you got, follow the issues, be open to the voters, be transparent. Usually or historically it’s been the opposite, be controlling and over strategic.
The times they are a-changin’. At least in the US presidential campaigns.
Anita Dunn on CNN.
Björn Reitz, Reklamförbundet Has a blog talking about the speech, Reklamförbundet invited Anita Dunn to the event.
