techno-stumping

Candidates hungry for brand awareness and consumer interaction take a page from the Web.

Every four years, the Dems and the GOP dust off their Marketing 101 tactics for brand awareness and consumer interaction. This time around, they have a new platform: The Internet.

More than 65 percent of voters will use the Internet to help them decide how to vote this year. This first Internet-era election has spawned a number of non-partisan aggregate sites for voter (read: “consumer”) reach and reaction. Sites like voter.com and webwhiteblue.org are using one-to-one marketing tools to link voters with candidates. Some, like voter.com, are also using promotions to drive traffic. Whatever your party affiliation, there’s a lesson here for brand managers on how to build a credible, relevant image.

Nonprofit Web, White & Blue 2000 (webwhiteblue.org) this month kicks off a Rolling Cyber Debate featuring daily snippets from the George W. Bush and Al Gore campaigns. The site is a composite of information from 17 news organizations including ABC News, CNN, National Public Radio, nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com.

In August, the site hosted a “virtual interview” of Bill Clinton, with voters submitting questions. Clinton’s answers appeared on all 17 member sites, reaching 69 million voters – 85 percent of Web users.

ElectionSearch2000, a collaboration between washingtonpost.com and privately held search engine searchbutton.com, Mountain View, CA, lets candidates compare their Web sites with voter hot buttons du jour and tailor their sites and speeches accordingly. For example, nearly half of ElectionSearch2000 users o a search on “education,” but few candidates address education on their home pages.

Mrs. Smith’s Goes to Washington Voter.com may end up the biggest winner of the presidential race. The for-profit site launched in spring 1999, pegged to this year’s election. Founder Justin Dangel wanted to use election-year buzz to build awareness, then establish voter.com as a permanent resource for local and state legislative issues. The Boston-based operation makes money by selling ad space on the site and in targeted e-mail newsletters. It recently signed media rep 24/7, New York City, to sell the site space.

Voter.com boasts plain-English, non-partisan coverage under the supervision of executive editor Carl Bernstein (yes, that Carl Bernstein). Its launch strategy is classic packaged goods with a techie touch. Vice president of marketing Karen Lechner is an alumna of Alcone Marketing Group (where she worked on the Dannon account) and Ryan Partnership (Kraft Foods), as well as Boston Market. Her staff has experience in consumer marketing experience – promotions, events, p.r. – not politics.

“Our team is focused on Joe Consumer,” Lechner says. “A product like this is hard to get your arms around, to figure out, `What does this do for me?’ There’s apathy, annoyance, and distrust of politics. A [marketing] team that’s consumer-oriented without a political background can better focus on the product.”

Voter.com pressed its presence at the Republican and Democratic conventions this summer. All delegates and registered attendees got a smart card (coded with their name, district, and candidate affiliation) when they checked in. Computer kiosks throughout the convention sites let cardholders swipe the card to log in at voter.com and get national, state, and local information tailored by ZIP code. Voter.com also put kiosks at major Washington, DC, events including the Million Mom March, and is following Bush and Gore on the road this fall.

To register at the site, users create a profile of their demographics and interests (such as education, gun control, healthcare, or taxes) to customize the information they’ll see. They can sign up for newsletters and e-mail alerts on key issues. That eventually will form a revenue stream for voter.com, which will sell ad space in those tailored missives. Voter.com won’t say how many registered users it has (all convention attendees were automatically registered), but claims more than 600,000 unique visitors for the first three weeks of August. Registration rose seven percent during the Democratic Convention and bumped up four percent during the GOP soiree.

Before the conventions, all new registrants were automatically entered in a sweepstakes that sent one winner each to the Republican and Democratic conventions. The sweeps drew as many as 1,400 entries in one day, and boosted registration 15 percent. “People wanted a unique perspective on politics,” Lechner says. “The conventions seem like an untouchable event. We offered a backstage view.”

Voter.com also is partnering with sites like mtv.com and iVillage.com to provide political content tailored by audience segment – information for women, young adults, or gays, for example. “We’ve honed in on specific vertical audiences to give political information via [lifestyle] sites, so we’re not reinventing the wheel,” Lechner says. “We might as well tie in with well-respected brands already trusted by these audiences.”

Lechner courted partners by touting voter.com’s editorial team and “top team of marketers who understand brands,” she says. “Our resources can help them extend their coverage of political and legislative issues.”

Its deal with iVillage includes a co-branded Women’s Issues newsletter available on both sites, and co-branded content including candidate profiles, diaries of women candidates as they run for office, and community activist news.

It Worked for Jesse Voter.com piggybacked MTV’s eight-year-old Choose or Lose campaign, which has its first “robust” presence online this year at chooseorlose.com, according to producer Ethan Zindler. (In past election years, MTV posted journal entries from a cross-country bus tour to register young voters.) The music network also teamed with World Wrestling Federation Entertainment to extend its registration drive to WWF events. “They wanted to promote the cause of voting, and there’s a large amount of overlap in our audiences,” Zindler says.

The three-pronged Smackdown Your Vote! campaign targets unregistered citizens 18 to 30 on-air via MTV, at WWF matches, Times Square restaurant WWF New York, and through three Web sites (chooseorlose.com, wwf.com, and voter.com). Minnesota Governor and former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura in September agreed to moderate a 10-minute discussion between Bush and Gore during a Smackdown event this month. (No word at press time whether the candidates would accept.) WWF, which pushed for one of the three formal debates to address youth issues, touted its ratings – which beat both conventions’ closing nights among viewers 18 to 34. Other partners are Youth Vote 2000 and Project Vote Smart. The effort is averaging 10,000 registrants per week, and could woo 150,000 by November.

In June, Frito-Lay jumped on the bus with nonprofit Rock the Vote 2000 for a 25-city mall tour designed to register one million people. A decked-out bus visits malls to host concerts and four Doritos Loud Lounge Live Town Hall meetings, which are Webcast at doritos.com. Local politicians and celebrities field questions from audience members in malls and online. Kids can comment on videotape to run later on the site. Lounge events are being held in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Wake Forest, NC. Media Star, Baltimore, MD, handles the tour; iXL-Live, Los Angeles, and Mega, Las Vegas, handle the Webcasts. The tour runs through November.

Plano, TX-based Frito-Lay originally approached 10-year-old Rock the Vote about working together in 2001. When Rock the Vote suggested sponsoring this year’s tour, Frito scrambled to fund it even though its 2000 budgets were set. “They were incredibly responsive to find the money to do things,” says Alison Byrne Fields, creative director and chief strategist for Rock the Vote. Presenting sponsor is eCampus.com.

While Rock the Vote has worked with Nissan, MCI, Hard Rock Cafe, and others in the past, “we’re definitely limiting sponsorships, because we’re dealing with a pretty cynical generation who would wonder who controls the message if our bus were covered with logos like a race car,” Byrne Fields says.

Working the Phones Elsewhere, candidates are using new technology to spur grassroots activity (see story, pg. 96). Bush mustered 2,000 voters for a March rally in California just by calling first. Political consultant Strategic Research, Inc. tapped Phone Interactive Communications Corp., Boca Raton, FL, to call 17,000 registered Republicans with an invitation. About 11,500 got the automated message (live or via voice mail), and nearly 60 percent listened to the whole thing. Phone Interactive’s MegaMessage service can send a pre-recorded message to 50,000 people per hour.

In the end, political marketing still boils down to the right message reaching the right voters. That’s easier with state-of-the-art direct-marketing tools, many of which encourage voters to sift through myriad messages to find the ideas – and candidates – that matter to them. In this consumer-savvy world, politicians are learning from brand marketers how to find the right consumers and build relationships.

Maybe the best lesson pols can give back to marketers is this: It still helps to kiss the babies.

Iowa candidate mixes new and old tactics. Janet Petersen knows she’s playing to a tough crowd. Iowa’s Democratic candidate for State Representative in District 72 is courting a constituency jaded by a long tradition of presidential primaries.

“Iowans expect to meet the president personally,” says the 30-year-old marketing executive. “This is the heart of grassroots elections.”

Rather than let that work against her, Petersen pairs old-fashioned campaigning techniques with the database marketing expertise she has honed as a senior account executive at marketing agency Strategic America, Des Moines. The result is a new-school campaign that reaches each neighbor with the right message.

Petersen started with a 100-page list of her district’s registered voters, including their voting records. She invited a crowd of friends and supporters to her house to comb through the list and find their own friends to send postcards. The group produced 1,100 postcards, each with a hand-written message. Then the senders followed up with phone calls offering a yard sign and the option to join Petersen’s e-mail network.

“The last thing you want to do is call someone you don’t know and ask them to vote for your candidate,” she says. “This way, friends were calling friends.”

Petersen added each postcard’s referral information to her database, so she could drop names when she campaigned door-to-door. “I knocked on every Democrat’s door in the district in 90-degree heat,” she laughs. “They think I’m a freak.”

Petersen’s e-mail network came in handy when her opponent ran a nasty automated phone message the week before the June primary. Quick e-mails energized voters, and Petersen swept the vote. “I think they underestimated the power of an old-fashioned neighborhood campaign using new technology,” she says.

Petersen, whose key issue is stopping Iowa’s “brain drain” by keeping talented young workers in the state, credits colleagues with much of her campaign’s success. “These are agency friends who have great creative ideas and have never been involved in politics before,” she says. “Even the governor noticed that I have the best database in the state. The key is, we also know how to use it.”

If she wins, Petersen plans to take a leave of absence from her job for legislative sessions.

Sounds like she could meet a few potential clients, too.

MasterCard awaits its day in court against Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who it sued for copying its “Priceless” ad campaign. MasterCard is asking for at least $5 million in damages in a copyright and trademark infringement suit filed Aug. 17.

Purchase, NY-based MasterCard says Nader’s campaign refused to pull the ad, which has voiceovers that mimic “Priceless” spots, saying: “Grilled tenderloin for fundraiser: $1,000 a plate. Campaign ads filled with half-truths: $10 million. Promises to special interest groups: over $10 billion. Finding out the truth: Priceless. There are some things money can’t buy. Without Ralph Nader in the presidential debates, the truth will come in last.”

MasterCard contends the spot would mislead viewers into thinking the credit-card company endorses Nader.

“While we’ve never minded `Priceless’ being spoofed in a good-natured, non-commercial way by entertainment vehicles such as Saturday Night Live, we have filed lawsuits against other parties that illegally copy the `Priceless’ theme for personal promotion, benefit, or commercial gain,” says senior vp-North American marketing Larry Flanagan. A 1999 suit against HBO continues; MasterCard has settled with other interlopers.

North Woods Advertising, Minneapolis, handles Nader’s campaign. That’s the shop of political ad guru Bill Hillsman, whose offbeat ads helped Jesse Ventura win Minnesota’s 1998 gubernatorial election.

He’s already a captain. Now he wants to be Commander in Chief.

Captain Morgan, the spokescharacter for Seagram Beverage Co.’s Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, stars in an election-themed campaign that pairs Seagram with Playboy Magazine online and on the street.

Since February, a costumed Captain has appeared at events such as Mardi Gras and the Boston Marathon, as well as both political conventions. This summer, Seagram and Playboy asked consumers to vote online (at rum.com or playboy.com) for one of four Playboy Playmates to be his running mate. The sites also carried information on how voters can register in their home states, with links to Secretaries of State offices.

Convention-goers willing to do a little homework had a chance to win a Chrysler PT Cruiser at the Republican Convention.

To enter, attendees toured Chrysler’s display at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and answered questions about the car and exhibit. The winner was announced at Chrysler’s Too Cool ParTy in the convention center. The first 500 party-goers got a die-cast Cruiser; a random-drawn winner took home the real car.