Election Campaign Insights: Creating Buzz
Dr Paul Baines and Fiona Blades
Steve Macaulay
Welcome to this election briefing series from Cranfield. As the
election hots up, one of the interesting things that is coming out is
the reaction to the leadership debate on TV. To analyse this and to
look at the implications we have two people, Fiona Blades from
MESH Planning and Dr Paul Baines who will look at the implications.
Now we have taken a survey Fiona, that has got some unique
capabilities and we are going to look at that through a period of time
as the election progresses. Tell me a bit more about that.
Fiona Blades
Thank you Steve. Well you are absolutely right, we see a lot of polls
that are happening during the election which tell people what
peoples’ voting intentions are, but that doesn’t mean we are getting
under the skin of what the experiences are that they are having.
So we have created an approach which we have been using for the
last four years with brands, where we get people to text whenever
they come into contact with any piece of communication or
marketing activity that is relevant. So in this case we are getting
people to text whenever they come into contact with a political
party – whether that is the leaders’ debate, a conversation down the
pub or it’s a leaflet that is coming through their letterbox. And when
they get that information they are then able to talk in an online
environment in their diary where they can upload photographs and
put comments about each of these individual experiences.
Steve Macaulay
So give me some headlines then, what has come out so far?
Fiona Blades
Well one of the most interesting things, I think, is the persuasiveness
of the leaders’ debate as a channel. It really does seem to be
engaging a lot of people in terms of the number of texts we are
getting and also the levels of positivity towards that experience.
Steve Macaulay
Now, Paul, what are the implications of this?
Paul Baines
Well, I think the leaders’ debate was always going to be important; it
was important in the last election actually Steve, but I think it is even
more important in this election. Partly because there is not just one
of them, but there are three of them and this first debate has really
managed to create a much more engaging kind of election than has
been the case in the past.
That said, there are other marketing communication touch points,
such as party election broadcasts, such as posters and so on. And it
seems the relative importance of these are the leaders’ debate first,
that then at a slightly lower level we have things like leaflets and
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Dr Paul Baines
word of mouth and so on.
Steve Macaulay
Nobody mentions those do they? They seem to just happen.
Paul Baines
Well it is almost as if they are unimportant and yet they are not; they
have some persuasive effect. But the relative persuasive effect is
much lower than the leaders’ debate, for example.
But what is interesting is that when we asked floating voters what
they thought of the persuasiveness of these different areas,
overwhelmingly they felt that the Liberal Democrat material was
much more persuasive and engaging. So what that says then is that
effectively the Lib Dems are winning the marketing campaign. Not
only are they winning the marketing campaign, but they are also
starting to create buzz.
So the leaders’ debate, particularly, has influenced this, but other
touch points have too. Not only are they persuading people
directly, but they are persuading other people to say very positive
things about them and in a campaign that is fantastically useful.
Steve Macaulay
So picking up that word buzz, one of the things at the start of the
campaign was that nobody is going to be interested in this election,
people have really turned off politics. Now, Fiona, I would like to
turn to you and say is that what the survey was telling you?
Fiona Blades
Well I think one of the interesting things that has come out is since the
leaders’ debate the amount of word of mouth has increased. So that
clearly means that it is generating extra word of mouth and of course it
is most positive for the Liberal Party. But when you have a look in the
comments in the diaries around the leaders’ debate what we were
seeing was people saying this is the first time that I have seen an issue
debated by all three parties and seen their view on it. And this is
making them more interested in the election and much more likely to
vote. I think the actual debate has therefore been creating this
excitement.
Steve Macaulay
So Paul, where do you see this going now?
Paul Baines
Well, that is a good point. What we have got in the last two weeks
of the election, we have got probably about 18% of the electorate
still to play for. If you are a party strategist you are still trying to
persuade about 18% of the electorate, so I think what they will be
doing is they will be looking to this second debate, coming up this
Thursday, and they will be looking to put across as strong a case as
possible.
Given that the Lib Dems won that last election debate then, certainly
for Labour, it will be looking to try to get across a degree of gravitas,
something that helps it, because it is the incumbent party. The
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Dr Paul Baines
Tories will be looking to put across a much more polished, much
more inspiring performance from David Cameron and certainly the
Lib Dems will be looking to keep up the momentum that Nick Clegg
has managed to get so far.
But I think what we will see is a shift from a negative campaigning
across all three to a much more positive campaigning over the next
couple of weeks.
Steve Macaulay
© Cranfield University
Well, let’s see whether that comes out in practice. Both of you,
thank you very much.
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