Right to reply: Did the politicians miss a trick with mobile campaigns?
- Added:
- May 12, 2010
As David Cameron becomes the new Prime Minister following a tumultuous election, could the political parties have done more with their digital campaigns? Jay Seaton at Airwide looks at the UK electorate’s growing hunger for mobile communication, and wonders if the parties missed a trick…
Each political party has used new media, to varying degrees, to try and convince voters to back them. However, mobile still seems to be an underused medium for campaigning in this election.
This is surprising given the success President Barrack Obama had with SMS during his presidential campaign.
More surprising is that a new YouGov online survey commissioned by Orange uncovered that one in five (20%) would be more likely to vote if they could do so using their mobile phone via a text message or a dedicated app.
The 2010 general election in the UK has been a gruelling fight between all political parties. Most mainstream political parties have been using the Internet and social media as campaign tools but certainly not as much as Barrack Obama’s successful Presidential campaign in the US.
Obama also focused heavily on mobile in his campaign, something that has not happened in the UK. The Conservative party offered text updates and Labour offered a text alert to remind voters to step into the polling office.
Liberal Democrat candidate for the newly-created constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn, turned to mobile payment service provider paythru, to help him raise funds. But the focus on SMS by the main three political parties has not been high.
This is/was a missed opportunity for the political parties in the UK. You just have to look at the success Obama had with SMS in his Presidential campaign to see that. Obama’s campaign featured a mobile page that allowed people to download ringtones and wallpaper, sign up for twitter feeds and receive text alerts about policy and campaign events.
62262 was also registered as a shortcode, which numerically represents the word Obama. At $1.26 per voter in the US, SMS campaigning has also proved to be cheaper than traditional canvassing and automated calls, which some in at $20-30.
Obama’s campaign had immense success – for example in New Hampshire, the Obama campaign sent its supporters three SMSes over the course of primary day to remind them to vote and to encourage their friends to vote. There, Obama won the 18-to-24-year-old bracket by nearly 40 points, the largest split of any age bracket.
Political parties in the UK can learn from this innovative use of SMS. A huge part of the UK voting population don’t own a high-end smart phone or use mobile data, many still have no broadband connection.
However, a large part of this group will have a mobile phone that is SMS capable. This is a market that can be addressed by the political parties through SMS, where they can be reached in a targeted and personal way instantaneously. SMS campaigning reaped dividends for President Obama – and it could do the same for UK political parties too.
By Jay Seaton
Chief Marketing Officer
Airwide Solutions
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