Opinion

Three lessons for marketers from the UK election and how grime rap almost defeated the status quo

The unexpected outcome of the UK general election has left many questioning exactly where things went wrong for the Conservative party, who were hotly tipped for a runaway success. The answer to those questions has a lot to do with the vast differences between the two parties' campaigns, including a sprinkling of help from some UK rappers, explains Paul Costantoura.

The surprise outcome of the UK election offers some sobering lessons for marketers grappling with the value of their digital marketing thanks to the clear differences between the campaign strategies employed by the Tories and the Labour Party.

The advertising campaigns tell a fascinating story and suggest that the creative agencies on each side were apparently working to very different client briefs.

It also revealed why ‘old guard’ Tory campaigning, founded in traditional political attack advertising and conventional research was almost overwhelmed by the Labour strategy, supported by the Momentum grass-roots campaign network, underground grime artists and young soap stars.

There are three key lessons to be learned.

Lesson 1: Humanity beats algorithms

Lesson 2: Negative reinforces negative while positive breeds positive

Lesson 3: The old guard needs to move along (or at least make room)

The architects of May’s campaign (who included our own home-grown team of Crosby | Textor) imposed a grim view of humanity, focusing the Conservative campaign on the most negative (some would say distorted) aspects of Jeremy Corbyn’s historical political career to appeal to the more fearful swinging voters who they believe are easily scared.

Here are three examples to illustrate the point. (You’ll need to listen to the audio to really appreciate them).

Firstly, here is how the Tories chose to caricature the fearful Labour voter who wanted to hide behind the strong controlling figure of Theresa May. (Not clear if they are actors but it certainly sounds like they are following Theresa’s script).

Now, prepare to be uplifted. Here is the final campaign ad for Jeremy Corbyn.

And to illustrate the similarity to Bernie Sanders, enjoy this positive view of America.

(The involvement of Bernie Sander’s team was confirmed in a recent Huffington Post article).

On the other hand, the Labour Party took a leaf out of Bernie Sanders’ campaign book and ran advertising that looked at a positive future which has its foundations in the real lives of real people.

A lot of media coverage has also been given to the Tories’ heavy investment in paid micro-targeting of ‘dark social ads’ on Facebook – ads that are so hidden and dispersed in social media that they escape the scrutiny of the UK Electoral Commission. The evidence suggests that most of these ads presented negative, historical claims about Corbyn that were questionable at best and lies at worst.

Source: Facebook

On the other hand, the UK Labour campaign relied heavily on using Twitter video to deliver endorsements from people with names like Awate, Maxsta, Krucial, Slix as well as AJ Tracey and The Voice winner Jermain Jackson. These are good kids who try their hardest to look really bad while building an urban community around themselves of other kids who give a damn about their own personal future and the future of the country.

The Labour campaign tapped into this movement so strongly that you can go to the official Grime4Corbyn website and watch a video of bad-ass grime artists in concert supporting Corbyn as PM. And for £20 you can buy a genuine #Grime4Corbyn t-shirt which bears a sketch of Jeremy Corbyn in open necked shirt and suit jacket carrying a bass woofer on his shoulder enjoying some (very loud) grime.

They were joined in their support by some more mainstream black musicians – again delivering a real message from the heart – like the winner of The Voice in the UK, Jermain Jackman.

At the other end of the spectrum from the mostly-black Grime artists, Labour also enlisted the support of some of the sweetest young blonde actresses in the UK at the moment. The lovely Emily Berrington and Maddy Hill can both be seen on their Twitter endorsements looking very much like the girl next door, sans make-up and with a simple message for their young peers. Register to vote.

It would be incorrect to assume that the Labour Party didn’t run negative ads. However, they played the policy and not the person. Their parody on the father-daughter relationship also demonstrated the power of Facebook as a video channel – it became the single most viral ad of the campaign, reaching almost 8m views.

Another familiar sounding feature of the Conservative campaign was the incessant reliance on the three-word slogan. Sound familiar? The repetition was so obvious that The Guardian produced a bingo card for the folks to use at home with only two words to tick off “Strong” and “Stable”.

Who could forget Tony Abbott’s legendary “Stop the Boats” and Malcolm Turnbull’s less resonant“Jobs and Growth”?

However, as you can see from this Malcolm Turnbull ad from the last election, he also enjoyed making the “Strong and Stable” claim (watch it pop up in the video at point 4 towards the end).

So, back to the three lessons.

Lesson 1: Humanity beats algorithms

Understand what matters to your audience and speak to them in their world rather than relying on a mathematical equation to deliver up some ‘programmatic’ but badly-researched off-target message. Many UK observers have written about the money spent by the Tories to force their ‘dark social’ attack ads into the feeds of marginal swinging voters by gaming the Facebook advertising options.

Some also question whether the claims made by some of the ‘big data experts’ like Cambridge Analytica about the influence of their algorithms are justified, or if they are just marketing hype. Even if it is true, the evidence suggests that the Labour campaign was more effective because they looked into the lives of their audience (under 30s), found the things and the people who were important to them and spoke to them from the heart. The Labour ads were shared freely, while the Tories instead poured millions into Facebook’s revenue stream.

Lesson 2: Negative reinforces negative while positive breeds positive

A negative message will usually only reinforce the views of those who already have a negative view while a positive message can persuade the waverers to agree with you. Ironically, the roles were reversed between the parties in the UK election compared to last year’s US election. My analysis of the ads during that campaign revealed that Donald Trump clearly took the high, positive ground, painting an optimistic (if unrealistic) picture of what ‘Making America Great Again’ would look like.

It was Hillary who painted a gloomy picture of life under Donald. In doing so, she reinforced the views of her supporters and alienated the great silent ‘basket of deplorables’ that she so badly maligned for supporting Trump.

So history repeated itself under Theresa May, where her campaign spent too much time making Corbyn look like a supporter of terrorists rather than inspiring Brits to feel that their country could be great again. Not surprisingly, Tories agreed with her while the waverers turned off.

Lesson 3: The old guard needs to move along (or at least make room)

Don’t assume that experience makes you right, and be brave enough to invite the target audience into the planning process. Election campaign war rooms are filled with planet-sized egos, and presumably the Tory campaign war room was no different. I imagine there was only enough room for a few strong wills who dominated the thinking with their legacy campaign tactics that no longer work as they once did.

On the other hand, the Labour Party must have been open enough to listen to younger people and tap into the zeitgeist of the new generation.

I’m pretty sure nobody over the age of 30 has ever heard of Maxsta, Krucial and Slix, but nevertheless someone on the Labour machine was able to persuade them to embrace 68-year-old Corbyn as if he was the new kid on the block and their hope for the future.

Paul Costantoura is the CEO of Review Partners

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