Breaking Down Silos
Doomscroll 6.30.2024
A Happy End of Quarter to all who celebrate. I’m Eric Wilson and I’m filling in for Amanda this week. Readers of the Doomscroll (like me) will also enjoy the weekly blog posts written by your guest author at BestPracticeDigital.com.
Let’s Doom Scroll!
One Question
Last week’s question was all about vendor swag. Half of those responding gave an unqualified yes and about a third who are like me and trying to Marie Kondo their houses say “it depends.”
Judging by the swag suggestions, Doom Scrollers have expensive tastes. These were all on the list:
Yeti Cooler
Raybans
Allbirds
Airpods
Stanley Cups
Box seats for sporting events
Some of the more usual gifts like chargers, gift cards, mugs and treats are always welcome.
But what makes gifting an effective sales and outreach strategy? It’s the cognitive bias of reciprocity. Our brains are hard-wired to return favors.
This Week’s Question: What’s on your professional reading, listening or watching list right now?
Who’s Doing What
—Breaking Down Silos
When the Democrats gather in Chicago for their convention in August, online influencers will be welcomed with media credentials to cover the proceedings. The Biden team have been going all-in on social media influencers, podcasters, and other content creators to reach key segments of the electorate who must turn out if the Democrats want to have a shot at winning. It’s not just the youths.
And this points to a broader reality where voters don’t make a distinction between the various silos within a campaign. Whether it’s TV and print or YouTube and podcasting, it’s all just “news” to voters. But on most campaigns, that’s two separate functions. Similarly with advertising, to a voter “TV” could be broadcast and cable or it could also be Hulu and YouTube. The way forward is to put ourselves in the shoes of voters and think about how they experience the overall output of a campaign.
—How campaigns are really using AI in 2024
So far, the 2024 elections haven’t been overtaken by rampant, AI-generated deepfakes and disinformation, much to the chagrin of the media, academics, regulators, and lawmakers who stoked the moral panic around generative AI in campaigns. But that’s not to say AI isn’t playing a significant role.
As I recently told the New York Times, “A.I. is changing the way campaigns are run but in the most boring and mundane ways you can imagine.”
Largely due to the hype and fear about generative AI on the trail, campaigners do face challenges with using AI. OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, prohibit their AI from being used for campaigning or lobbying, and anyone who has tried to use Anthropic’s Claude knows that it’s particularly sensitive to any mentions of politics.
After 2024, I expect the conversation about AI in politics to fade into the background as it becomes one of many technologies – an especially transformative one, to be sure – that campaigns, like any enterprise, use to drive outcomes.
2024 Roundup
This is where I make note of a few other things that caught my eye this week.
The Democrats have $212 million worth of reasons not to replace Joe Biden and their only realistic option is Kamala Harris, as this explainer from Bloomberg lays out.
Before everyone saw Biden’s struggles on the debate stage, there was an extremely online rapid response director at the RNC cataloging all of his fumbles, reports The Daily Beast.
It’s not a conspiracy, referral traffic from Facebook really is down, but it’s for everyone, not just the Right. Washington Post shares the numbers.
Industry Watch
Political Texting Is Officially Annoying Voters
When guides like this one, for trying to stop the deluge of political text messages, become mainstream, it’s time for the industry to reassess our approach. Because of the P2P loophole, they recommend downloading an app that filters out texts from unknown numbers using words like “Democrats,” “Republicans,” “Survey,” “Voting,” “Vote,” etc.
The Grapevine
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Parting Thoughts
Thanks to Amanda for sharing her audience with me and I hope I’ve done a sufficient job for you in her stead. Before I sign off, some advice for surviving these next 4 months:
Be Kind – it’s never OK to be a jerk and you never look cool doing it.
Over-communicate – As Morton Blackwell advises, “Promptly report your action to the one who requested it.”
Done is better than perfect – get your stuff out the door as soon as you can because you are running out of time.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading! Did you like it? Consider forwarding to your friends!