Political Campaigns and Word of Mouth
January 9th, 2008 by Dominic Canterbury
The New York Times recently had a great article on the role of WOM in political campaigns.
Here’s the article: Loose Lips Win Elections
And here are some highlights:
“Public trust in all kinds of communication is eroding, with a notable exception: word of mouth. A Roper poll found the number of people who said they get good ideas and information from television ads declined from 1977 to 2003, while the number who said the same about word of mouth increased by 25 percentage points.”
“Whether by chance or design…citizen advocates created the explosive growth in support for Mike Huckabee and sustained John Edwards, even as both were vastly outspent by their opponents.“
And here’s my commentary:
By now it’s abundantly clear that word of mouth is displacing and replacing the old one-sided mass communication model. What’s most fascinating though, is why? Why word of mouth and why now?
As I see it, it all comes down to Relevance. Mass Communication is really good at simply putting a message in front of the masses. But it’s terrible at delivering relevant messages. On the other hand, people, real live people, are excellent at collecting and distributing relevant messages. And today, with email and all this Web 2.0 online social networking, relevant messages can spread farther and faster than any paid message. As the barriers to relevance crumble like the Berlin Wall, who is going to bother to give mass media a second thought?
For the 2008 presidential election, the relevance issue will doubtlessly be decisive. The candidates who spend their resources monologuing through paid media and PR events will render themselves as obsolete as the Yellow Pages. But the candidates who manages to engage in real dialog with real communities will find themselves thrust to the front.