George W. Bush called the 2006 mid-term elections a “thumping”. Barack Obama called the 2010 mid-term elections a “shellacking”. So what to call last night’s mid-term elections? A “shellumping”?

Semantics aside, it’s no surprise that Republicans

had a good night. And President Obama had a very

bad night. With very few exceptions (like George W.

Bush in 2002 post 9-11), president’s parties suffer

setbacks in mid-term elections, particularly during

their second term. And last night was one of the

worst since 1928.

But the bottom line is voters aren’t happy with either

party. The election was no mandate for Republicans. It

was simply yet another refutation of Washington in

which the party in power suffers the greatest voter

wrath.

The question now is whether we can expect

anything different from Washington during the last

two years of Obama’s presidency.

The results were clear. Once again, a sitting

president takes a mid-term pounding. The only

question is if and how he and the new Republican

majority change their behavior moving forward. The

election is not a mandate, but a rejection for the

status quo of gridlock. As a recent Wall Street

Journal poll found, unlike four years ago when it

didn’t even show up as an issue, voters care almost

as much about ending the hyper-partisanship as

they do the number one issue, jobs and the

economy.

Mitch McConnell, the new Senate Majority leader,

and other Republicans were saying all the right

things last night. And despite an early report last

night from White House officials who were saying

Obama would set a “defiant tone” even if he loses

From the way the press has covered elections recently it sounds like campaigns are now totally robotic. We were told campaigns would have NSA like computers to track all communication. We were told they would be able to customize messages to each voter and make data-driven decisions. We were also promised hover boards. Yet, none of these have come to pass.

In reality, 2014 was an evolutionary not revolutionary

expansion. The most impressive transition was how

quickly campaigns from State Senate on up to large

statewides were able to adopt and adapt the

techniques pioneered by the presidential campaigns

in 2012. Techniques like modeling and individually

targeted advertising are now commonplace. While

Democrats still retain some technological

by Andrew Bleeker

2014: THE TECH ELECTION THAT WASN’T

advantages, the gap is clearly narrowing absent new

innovation. The Democrats’ biggest asset is the

simply larger talent pool of staffers working in the

tech, digital, and analytics space. But that too can be

fleeting.

Adapting these tools for companies and campaigns in

2015 and beyond requires a combination of investing

in net new technologies and focusing on how to get

more out of what we have. To that end, here are three

primary lessons organizations need to learn from 2014:

1. Put your money where your (voters) are -

Campaigns now have very sophisticated targeting

programs. Unfortunately, these do not extend to

resource allocation - one of a campaign’s single

largest decisions. Most campaign budgeting is done

in silos, with a certain budget allocated to television,

mail, or digital. There is very rarely any rationale for

these decisions, let alone coordination between the

actual programs once launched. Of course we

should spend more on TV when reaching older rural

voters compared to urban 30-somethings. But even

something this simple often still evades us. Because

we can clearly measure how many Gross Ratings

Points (notwithstanding the value of that metric) an

opponent puts on TV, we will sell the campaign office

to match point for point. This is often even worse in

public affairs campaigns.

Ask voters in target competitive states: was it that

40th television ad that put you over the top? Our data

driven decisions need to extend to cross channel

integration and being smarter about spending our

marginal dollars, particularly in situations when we

will be outspent. In almost all cases an integrated

multi-channel strategy is more efficient than

continuing to pile up the points on a single channel.

This is only going to be more important as voters cut

the cord and move on-the-go.

2. Avoid Paralysis by Analysis - Remember the old

adage “no one ever got fired for hiring IBM?” This

year, no one wanted to be the campaign that was not

targeting with a model. On the whole, this is a great

thing as campaigns embrace data and targeting. In

fact, most public affairs campaigns have no idea who

their real target audience is and would do well to start

with a model. But targeting cannot yet replace

judgment. With a limited number of analysts and

models still being relatively new to most folks, this

process proved time consuming for most campaigns.

The result was that many early defining campaign

salvos were delayed, not wanting to build messaging

or launch campaigns until the targeting was finalized.

While this came from a good place, we cannot let the

desire for incremental improvement delay or impede

critical strategic actions.

3. Your Technology Will Not Save You - Clay Shirky

is famous for saying “communications tools don’t

get socially interesting until they get technologically

boring.” Clearly there are many more problems

technology needs to solve, notably cross-channel and

cross-device issues. But as the volume of campaign

communications increases, so must the quality.

Breaking through in a crowded media environment

requires standing out and adding value - utility as well

as entertainment. This cycle we saw this thanks to

viewability tracking. Now that we can see whether

people actually watch online video, we learned that

most television ads do not translate well to the

Internet. A more tailored and creative approach is

needed. The same will increasingly be true on

television, even though we don’t have the metrics to

prove it yet. And yes, it is also true in our fundraising

and the content of emails. Technology will be a

requirement, but vision and message should never

become outdated. If as practitioners we would not

want to engage with a piece of content, neither will

our audience.

the Senate, later he invited the leadership of both parties

to meet at the White House on Friday, a good sign.

Republicans should move forward quickly on issues

where they are likely to get some level of White House

support like patent reform, repealing the medical

device tax, Trade Promotion Authority, and

immigration reform. And they should move on the

Keystone XL Pipeline where there may be White

House resistance, but there is broad public support,

and even union support. They might meet a veto,

but given the numbers they now enjoy, Republicans

could likely override it. Having chalked up some

victories, they can move on to bigger, but important

issues like corporate tax, entitlement and criminal

justice reforms.

Both the White House and Republicans would do well

to recognize that the only mandate last night was for

progress over partisanship.

George W. Bush called the 2006 mid-term elections a “thumping”. Barack Obama called the 2010 mid-term elections a “shellacking”. So what to call last night’s mid-term elections? A “shellumping”?

Semantics aside, it’s no surprise that Republicans

had a good night. And President Obama had a very

bad night. With very few exceptions (like George W.

Bush in 2002 post 9-11), president’s parties suffer

setbacks in mid-term elections, particularly during

their second term. And last night was one of the

worst since 1928.

But the bottom line is voters aren’t happy with either

party. The election was no mandate for Republicans. It

was simply yet another refutation of Washington in

which the party in power suffers the greatest voter

wrath.

The question now is whether we can expect

anything different from Washington during the last

two years of Obama’s presidency.

The results were clear. Once again, a sitting

president takes a mid-term pounding. The only

question is if and how he and the new Republican

majority change their behavior moving forward. The

election is not a mandate, but a rejection for the

status quo of gridlock. As a recent Wall Street

Journal poll found, unlike four years ago when it

didn’t even show up as an issue, voters care almost

as much about ending the hyper-partisanship as

they do the number one issue, jobs and the

economy.

Mitch McConnell, the new Senate Majority leader,

and other Republicans were saying all the right

things last night. And despite an early report last

night from White House officials who were saying

Obama would set a “defiant tone” even if he loses

advantages, the gap is clearly narrowing absent new

innovation. The Democrats’ biggest asset is the

simply larger talent pool of staffers working in the

tech, digital, and analytics space. But that too can be

fleeting.

Adapting these tools for companies and campaigns in

2015 and beyond requires a combination of investing

in net new technologies and focusing on how to get

more out of what we have. To that end, here are three

primary lessons organizations need to learn from 2014:

1. Put your money where your (voters) are -

Campaigns now have very sophisticated targeting

programs. Unfortunately, these do not extend to

resource allocation - one of a campaign’s single

largest decisions. Most campaign budgeting is done

in silos, with a certain budget allocated to television,

mail, or digital. There is very rarely any rationale for

these decisions, let alone coordination between the

actual programs once launched. Of course we

should spend more on TV when reaching older rural

voters compared to urban 30-somethings. But even

something this simple often still evades us. Because

we can clearly measure how many Gross Ratings

Points (notwithstanding the value of that metric) an

opponent puts on TV, we will sell the campaign office

to match point for point. This is often even worse in

public affairs campaigns.

Ask voters in target competitive states: was it that

40th television ad that put you over the top? Our data

driven decisions need to extend to cross channel

integration and being smarter about spending our

marginal dollars, particularly in situations when we

will be outspent. In almost all cases an integrated

multi-channel strategy is more efficient than

continuing to pile up the points on a single channel.

This is only going to be more important as voters cut

the cord and move on-the-go.

2. Avoid Paralysis by Analysis - Remember the old

adage “no one ever got fired for hiring IBM?” This

year, no one wanted to be the campaign that was not

targeting with a model. On the whole, this is a great

thing as campaigns embrace data and targeting. In

fact, most public affairs campaigns have no idea who

their real target audience is and would do well to start

with a model. But targeting cannot yet replace

judgment. With a limited number of analysts and

models still being relatively new to most folks, this

process proved time consuming for most campaigns.

The result was that many early defining campaign

salvos were delayed, not wanting to build messaging

or launch campaigns until the targeting was finalized.

While this came from a good place, we cannot let the

desire for incremental improvement delay or impede

critical strategic actions.

3. Your Technology Will Not Save You - Clay Shirky

is famous for saying “communications tools don’t

get socially interesting until they get technologically

boring.” Clearly there are many more problems

technology needs to solve, notably cross-channel and

cross-device issues. But as the volume of campaign

communications increases, so must the quality.

Breaking through in a crowded media environment

requires standing out and adding value - utility as well

as entertainment. This cycle we saw this thanks to

viewability tracking. Now that we can see whether

people actually watch online video, we learned that

most television ads do not translate well to the

Internet. A more tailored and creative approach is

needed. The same will increasingly be true on

television, even though we don’t have the metrics to

prove it yet. And yes, it is also true in our fundraising

and the content of emails. Technology will be a

requirement, but vision and message should never

become outdated. If as practitioners we would not

want to engage with a piece of content, neither will

our audience.

2014: THE TECH ELECTION THAT WASN’T

Andrew Bleeker is the Global Digital Practice Leader for Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

the Senate, later he invited the leadership of both parties

to meet at the White House on Friday, a good sign.

Republicans should move forward quickly on issues

where they are likely to get some level of White House

support like patent reform, repealing the medical

device tax, Trade Promotion Authority, and

immigration reform. And they should move on the

Keystone XL Pipeline where there may be White

House resistance, but there is broad public support,

and even union support. They might meet a veto,

but given the numbers they now enjoy, Republicans

could likely override it. Having chalked up some

victories, they can move on to bigger, but important

issues like corporate tax, entitlement and criminal

justice reforms.

Both the White House and Republicans would do well

to recognize that the only mandate last night was for

progress over partisanship.

continued