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Cannes - Make the connection using every touch point you can. Remember it's not about technology, it's about using technology to make those connections effectively. And nothing, absolutely nothing, beats ordinary one-on-one communication.
Sound familiar? As advice goes on building a brand, this is pretty unremarkable. Except that the brand, in this case, was Barack Obama, candidate for US president.
Obama's political strategist, David Plouffe, was talking on Thursday at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival about the most remarkable presidential campaign in history. It was, he said, "a real example of brand building, using the most modern tools to mobilise voters, donors and campaign workers".
Plouffe is a fund of stories about the impact of, for example, more than a billion e-mails. But what made them work was that the emails prompted an election worker into action, and his conversation with his neighbour won an extra vote.
"We had a grass-roots campaign buried in the roots of technology," Plouffe said.
"Voters who had never voted before, or had only voted Republican, switched to us. And they talked with conviction and credibility about Obama. We treated them as well as our big guns, so they felt valued. Campaigners felt empowered. They were seen as the campaign, not merely as hired hands."
More than $500m was raised online, from 4 million contributors.
"We organised well, registering millions of voters who made the difference between success or failure in borderline states. If you were an undecided voter, we had somebody you knew knocking on your door.
"We treated people like adults. Nothing is more beautiful than authenticity, and there is nothing more valuable than a human being talking to another. Nothing."
- Fin24.com
