Marty Kaplan, of the USC Annenberg School, discusses the ramifications of the 2012 presidential election. Read more »
I Am Not Big Brother
… You may chafe at how much the online world knows about you, but campaigns don’t know anything more about your online behavior than any retailer, news outlet or savvy blogger. … What’s really new in politics today is not the data itself but how campaigns make sense of it. […] Read more »
Data vs. Gurus: Democrats Say Metrics Are Eclipsing the Consultant Class
Missed in all the talk of their data wizardry, progressive organizers — including from the Obama campaign — say that campaigns based on numbers, testing, and best practices are a challenge to know-it-all political consultants. The argument: In the years since Howard Dean’s quick rise and quicker fall, the left […] Read more »
Authentocracy in America: Our brands, ourselves.
… Which is why Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture, by Sarah Banet-Weiser, is an interesting book, because it makes it its business to find the halfway point between this so-called infantilizing commerce and the world of the authentic and real—thus that “ambivalence.” “In the contemporary US,” […] Read more »
The Science Behind Those Obama Campaign E-Mails
One fascination in a presidential race mostly bereft of intrigue was the strange, incessant, and weirdly overfamiliar e-mails that emanated from the Obama campaign. … But they worked. Most of the $690 million Obama raised online came from fundraising e-mails. … The appeals were the product of rigorous experimentation by […] Read more »
Adweek: The 10 Best Commercials of 2012
The year’s most entertaining, intriguing, powerful and beautiful spots. [cont.] Adweek Read more »