Bachelor-Arbeit Claudia Gamon
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Transcript of Bachelor-Arbeit Claudia Gamon
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„Political Social Media Marketing and Its Application In The 2010 Viennese Election Campaigns“
by Claudia Angela Gamon
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Index
INDEX .................................................................................................................................................................... 2 FIGURES ............................................................................................................................................................... 3 TABLES ................................................................................................................................................................. 3 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 4 2. RESEARCH QUESTION AND AIMS ...................................................................................................... 5
2.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS .......................................................................................................................... 5 2.2. RESEARCH AIMS .................................................................................................................................... 5 2.3. METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................................... 6
3. POLITICAL MARKETING ....................................................................................................................... 7 3.1. DEFINITIONS OF POLITICAL MARKETING ............................................................................................... 8 3.2. POLITICAL MARKETING CONCEPTS ....................................................................................................... 9 3.3. AUSTRIA IN POLITICAL MARKETING RESEARCH ................................................................................. 21
4. WEB 2.0 ...................................................................................................................................................... 24 4.1. DEFINITIONS AND HISTORY OF THE WEB 2.0 ........................................................................................ 24 4.2. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WEB 2.0 .............................................................................................. 25
5. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ............................................................................................................. 31 5.1. WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING? ................................................................................................. 31 5.2. OUTLOOK: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IN THE WEB 3.0 ...................................................................... 33
6. SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS IN THE 2010 VIENNA LOCAL ELECTIONS .............................. 34 6.1. SPÖ .................................................................................................................................................... 34 6.2. ÖVP .................................................................................................................................................... 36 6.3. FPÖ .................................................................................................................................................... 38 6.4. DIE GRÜNEN ....................................................................................................................................... 41
7. ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................................................. 44 7.1. STRUCTURE, CAMPAIGN DESIGN, OVERVIEW ....................................................................................... 45 7.2. CAMPAIGN ORGANIZATION, COST STRUCTURE................................................................................... 48 7.3. CAMPAIGN AIMS: TARGET GROUPS, GOALS ......................................................................................... 51 7.4. TOOLS USED ........................................................................................................................................ 54 7.5. THE ‘TWO-WAY CONVERSATION’: CRITIQUE AND FEEDBACK .............................................................. 59 7.6. BENEFITS AND RISKS OF POLITICAL SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING .......................................................... 61 7.7. THE CAMPAIGN IN THE FRAMEWORK OF CPM ..................................................................................... 65 7.8. RESULTS, SUCCESS, EFFICIENCY .......................................................................................................... 69
8. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 74 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................... 76 ANNEX: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS .......................................................................................................... 79 A. TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH PETER KRAUS .............................................................. 79 B. TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH HENRIKE BRANDSTÖTTER ...................................... 88 C. TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH MATHIAS TÖTZL ......................................................... 94 D. TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH JOACHIM STAMPFER .............................................. 105
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Figures FIGURE 1 THE STP APPROACH FOR SEGMENTING POLITICAL MARKETS (HIRST AND SMITH,
2001) 10 FIGURE 2 KEY PRINCIPLES OF CPM (LEES MARSHMENT 2001 AND 2003) 16 FIGURE 3 CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR PMO (ORMROD AND HENNEBERG 2010, P. 386) 18 FIGURE 4 STAGES IN THE MARKETING PROCESS OF A POP, SOP AND MOP (LEES-MARSHMENT,
2009) 19 FIGURE 5 SPÖ CORPORATE IDENTITY ON FACEBOOK 34 FIGURE 6 PERSONAL FACEBOOK PROFILE OF AN SPÖ CANDIDATE 35 FIGURE 7 FACEBOOK PROFILE OF CHRISTINE MAREK 36 FIGURE 8 SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION ON THE ÖVP CAMPAIGN WEBSITE 38 FIGURE 9 SCREENSHOT OF THE HC STRACHE BLOG 40 FIGURE 10 FLICKR FOTOSTREAM OF ‘GRUENEWIEN’ 42 FIGURE 11 ‘ICH MACH GRÜN’ INTERACTIVE WEB 2.0 CAMPAIGN PLATFORM 43 FIGURE 12 ‘HC STRACHE’ CORPORATE IDENTITY IN THE FPÖ CAMPAIGN (CREMER 2010) 47
Tables TABLE 1 WEB 2.0 DESIGN PATTERNS (O’REILLY 2005) 26 TABLE 2 KEY TAKE-AWAYS OF THE WEB 2.0 (O’REILLY AND BATTELLE 2009) 26 TABLE 3 FPÖ ACCOUNTS ON FACEBOOK DURING THE CAMPAIGN 39 TABLE 4 NUMBER OF VIEWS OF VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE CAMPAIGN CHANNELS ON OCTOBER
2ND 2010 40 TABLE 5 TWITTER ACCOUNTS OF ‘DIE GRÜNEN WIEN’ AND THEIR FOLLOWERS 41 TABLE 6 OVERVIEW OF ALL FACEBOOK ACCONTS USED FOR CAMPAIGNING 44 TABLE 7 OVERVIEW OF ALL TWITTER ACCOUNTS AND THEIR ACTIVITY DURING THE
CAMPAIGN 44
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1. Introduction
Due to the lack of academic research in political marketing in Austria, politicians as well as
campaign managers often tap in the dark in regards to contemporary campaign strategies.
While there may be the option of bringing in outsiders from more sophisticated political
markets such as the U.S., there still lies a benefit in taking an in-depth look at how modern
political campaigning is handled in Austria.
While the last national elections took place in a time where popular social networks were just
starting up and only few aspects of political campaigning took place in the web 2.0 realms,
the local Viennese elections of the fall of 2010 have brought campaign coordinators across all
major parties to make use of social media as a campaign tool.
This paper written as part of a bachelor’s degree at the University of Economics and Business
of Vienna aims at giving a comprehensive introduction to the main concepts of political
marketing as well as the principles behind the so-called web 2.0 and how those two factors
work together in the form of political social media marketing. Finally, as a case study on the
application of this field of marketing, an analysis of the social media campaigns during the
local Vienna elections of the fall 2010 is given.
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2. Research question and aims
2.1. Research questions
The research questions behind this thesis represent both the lack of contemporary research in
this field as well as the absence of proper analysis of practical usage of political social media
marketing. Therefore, the first, main research question is: “How do the four social media
campaigns of the 2010 Viennese elections compare and why were they successful or
unsuccessful?” In order to be able to answer these questions, two sub-questions must be
answered first: “What is social media marketing and how can it be used?” and also “What are
the rules of successful social media marketing?”
2.2. Research aims
This paper aims to shed light on the way modern political campaigns in Austria are built in
terms of strategy, theoretical background, creativity and execution. While the first part,
starting with chapter four, which will illustrate the concept of contemporary political
marketing, shall give the reader a clear guide to what political marketing is all about, the
introduction to web 2.0 shall inform the reader about the technical details and outlooks for
new developments on the Internet.
Whilst chapters four and five will only serve as an introduction to the theoretical background,
chapter six will then explain how the joining of these two concepts works out within the
buzzword social media marketing. This shall present the reader with all the important tools
used in social media campaigning and will give a transition to the main part of this paper.
In chapter seven all social media campaigns of the four parties that held seats in the Viennese
state assembly (the Social Democratic Party of Vienna – SPÖ, the People’s Party of Vienna -
ÖVP, the Freedom Party of Vienna – FPÖ, and the Green Party of Vienna) are closely
examined to create an overview of the tools used by each party.
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Finally, in chapter eight, the campaigns are then analyzed in order to give anoverview about
their successful and unsuccessful aspects.
2.3. Methodology
The chapters on political marketing, web 2.0 and social media marketing will be done by
literary review, highlighting the contemporary view of both subjects, with regards to the
origins of organizational marketing and the principles of the Internet, respectively.
The main part of this paper, the presentation and further analysis of the social media
campaigns of the SPÖ, FPÖ, ÖVP and the Green Party was structured as follows.
The presentation of the campaigns is based on online research, which had been conducted
during the period of June 2010 to Election Day on October 10th 2010. On five key dates, data
was collected for all four parties on the following subjects: their appearance on Facebook
(candidate profiles, campaign sites and local groups) in terms of numbers and “fans”; Their
appearance on Twitter in terms of how many candidates were registered and how many
followers they had on those dates; Their use of other social media applications (YouTube,
Flickr and foursquare); Furthermore, screencaptures of relevant activities were taken to
faithfully reconstruct and represent campaign activities also in style and design. Charts of the
final results can be seen in chapter eight.
The analysis consists both of four interviews conducted during the period of July 2010 to
September 2010 with campaign officials from all parties. They were interviewed according to
an interview outline, which was then accompanied by further questions adjusted to the
individual campaigns to guarantee both comparability as well as flexibility. The interviews
were all held in German and later translated to English. Full transcripts of the interviews can
be found in the paper’s appendix.
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3. Political marketing
In its most basic form, political marketing is simply what happens when one applies
marketing principles to politics. However, across marketing literature, political marketing has
come to a much more widespread definition.
In order to understand the roots of this concept, one must go back to the basics of modern
marketing literature, when Kotler and Levy (1969) called for ‘broadening the concept of
marketing’. This however, did not imply changing marketing principles or tools in any way
but rather to see how marketing frameworks could apply to much more than just corporations
selling physical products, by introducing organizational marketing. They found that not only
did organizations produce physical as well as intangible products: organizations market these
‘products’ to their ‘consumers’, using traditional marketing tools. While noting that some
marketing scholars saw this as a threat of dangerously persuasive tactics invading public
space, Kotler and Levy described it as the essential technique which could actually help
organizations stay in touch with their target group instead of growing too big and
unresponsive. In their plea for openness towards their newly defined field of marketing, they
concluded as follows:
“The choice facing those who manage non-business organizations is not whether to market or
not to market, for no organization can avoid marketing. The choice is whether to do it well or
poorly, and on this necessity the case for organizational marketing is basically founded”
(Kotler, Levy, 1969 p.15)
Even though there were instant objections to the proposal (Luck, 1969), it eventually caught
on. Dean and Croft (2001 p. 1199) have defined the three phases that marketing in politics has
gone through since: “marketing as exchange” (the actual selling), “marketing is different” (a
scenario in which marketing communication can offer politics techniques and frameworks
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that political science cannot) and “politics is different” (where the marketing aspect would
retract).
3.1. Definitions of political marketing
So then what is political marketing, apart from a specialized branch of organizational
marketing?
While one would assume that the groundwork of political marketing lies within political
communication, contemporary scholars see the concept as going much further than this (Lees-
Marshment, 2001a, p.1074 and Henneberg, 2008), namely as a general term to describe how
any political organization, be it a party or a public service institution, applies marketing
techniques and concepts that originate in business organizations and adapts them adequately
to pursue their objectives and goals (Lees-Marshment, 2003).
Even though there are still vocal opponents to comparing business with politics, a critical
viewpoint which is often based on politics being all about motive and its resulting
incompatibility with marketing (Saatchi, 2008), political marketing as a discipline continues
to evolve. Scholars dismiss these views by offering a new perspective: that political marketing
is not about ‘dumbing down’ political consumers and persuading them through
advertisements and ‘spin-doctors’, but can instead be used to get political parties closer to the
voters’ demands and show the political elite how to be more responsive (Lees-Marshment,
2003, p.28).
Apart from these rather philosophical problems that some people may have with the concept
of political marketing, the field developed into a respectable and much discussed topic. Rather
recently though, scholars such as Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy have begun to voice
criticism in the development of the area of research. They argue that, while scholars and
papers may be numerous, the methodology is sometimes flawed. Henneberg (2008)
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specifically criticized that the heavy focus of the research on managerial aspects had shown
“stagnating” developments in the application of new trends in general marketing theory to the
political context. In order to counteract this dilemma, Henneberg proposes an epistemological
approach to the discipline and a more pluralistic view of the methodology used.
As a guideline, Henneberg (2008) proposes six research areas for the future to promote
innovation in the field, of which the following three are the most relevant:
Greater sophistication in empirical research with more substantial work
Re-engaging with state-of-the-art marketing theory to overcome regressional tendencies
Reviewing the actual impact and effectiveness of political marketing management
Since Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy (2009) have already started introducing new marketing
theories to the political world with their paper on political relationship marketing, further
research into other fields is to be expected in the near future.
3.2. Political Marketing Concepts
This section serves to give an overview to how the classical marketing concepts are applied to
the political context in political marketing literature.
3.2.1. The Political Market
Segmentation and Targeting
If politics is a product and voters are consumers, then a political marketer needs to target
certain segments in the electoral market in order to reach his audience in an efficient and
effective way. Societal changes, cultural as well as technological developments constantly re-
structure an electorate (Lees-Marshment, 2001b, p.17), creating a need for more precise
information on the voting population.
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In a political context, certain benefits and critical aspects of segmentation may need to be
accentuated in certain situations. The most prominent benefit of segmentation in politics is
breaking up the electorate in homogenous voter groups to ensure efficient allocation of
resources (Lees-Marshment, 2009) or to find niche-marketing possibilities. However, in
contrast to the private sector, questions in regards to the ethics of segmenting voters or even
feasibility due to cost/benefit analysis call for debate (Bannon, 2004).
While Lees-Marshment (2009) provides a simplified classification of traditional voters versus
‘floating voters’, Bannon (2004) introduces a ‘hierarchy of segments model’ as a framework
for interpreting segments.
• Primary target: attractive segment(s) that are responsive to stimuli
• Secondary targets: less attractive segment(s) that are responsive to stimuli
• Relationship building: attractive segments that are less responsive to stimuli
• Wasteland segments: unattractive and unresponsive to stimuli
Figure 1 The STP approach for segmenting political markets (Hirst and Smith, 2001 p. 1061)
This offers great parallels to the STP approach Hirst and Smith (2001) suggest (see Figure 1)
for effective targeting. They do, however, point out that there is the possibility of an image
problem, should the STP approach lead a party to a very deep market-orientation. In contrast
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to the CPM approach (see chapter 4.2.3.), Hirst and Smith see market-orientation and party
ideology as contradicting characteristics and state that parties with longstanding ideological
traditions may even be immune to such developments.
In respect to how such an analysis in segmentation and targeting may be used in marketing
execution, Bannon (2004) categorized the following possible approaches based on the
assumption that political management can benefit greatly from them: undifferentiated mass
marketing to a homogeneous electorate, a disaggregated approach through product
differentiation, an embrace of market segmentation or ultimately, a balanced mix of all three.
Eventually, Bannon (2004) suggests that the only substantial changes in campaign results can
be achieved by segmenting an electorate through social and behavioral characteristics while
focusing the targeting on non-voters, whereas Smith and Hirst (2001) see targeting segments
belonging to the competitors’ usual voting base as a possibility.
Using market intelligence
Market intelligence tools in political marketing are numerous and research may be
categorized in quantitative and qualitative measures.
Concerning the former, instruments such as polling, telephone surveys and panel studies may
come to mind. While these may be useful as a means of displaying opinions across the
electorate, costs as well as accuracy or biased questionnaires show great disadvantages (Lees-
Marshment, 2009 p. 83).
In regards to quantitative research, politics makes strong use of focus groups to provide an
understanding of the political consumer, in order to discover whether or not, “opinions can be
changed” (Lees-Marshment, 2009 p. 85) after all.
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Other instruments
Marketing theory offers many more instruments to better understand a market. Those most
important in the political context are both opposition research as well as consultations.
While the former opens both possibilities to research weaknesses of competing parties and
their candidates, there is also an important factor of self-reflection. Consultations on the other
hand provide a different angle to look at oneself (or one’s campaign for that matter) from the
outside, especially when already in government (Lees-Marshment, 2009).
The political consumer
All these marketing tools are directed at one goal: to reach the consumer in the political
market, the voter, in a way which will prompt him to vote for a party or a candidate or to go
even further, in joining the movement and becoming a member of the organization.
However, what Lees-Marshment branded the ‘rise of the political consumer’ (2009, p.9) is not
always met with excitement of even acceptance. While there are certain advantages of seeing
the voter as a consumer (otherwise, the tools described above would not be effective),
political consumerism can also make a voter more fickle; Demand may shift towards
immediate, short-term delivery, which in politics, is not short of ‘populism’ (Lees-
Marshment, 2003 p. 5).
Other scholars (Quelch, 2008) propose to use consumer marketing even more intensively, not
as a persuasive tool for the voting public, but to conquer the essential problem of low voter
turnout in western democracies.
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3.2.2. The political product
Product development and branding
The political ‘product’ has very few parallels to a physical product, with Phipps et. al (2010)
summarizing that the service it not completely identifiable in advance and that the product is
mutable while at the same time, the delivered product does not even necessarily represent an
individual’s choice but rather the one of the majority. As a result of these insecurities and the
vague satisfaction, if any is given at all, Phipps et. al see the literature actually leaning more
into the direction of viewing political marketing, in regards to the product and branding, more
leaning towards the orientation of traditional service marketing. The brand is therefore much
more important for the product than it would be for a physical one, as the marketing approach
is more related to psychological perceptions. Lees-Marshment (2009) sees authenticity,
delivery and the impossibility of guaranteed success as most important factors to remember.
The development of the political product also does not imply fundamental changes to it,
unlike in traditional marketing. It is merely a constant development over time, to assure
suitability for all segments and to accommodate big changes in public opinion (Lees-
Marshment, 2009).
Lees-Marshment (2009, p. 117) proposes three different aspects of product development that
must be considered in political marketing:
• A need for realism
• Unsuccessful policies (for numerous reasons)which yet still have an absolute need for
implementation
• The existence of political parties that do not determine their product according to
market-demands
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Selling the product: communication/campaigning
Communication in political marketing uses almost all marketing instruments in the books.
While the focus of political marketing does not lie in political communication, the following
tools are used very frequently: direct mail, poster/billboard advertising, guerilla marketing as
well as public relations and the burgeoning field of e-marketing tools.
One important difference to campaigns in the private sector though is, as Lees-Marshment
(2009, p. 162) explains is, that “politicians and parties communicate all the time […].
Communication can [even] take place over several years”, a notion that is synonymous with
the modern idea of constant campaigning in politics.
Dean and Croft (2001) though reject the assumption that political communication has become
content-free mass-marketing, stating that voters can differentiate well between advertisements
and political program content, as they are usually represented through different tools and
instruments, and with different styles.
Selling the product: internal marketing
Internal marketing in political marketing terms is concerned with maintaining an active base
of activists for the party and how to effectively manage a party in terms of implementing
market-oriented practices (Lees-Marshment, 2009).
Motivating their members is one of a political party’s most important functions. This is due to
the fact that political organization differ greatly from businesses when it comes to internal
marketing. Entry and exit barriers are usually nonexistent, as members join and leave freely.
Furthermore, as long as the party does not employ them, their workload and effectiveness will
depend mostly on their own commitment to the cause. Most importantly, members are not
only the core, they are the organization.
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There are many internal marketing activities that are performed frequently by parties, through
websites, mailing, meeting, conferences and other social events, that further a social
connection between members. Bannon (2005) suggests even more intensive internal
marketing programs, directed purposefully at participation. The implementation of such
programs, which can lead to the creation of resources from within the organization itself, does
require some adjustments to the organization.
Granik (2004) for example, presumed a connection between certain benefits of membership
and participation, an assumption that she had tested herself. Members of organizations expect
to receive certain benefits from membership, such as agreement with other people in terms of
beliefs as well as socializing benefits, like feeling a sense of belonging and being needed.
Concerning the benefits’ relation to participation, members who do participate actively, do so
for similar reasons such as their expected membership benefits. Those who never intended to
participate in the first place when joining the party, are not likely to be persuaded to do
otherwise.
3.2.3. Conceptual political marketing frameworks
As already mentioned in section 4.2, some scholars in the field have criticized the disciplines’
lack of conceptual theories, which are rooted in substantial empirical groundwork
(Hennenberg, 2008). Consequently, only very few frameworks offer holistic practical
guidelines in everyday political marketing strategy.
This paper seeks to outline two emerging theoretical structures, which although still lacking in
practical empirical studies have shown great potential: Comprehensive Political Marketing
(Lees-Marshment, 2001a and 2003) and Political Relationship Marketing (Hennenberg 2008
and Hennenberg and O’Shaughnessy 2009).
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Comprehensive Political Marketing
Lees-Marshment (2001a) introduced the concept of CPM as a way of “understanding a wide
range of political behavior” (p. 1074). She envisioned CPM not merely as a integrated
framework to be used as starting point in itself, but also as a way of promoting more in-depth
cross-disciplinary research in the field in general, to counteract stagnating creativity and
innovation in the field (Lees-Marshment, 2003), similarly to Henneberg’s (2008) critique.
Figure 2 Key Principles of CPM (Lees Marshment 2001 and 2003)
Figure 2 depicts the five main principles of Lees-Marshment’s framework, for which she has
herself has done intensive research. As it is stated in principle two, comprehensive political
marketing also applies to other groups related to the political sphere, such as interest groups.
Analysis of their behavior shows a very intense market-orientation, as interest groups (whose
purpose usually is to lobby for a cause) often do not even decide on their product before
consulting marketing data (Lees-Marshment 2003, p. 22).
Principle threeintroduces an essential technique in CPM, the categorization of political parties
into product-, sales- and market-oriented (see also: Lees-Marshment, 2003, p. 15). This aspect
of the framework is based on the findings of Lees-Marshment’s (2001a) study of the UK party
system, where she researched the Labour Party’s development from the marketing point of
view.
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• The product-oriented party argues its ideology and never changes its political
program, even in crisis
• The sales-oriented party relies on selling its positions to the electorate and focuses
on communication to convince the voter of an ideology, which the party is aware of he
might not like otherwise.
• The market-oriented party does not design its product according to an ideology or a
point of view but in response to market demands.
By applying this framework, Lees-Marshment (2003, p. 16) came to the following two
important findings, among others: that even those politicians who refuse any kind of
involvement of a strategic use of market-oriented practices, have done so at some point in
time and that the party acts the most market-oriented is the one to prevail in an election.
While Lees-Marshment’s study did not precisely give measurably data on the latter claim,
other studies have done so in the meantime. Robinson (2010) found that market-orientation
(or in her case “voter orientation”) in political advertisements and communication in general
during a campaign had led to the greatest successes.
Lees-Marshment saw the correlation between winning elections and market-orientation may
not even be a purely calculative one, but rather a means and an end to reacting to more critical
and exposed position of voters, which demands immediate responsiveness and delivery.
Many other scholars had been working with the notion of “market-oriented” or “customer-
oriented” parties beforehand and after, and related findings can be integrated into the context
of CPM. Ormrod and Henneberg (2010) have provided very recent findings in the field,
describing a conceptual model for what they called “PMO” or “political market orientation”.
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Figure 3 Conceptual model for PMO (Ormrod and Henneberg 2010, p. 386)
Their model includes “behavioral” as well as “attitudinal” aspects that influence the
development of market orientation in parties (see Figure 3).
Behavioral aspects:
• Information generation: the activities to gather data on voters’expectations, their needs
and wants, the activities of competing parties and public opinion.
• Information dissemination: the vertical and horizontal distribution and dissemination
of the data within the organization
• Member participation: involving key stake-holders in the party hierarchy in the
creation of coherent political advertising strategies, policy development issues,
candidate selectionand financing
• Consistent strategy implementation: through integration and co-ordination
See Ormrod and Henneberg (2010, p. 384)
Attitudinal aspects:
• Internal orientation:interest in the party’s own members
• External orientation:interest in stakeholders in the wider political environment
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• Competitor orientation: awareness of the competitors capabilities and actions
• Voter orientation: focus on the opinions of party members, the general public and
target voters
See Ormrod and Henneberg (2010, p. 385)
Ultimately, they found that to successfully implement a market-oriented strategy, a party must
focus on the three following obstacles:
• In order to guarantee successful and coherent implementation, all processes in the
behavioral chain must be strengthened
• To influence the behavioral aspects, the attitudinal aspects must be addressed as well,
which are long-term decision. Management style must then fit the chosen attitudinal
focus.
• Functionaries and party managers must have a comprehensive understanding of the
political market, as not to create a “political marketing myopia”.
Lees-Marshment in comparison had a more campaign-focused view of the process, as can be
seen in her market strategy model for the POP, SOP and MOP (see Figure 4).
Figure 4 Stages in the marketing process of a POP, SOP and MOP (Lees-Marshment, 2009)
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Political Relationship Marketing
Political Relationship Marketing, or PRM, seems as an obvious extension of the concept of
relationship-focused marketing concepts into the political sphere.
Henneberg’s (2008) critical view of contemporary political marketing research offered,
among other things, solutions and possible innovative marketing concepts that fit the political
area very well. One of them was a more network-centric approach, or ‘relationship
marketing’, a field that other scholars had been suggested as being of importance for political
marketing for many years (Dean and Croft, 2001). Together with O’Shaughnessy (2009), they
introduced their proposal for PRM as a conceptual framework, in line with recent trends in
marketing theory, which offers a suitable guiding structure for the integration of politics’
underlying social exchanges into political marketing theory.
From a broader, theoretical perspective, they argue that PRM would work well with the
important political concept of ‘added value through delivery’. Through establishing trust in
relationships with the electorate, the impending danger of political ‘consumerism’ can be
avoided: PRM can overcome marginal difference in swing-constituencies, allowing political
management more room to work on long-term delivery instead of unsustainable short-term
results (p. 12), even hinting endless ‘revolutionary’ possibilities that the approach could open
up:
“[P]roperly done, PRM could stabilize a party’s core support, reduce the number of swing
voters, i.e. the volatility of the party system, and make politics less overtly cynical and
manipulative […]” (Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy, 2009, p. 13)
While reviewing how aspects of relationship marketing had already found application in
campaign practices, Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy found contradictory evidence: even
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though campaigns had used relationship marketing in some way, it had often left the voter
with a sour feeling of cheap and dishonest manipulation. Such mishaps in marketing
execution in this field are all due to the sensitive nature of PRM: while it is a powerful tool,
it’s involvement in social interactions and the means of creating intimacy with ‘consumers’
require authenticity.
In addition to that, they suggest to approach the strategy based on Smith and Hirst’s (2001,
p.18) STP framework, using four different groups, who all require customized relationship
strategies for targeting. Furthermore, they propose a party ‘persona’ which can enter into
relationships with people and create loyalty.
All in all, Hennenberg and O’Shaughnessy see a successful PRM strategy in adhering to the
following:
“The keys to Political Relationship Marketing are appeals to a sense of involvement, intimacy
and solidarity with others in the political and social sphere. It must exploit our sense of
involvement via participation” (page 19).
3.3. Austria in Political Marketing Research
If anything, the analysis of the Austrian political market in international research has been
dominated by contradictions. The re-arrangement and deep changes in the structure of the
Austrian electorate from the 1980s, where around two thirds of voters made the choice for the
same party, to only one third of the electorate doing so (Plasser and Bischof, 2008), haslead to
a more diverse party system and more unpredictable election results.
One of the symptoms of that structural change was the landslide victory of JörgHaider’s
Freedom Party (FPÖ) in 1999, who placed second only to the social democrats
(BundesministeriumfürInneres, 1999), a result that shook the political market for good. The
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fascinating rise of the populist movement and its subsequent fall in the period between 1995
and 2002 has been the strong focus of the international political marketing literature in
Austria. In their 2005 essay, Austria political scientists Lederer, Plasser and Scheucher
presented their analysis of the populist surge to the worldwide research stage, with their most
important observation being that the common rules of political marketing do not seem to
apply to the Austrian sphere.
Lederer et al. describe how the party took advantage of the structural change in the electorate
that was largely due to the long-standing coalition of the two big parties, a system that
eventually resulted in political scandals and a lack of reforms.
Throughout his career, and especially by the international press, Haider had always been
depicted as being extremely right wing, racists and anti-Semitic (Leyne, 2000), a strong
opinion held by international journalists and political scientists, which continued to live on
even after his death (Kulish and Freund, 2008). While other Austrian politicians feared for
both a surge in xenophobia as well as the decline of Austria’s reputation (OTS, 1999 and
OTS, 2000), Haider was able to profit off the ‘new’ electorate in 1999. As Lederer et al.
explain, he was the perfect opposition candidate, since he “changed Austria’s party
competition” and continuously “challenged the traditions of [the] political system”.
Haider’s formula for success, according to the authors, was based on his young and dynamic
party officials, which communicated the party’s populist political program with a simple,
aggressive and emotional style of communication. As a result, the FPÖ dominated the
political discourse in 1999, setting the most important topics of discussions and leading the
debate before the elections with their technique of ‘scandalization’. He carried his style of
communication further than any other politician had before, introducing the Austrian voter to
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‘permanent campaigning’. While this strategy was already well known in other political
markets, it was not present in Austria before Haider.
In review, Haider’s FPÖ proved to be an exception to the rule of Lees-Marshment’s
framework of CPM, as the party was just as market-oriented as it was sales-oriented.
However, there were also contradictions to those positioning, as Lederer et al. claim there to
be little to no product adjustments within the FPÖ’s political program.
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4. Web 2.0
4.1. Definitions and history of the web 2.0
Definitions
While the term “web 2.0” would suggest that it describes an actual new “version” of the
internet, it is a rather comprehensive umbrella for the different principles that successful
contemporary web endeavors are built on or, in a very basic way, as the encyclopedia
‘Business: the Ultimate Resource’ (2009) states: a new way in which the web can be used in
general.
In an early attempt of documentation O’Reilly (2005) describes a certain framework of design
patterns and principles that set the web 2.0 apart from the old ‘web 1.0’. As opposed to the
antiquated guidelines of “the web as a platform” and “software as a service”, the web 2.0 is
about successful network applications that serve the purpose of involving people actively to
harness collective intelligence (O’Reilly, Battelle, 2009).
The creator of the first website, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, in an interview with the BCC News in
2005, even states that the applications that have been the output of the web 2.0 so far, brought
the internet much closer to his initial idea of the web as a creative medium where people
could edit content themselves easily (Lawson, 2005).
In 2009, when O’Reilly and Battelle revised their thoughts about web 2.0, they summarized
all their findings in light of recent changes, as the web 2.0 being “a statement about the
second coming of the Web after the dotcom bust”, represented by “successful network
applications” that are “systems for harnessing collective intelligence.”
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The history of web 2.0
The origins of the term ‘web 2.0’ lie within the creation of the first “web 2.0 conference”
(now Web2Summit), which was initiated by O’Reilly Media (a U.S. American media
corporation) in cooperation with MediaLive International in 2004. O’Reilly (2005) explains
that the term was coined out of the conclusion that all the web services that had survived the
dot-com bust had had certain structures in common, structures that differed greatly from the
static “web 1.0” and would lead the way for the web’s future, a way which he coined to be the
web 2.0, “a statement about the second coming of the web” (O’Reilly, Battelle, 2009).
4.2. The characteristics of the web 2.0
While the web 1.0 was defined by seemingly static websites, the web 2.0 takes the so-called
“dynamic web”, which is made possible through scripting languages such as PHP, Ruby, Perl
and others, further by adding a variable of much importance: data.
By connecting server-side languages with databases, the platforms of the web 2.0 were able to
do what O’Reilly (2005) describes as one of their core competencies, namely harnessing
collective intelligence. User engagement, collaborative efforts and social networking would
not be possible without the backing of these databases and server-side programming
languages.
Many characteristics that are crucial and definitive for web 2.0 applications have been made
possible by data management, and have led to a defining principle: structuring unstructured
data by default. Facebook links ‘unstructured’ masses of user profiles; Flickr associates
copious amounts of photos with similar subjects by allowing users to ‘tag’ their pictures with
descriptive keywords.
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O’Reilly (2005) was the first to try and describe what he called the ‘principles’ of the web 2.0
framework, which he later revised and updated to fit recent developments (O’Reilly, Battelle,
2009).
Web 2.0 Design Patterns
The Long Tail By leveraging algorithmic data management and user participation, small
sites are able to reach out to the entire web.
Data is the Next ‘Intel
Inside’
Successful platforms have unique and hard-to-recreate data-driven
applications.
Users Add Value Users add value implicitly and explicitly to the application.
Network Effects by
default
Data provided by users much be aggregated by default as only a small
percentage adds value to the application.
Some Rights Reserved Design for “hackability” and “remixablity” by using licenses with few
restrictions.
The Perpetual Beta Applications as “ongoing services”: engaging users as real-time testers
without a traditional “release schedule”
Cooperate, Don’t Control Web 2.0 applications are connected in a network, re-using data of others
with the help of easily accessible programming.
Software Above the Level
of a Single Device
Applications can be accessed from handheld devices, facilitating regular
and steady use. Table 1 Web 2.0 Design Patterns (O’Reilly 2005)
Key takeaways of the ‘Web Squared’
Redefining collective
intelligence
Services discover implied metadata through ‘sensors’ such as cameras,
GPS and others and create databases.
The Internet of Things Services map unstructured data to structured data, while making a priori
meanings to data redundant.
The rise of Real Time Creating efficient feedback loops, real-time data in applications becomes
more important. Table 2 Key take-aways of the Web 2.0 (O’Reilly and Battelle 2009)
4.2.1. Social media networks
The afore-mentioned network applications that make up the foundation of the web 2.0 are
better known as “social media (applications)” and can be divided in the following categories,
among others:
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Communicative Networks:
Blogs: Wordpress.com, Blogger, Livejournal
Microblogging: Twitter, Tumblr, Google Buzz
Social Networks: Facebook, MySpace, Xing, LinkedIn
Location-based applications: foursquare, Gowalla
Collaborative Networks:
Bookmarking/News: Digg, Del.i.cio.us, Google Reader, Reddit
Music/Video sharing: YouTube, Last.fm, Vimeo, Dailymotion
Art sharing: deviantArt, Flickr, Picasa
Others: SlideShare, Ustream
(see also: Tanuri 2009)
Blogs
Weblogs (shortened to “blogs”) have taken the web 1.0 concept of personal websites further
by displaying the content in a chronological diary format. While blogs have existed before the
‘web 2.0 revolution’, the technology that made all the
difference was “RSS”. O’Reilly (2005) explains RSS as a
structure, which allows readers to “subscribe” to a blog and read it through an RSS reader and
subsequently receiving notifications for every change that occurs in the page.
Wordpress.com is a service that allows users to easily publish their own blogs, without having
any knowledge of either the language that the Wordpress script (which is also available as
open-source on wordpress.org) was written in or any formatting in HTML. Blogger functions
with the same concept while Livejournal, having been founded in 1999, was one of the first
and has since lost popularity.
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Microblogging
The popularity of microblogging grew with the online platforms Tumblrand Twitter, that
allowed users to post content chronologically, similar to a blog, but with much shorter
content. While Twitter posts (or “tweets”) are restricted to 140 characters, Tumblr entries (or
“tumblelogs”) are mostly made up of single pictures, videos, quotes or other short-format
posts.
Twitter has grown rapidly and now stands at about 106 million users, with an average daily
growth in users of 300.000 new registrants. The significance of Twitter as a web 2.0
application is also visible within the site’s traffic, of which 75% is generated outside of the
site, with the help of mobile applications and desktop clients (Yarow, 2010).
Social networks
Social networking services or applications try to rebuild social relationships online, by
representing people with their respective online profiles, along with their social links and
networks to others.
The most popular service on a global scale is most definitely Facebook at the moment, with
500 million users, of which 50% use the network on a daily basis (Statistics, 2010). In terms
of how Facebook corresponds to the above-mentioned principles of web 2.0 services, the site
serves as an almost pitch-perfect example: apart from the over one million websites that have
integrated Facebook in some way, 70% of the networks users participate actively in the site’s
550.000 applications, which are all third-party programmed and therefore, a product of
collective intelligence. Apart from the integration and participation factors, Facebook is also
active in the “mobile” field, with more than 150 million users engaging through handheld
mobile devices (Statistics, 2010).
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The current trend in social networking service turns towards even more mobile integration
with sites such as foursquare, which bases its activity on location data sent by mobile devices.
Users then may “check in” at their location, which helps the site to harness the user’s
collective intelligence in order to build maps around the points with high activity and
ultimately, to be able to locate others. Underlining the site’s innovative power, the World
Economic Forum announced it to be among their Technology Pioneers 2011 (Lüfkens, 2010).
Collaborative networks
What is described above as the ‘collaborative’ category, are networks which, in comparison to
focusing their main activity on communities and social links, build their main appeal on
collaborative efforts of their users and harnessing creative intelligence, among other things.
Flickr for example, is a platform where users can upload photography, ‘tag’ the pictures with
descriptive keywords and let them be put into ‘pools’ with similar subjects from other users.
YouTube on the other hand is a well-known service to share videos, while Ustream focuses on
sharing live streaming videos and SlideShare on posting presentations.
Digg serves as another concept that perfectly demonstrates how the framework of the web 2.0
functions, by rendering unstructured into structured and (re-)usable data. Users may submit
news stories from other sites while other users then vote on the story’s popularity, creating a
ranking of the most “digged” topics.
‘Tagging’ content and therefore structuring previously unconnected data is what most of these
platforms have in common, making them the epitome of the contemporary social web.
4.2.2. Outlook: the web 3.0
Due to the nature of the Internet and the continuous rise of open-source software, the move
from the web 2.0 to the web 3.0 may be smoother than the one that had preceded it. Most
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likely, new technologies will converge with already established ones, resulting in new web
standards (Laurent, 2010). As a result, the definition of what the web 3.0 really is and by what
technology those standards will be defined, is yet to be seen.
What has however, become manifest, are the indispensable features that will define web
content in the years to come, namely “semantics”, which are, most generally speaking, data-
sorting algorithms that allow for complex heaps of data to be sorted according to the users
wants and needs (Kavanagh, 2010). The general perception of this technology is still vague
and an average user may perceive it as Laurent (2010) has described it, a “sensational era of
super intelligent content and knowledge management services”.
What differentiates the web 3.0 from its predecessor however, is how this sorted data is
presented. While the web 2.0 already had “tagging” content, the improved taxonomies of the
semantic web allow for the extremely descriptive metadata to visualize in interactive and
intuitive interfaces.
Furthermore, the web 3.0 standards will allow for the programs to “learn” (Kavanagh, 2010;
Smith, 2010) and draw conclusions. As a result, the data presented in the interface will fit the
user, according to what he likes and dislikes.
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5. Social Media Marketing
5.1. What is social media marketing?
Definition
Social media marketing is the use of web 2.0 services as a tool for marketing purposes. As
such, social networks and their constantly growing numbers of users provide numerous
opportunities to market products, which these networks, in recent years, have begun to
monetize (Drury, 2007).
Meadows-Klue (2007) calls the use of social media the real paradigm shift in marketing, for
the frictionless flow of information does not only demand a change in how marketers engage
their targets in two-way conversations, but also in how these targets become more
sophisticated consumers, who demand more authenticity as they now have the tools to select
what kind of marketing they want to be subjected to.
Arguments against social media marketing
Certain marketers have criticized that there is a danger of over-estimating the power of social
networks for marketing efforts. Online marketer Chris Brogan (2007) spoke out against
mistaking social media advertising for marketing, stating that due to the fact that social
networks are merely tools, they will not be able to deliver the results that marketing
professionals would usually expect. The problem of monetization is oftentimes cited amongst
the greatest risks (Tanuri, 2009), as there is hardly any proof of revenue directly influenced by
social media marketing activity. Furthermore, Brogan points out that for social media
advertising to work properly, the essential variable would lay in the degree of aggregation a
campaign or any input can reach.
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Arguments for social media marketing
The consensus among marketing professionals however is, that social media represents an
alignment of the craft with modern times and social developments (Tanuri, 2009; Drury,
2007; Myron, 2009) and they, as a result, recommend even more development and a better
understanding of the medium. Social media marketing also presents an evolvement of
customer relationship management (CRM), which used to rely solely on RFM (recency,
frequency, monetary value) data (Myron, 2009). While RFM could only provide behavioral
information, the attitudinal data that can be gathered through social networks provides the
marketer with answers to the following questions: who is our target group really? Why does
this target group like our product? Why does another group dislike it? How is the product
used? What other interests does the target group have?
While RFM information oftentimes may have led to the wrong conclusions about the reasons
for a certain customer group’s behavior, attitudinal data gives the marketer more precise
insights that can lead to better, more efficient and more successful CRM (Myron, 2009).
Rules for successful social media marketing
Professionals underline the importance of understanding the structure and dynamics of the
web 2.0 in order to successfully market in social media. While traditional methods focus on
the delivering of messages through multiple channels, social media marketing demands
different techniques from the marketer. Both relationship marketing as well as brand
marketing can implement the principles of the web 2.0 (Drury, 2007 and Meadows-Klue,
2007) while there is also foreshadowing of the classic channels such as TV being left with
only “awareness messaging” as two-way communications and the “social” aspect to take on
the most important roles in marketing.
As a result, the following guidelines can be drawn from the literature:
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• Provide value for the users through content.
• Engage the consumer in a two-way conversation by also allowing him two create
“user-generated content”
• Do not market directly. The only direct marketing can be done via email companions;
otherwise users will see it as an unwanted interference in their activities on social
networks.
• Create authentic brands. As the consumer’s perception of marketing becomes more
aware, brand marketing must become more authentic.
• Market to the individual by giving detailed information tailored to the users interests
instead of generalizations for the masses
(Meadows-Klue, 2007; Drury, 2007; Odden, 2009)
5.2. Outlook: social media marketing in the Web 3.0
While the afore-mentioned traits of the web 3.0 (see section 5.2.2.), with its artificial
intelligence that allows for interfaces to show only the content that really interests the user,
according to his previous behavior and inputs, would seem like the perfect ground for
effective marketing, the technology does provide some obstacles.
Smith (2010) for example, predicts a change in focus from advertising to marketing. While
targeting would now have endless possibilities, advertising may be less effective since
“marketers would stand on their merits, not their claims.” What is a remarkable and valid
critique though is that the biggest problem facing social media marketing in the future is not
whether or not marketers use the tools properly, but whether or not they adopt them at all in a
timely fashion, in the constant battle of “not staying behind of technology”.
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6. Social Media campaigns in the 2010 Vienna local elections1
6.1. SPÖ
If anything, the web 2.0 campaign of Vienna’s Social
Democratic Party (SPÖ) was the biggest of all. As the
main contender in the elections, defending their
absolute majority, the SPÖ stood as the party with the
most resources. The online-track was mostly
organized along the sub-tracks that existed off-line:
SPÖ Vienna, their main candidate Michael Häupl and
a youth campaign, among others.
Facebook: On the social network Facebook, the SPÖ Vienna appeared in the form of multiple
“pages”: ‘SPÖ Wien’, ‘Ich bin Wien’ (the youth campaign) and ‘Team für Wien’ along with
the groups and pages of various district organizations. The red corporate identity was visible
throughout, logos varied accordingly (see Figure 5).
The local organizing teams were active on Facebook in different ways. Local gathering and
campaign events were regularly promoted through Facebook events and many candidates
made use of the medium themselves by creating personal profiles (Figure 6) or by taking their
local issues onto the social web.
1 This description of the campaign is aimed at giving the view an average online user may have had. It does not include parts of the campaign that were aimed at party members and were therefore closed to the general public
Figure 5 SPÖ corporate identity on Facebook
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Figure 6 Personal Facebook profile of an SPÖ candidate
Twitter: The micro-blogging tool was used rather sparingly by the SPÖ and there appeared to
be little to no relation to the rest of the social media campaign. Of their five visible candidates
on Twitter, only one had more than 300 followers (@pekobaxant, who is also the SPÖ
Vienna’s spokesperson for youth issues).
Flickr: The SPÖ Vienna used Flickr almost exclusively to share all campaign-related
photographs. While the pictures were also posted simultaneously on the campaign website by
the use of the Flickr widget, all the image hosting was carried out over Flickr. All other
relevant campaign tracks were using the network as well, such as the youth campaign as well
as some local organizations.
YouTube: The SPÖ Vienna used YouTube to promote their campaign video material, both
high-quality productions and low-key spots shot on the campaign trail. Videos were then
shared through various other social media outlets and posted simultaneously on the SPÖ
Vienna’s campaign website. As with the other social media instruments, the youth track was
present with their own channel.
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Websites: Up until late August and September, the SPÖ Vienna was still operating with their
usual websites, which was then changed to fit the campaign theme. While social media
applications were scarcely spread across the usual website, the campaign design included the
web 2.0 widget2
6.2. ÖVP
quite well, even showing a feed-like “mash-up” of recent actualizations
across all networks. This main site also linked to all other tracks of the campaign, of which
most had their own social media access. As before, the youth campaign had the social media
widget presented most visibly.
The Viennese conservative party’s campaign was eerily representative of the press’ reviews
of their style. The main, traditional campaign’s themes were focused on law and order
politics, conservative family and educational values all paired with the supposed urban flair of
their female main candidate, Christine Marek. The strategy across all social networks and
channels was mainly the same, with there being one account for the entire Viennese ÖVP and
one for Christine Marek.
Figure 7 Facebook profile of Christine Marek
2 “A widget is a small, portable application or piece of dynamic content that can easily be placed into a Web page or an embedded browser within a rich client. Widgets can be written in any language (Java, .NET, PHP, and more) or can be a simple HTML fragment.” IBM Mashup Center Wiki [online]
- 37 -
Facebook: The Facebook campaign was not planned on a big scale. There was no central
message or fan page for the entire Viennese party. However, most of the important candidates
had personal profiles that were quite active as well. Main candidate Christine Marek was
represented with a page that was administrated by her campaign team.
Twitter: Not unlike the party officials and candidates of the FPÖ Vienna, the ÖVP Vienna
had the least campaign activity on Twitter. There was an official account (@oevpwien),which
replicated messages from Facebook and between the few functionaries, who were active on
Twitter, though they only had an average number of followers.
Flickr: The picture network was used quite extensively by the ÖVP campaign, with both an
official channel for the entire party as well as one for main candidate Christine Marek.
YouTube: Again replicating the strategy used in the other channels, the party was represented
by the user ‘vpwien’ while other campaign-only videos were published via the channel of
‘ChristineMarek’. While the activity on the latter account stopped with the election date of
October 10th, the vpwien channel saw even less postings and as of December 25th 2010, the
last video was released on October 6th.
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Figure 8 Social media integration on the ÖVP campaign website
Websites: The traditional web presence of the ÖVP remained their usual website until mid-
September, when they launched the campaign website. Social media activities were much
more directly visible, as were the most important candidates for the party.
6.3. FPÖ
The focus of the Freedom Party of Vienna (FPÖ) followed the exact same formula as their
constant nation-wide marketing and was clearly recognizable, by relying heavily on
promoting their main candidate for the mayor’s office: Heinz-Christian Strache (or “HC
Strache” as he was promoted throughout all campaign tracksand shall also be referred to).
Since HC Strache is also the party’s national chairman and was their main candidate for the
last national parliamentary elections as well, the party could profit from marketing synergies
and already-established online infrastructure.
Facebook: HC Strache was the main proponent of the party’s Facebook campaign. Making
use of the already existing “page” and starting out with around 30.000 “fans”, the campaign
could already benefit from the constant marketing for their party chairman. The focus on HC
Strache becomes even clearer as there was no page for the FPÖ Vienna. All the other
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candidates for district mandates created their own Facebook profiles. As such it could be said
that the only official campaign track on Facebook was the single page for HC Strache, district
groups or the candidates themselves organized all other Facebook activities independently.
Those district groups where quite active however (see Table 3) and even promoted some
events over the social network.
Table 3 FPÖ accounts on Facebook during the campaign
Twitter: Apart from mirroring Facebook posting on their @HCStrache2010 account, whose
follower numbers never reached 100 before Election Day, there was no campaign activity on
Twitter.
Flickr: The FPÖ did not use Flickr to publish their own campaign photographs (official
pictures were mostly posted on the HC Strache page on Facebook), the website did link to
Flickr and the search term “strache”.
YouTube: Continuing with their strategy of creating marketing synergies, the FPÖ Vienna
used the already existing “oesterreichzuerst” YouTube Channel to publish their video
material, providing the campaign with an already existing audience and a seemingly big
appearance, reaching over one million channel views (see Table 4 for comparison of
YouTube channels).
- 40 -
Table 4 Number of views of videos on YouTube campaign channels on October 2nd 2010
Websites: The FPÖ did not make use of a special campaign website, but instead integrated
advertisements, social media appearances and all campaign-relevant press releases into their
usual FPÖ Vienna homepage, www.fpoe-wien.at. However, there was no dynamic integration
of information feeds from neither Facebook nor YouTube. Instead of having widget-based
social media integration, the campaign had an independent “HC Strache Blog”, which
featured either official recaps of campaign events or entries from the candidate himself (see
Figure 9).
Figure 9 Screenshot of the HC Strache blog
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6.4. Die Grünen
With their social media campaign, the Green Party of Vienna tried to further intensify their
image of being a young, urban and tech-savvy organization. Compared to all other parties in
the running, the Greens made the most use of social networks and had the most interactive
online campaign.
Facebook: The Greens focused their Vienna-wide campaign on Facebook on two tracks with
the personal profile of main candidate Maria Vassilakou and the page of “Die Grünen Wien”
(the Green Party of Vienna). While Ms Vassilakou was quite active on the network, with
regular postings and other input, the official party/campaign page was used to publish press
releases and official statements as well as promote campaign events. Numerous other
candidates also used the social network with personal profiles or pages, and the district groups
(of which almost all had a Facebook group at the end of the campaign) promoted campaign
events and also “causes” to put light on a certain policy issue.
Twitter: As can be seen in Table 5, not only did the Green Party have the highest number of
candidates active on Twitter, but these users were also the politicians with the highest
numbers of followers. While some of them “tweeted” mostly official information and
promoted their political activities, other used twitter effectively by engaging their followers in
conversations.
Table 5 Twitter accounts of ‘die Grünen Wien’ and their followers
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Flickr: Under the account name of “gruenewien” (see Figure 10), the party uploaded pictures
of all relevant campaign events onto the platform.
Figure 10 Flickr Fotostream of ‘gruenewien’
YouTube: The Greens were using YouTube actively as well, under the account name
“gruenewien”.
Websites: As soon as the campaign when into a heated final phase, the Green launched their
social media focused campaign platform “Ich mach grün” (I do green). “Ich mach grün”
(Figure 11) integrated all social networks and presented them through widgets, as well as a
campaign event calendar. The site had an interactive focus, where users could create their
own profiles and upload material from all social networks. The main interface changed as
soon as users started using the platform, through aggregated data from what the user viewed,
liked and shared on other websites, to present a summary of what interested him or her.
- 43 -
Figure 11 ‘Ich mach Grün’ interactive web 2.0 campaign platform
- 44 -
7. Analysis
Table 6 Overview of all Facebook acconts used for campaigning
Table 7 Overview of all Twitter accounts and their activity during the campaign
- 45 -
The interviews cited in the following analysis can be read in full in this paper’s annex. Peter
Kraus shall further be cited as “PK”, Mathias Tötzl as “MT”, Joachim Stampfer as “JS” while
Henrike Brandstötter will be cited as “HB”.
7.1. Structure, campaign design, overview
SPÖ
In terms of structure, the SPÖ Vienna’s campaign was clearly dominated by a lack of
coordination and from the viewpoint of the user, transparency. While there was a consistent
red corporate identity, the user may have encountered problems navigating through different
campaign tracks. The main campaign as well as the youth campaign had their own website,
Facebook presence, Flickr account and YouTube channel, not even mentioning the other
campaign tracks (Votes for Häupl, I love Vienna, et cetera) that had sporadic and even more
uncoordinated social media appearances. Before the campaign website launched, it was hard
even for users looking specifically for all campaigns, to find their way. While the campaign
website did integrate the social media channels quite well visibly, it was still hard to find an
overview of the campaign.
The structure of the SPÖ campaign did have one major advantage, which was size in
appearance. Due to the absolute majority that the party held before the elections, they had a
greater number of mandates and also campaign funds. This was visible by the sheer number
of campaign activity in social media, which easily outdid all other campaigns.
Still, even the greater monetary resources could not guarantee an efficient integration of all
social networks and the use of web 2.0 synergies. This was clearly visible in the
uncoordinated and rather small appearance on Twitter, which was not even a visible part on
the campaign website.
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In terms of content, the political program of the traditional campaign was transported into the
social networks without any greater adaptations, apart from the fact that the online team tried
to phrase the wording more age-appropriate.
ÖVP
The ÖVP campaign was simple and “conservative” in structure and execution and an
overview was rather easy to find. The three main tracks of the campaign (ÖVP Vienna,
Christine Marek, JVP3
FPÖ
with their main candidate Sebastian Kurz) had their focus on
Facebook, a move that was largely motivated by budgetary restrictions according to HB. The
aim clearly was awareness messaging across different media channels instead of using the
web 2.0 in a more creative way, as explained by HB.
While other social networks were still used (especially Flickr and YouTube), there was no
clear, visible or dynamic integration on the campaign website. While it is sure that that
campaign website could have been launched earlier and the main Facebook track could have
been integrated more dynamically, a larger focus on other social networks may not have made
sense in this case, as they were barely used in the first place.
The gist of the FPÖ’s traditional campaign structure was simplicity. Their heavy focus on
party leader HC Strache was consistent and the only visible focus (see Figure 12). As such,
the social media campaign was modeled after the classical campaign and served as a
seamlessly applied arm that stretched the “normal” campaign further into parts of the
electorate that it could not have reached otherwise.
3 The ÖVP’s youth organization
- 47 -
Figure 12 ‘HC Strache’ corporate identity in the FPÖ campaign (Cremer 2010)
In that regard, the campaign was successfully constructed. It was in no way contradictory to
the offline-campaign and served as an amplification of their USP: Heinz-Christian Strache.
Die Grünen
The Green social media campaign was a clear nod to their key demographic, young, urban,
and supposedly also tech-savvy, voters (Perlot, Zandonella, 2010). As one of their main
targets for their web 2.0 activities was to mobilize those who could already be counted into a
group of the electorate which could or would vote Green, the party used all resources possible
in designing their strategy and eventually ended up with the most forward thinking and most
appropriate social media campaign of all parties.
In an especially stark contrast to all other campaigning parties, the Greens also succeeded at
having a comprehensive overview of their entire social media presence through their web 2.0
platform “Ich mach Grün”, showing a clear interest in the subject and dedication to
successfully applying the tools.
Notably, the Greens also incorporated an important aspect into the design of their campaign,
which the FPÖ managed by accident: continuity. PK confirmed that the party had certain
long-term goals in their social media strategy and wished to build a certain base of green web
2.0 users, stating that there “is no campaign that ends on day X, it has to be designed for the
long term.”
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7.2. Campaign Organization, Cost Structure
Compared to the relatively high advertising costs of Austria’s political parties
(DerStandard.at, 2010), the resources allocated to social media marketing were rather small.
Representatives from all parties stated that, even though they all see it as a low-cost activity
that is restricted to advertisements and personnel costs, they invested only very small parts of
their marketing budgets. The organization of the social media campaigns however varied, as
only two of the four parties had offices dedicated to web 2.0 activities.
SPÖ
Multiple campaign workers dedicated time to the social media campaign. While all of them
worked part-time, MT estimated their work at accounting for 1 full-time post for all web 2.0
activities. Apart from the one full-time paid employee, up to 80-90% of the work for the party
in social networks was done by volunteers.
As for the pages and profiles, the campaign made an effort to keep it as authentic as possible,
stating that 80-90% of the content came from the candidates themselves, and staying in tune
with the rules of social media marketing mentioned in chapter six. However, staying authentic
for the SPÖ meant to forego a profile/page for their main candidate Michael Häupl as the
campaign feared that “nobody would buy it”. According to exit polls (Perlot and Zandonella,
2010), “making sure Michael Häupl stays the mayor of Vienna” was the number one reason
for voting SPÖ. Seeing that the party knew of his popularity before the elections and made
sure that the traditional campaign was focused on his image, it might have been better to make
an exception to the rule and create a social media presence for Mr. Häupl.
For all other candidates that showed interest, the SPÖ offered training beforehand to explain
the use of social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.
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As mentioned before, SPÖ Vienna district groups were present in Facebook through groups
and pages as well, but not all of them were. While this would appear to be an important part
of the party’s social media presence and could be enforceable, the campaign organizers chose
not to, stating that only those groups which showed the will and initiative ended up with a
successful web 2.0 presence.
ÖVP
The ÖVP had invested approximately one half-time post to organize the social media
campaign according to HB, of which the work was split among multiple campaign employees,
who worked part-time on the project.
Concerning the involvement of volunteers, HBalso stated that while they encourage
volunteers to get involved in the web 2.0 campaign privately, they preferred not to use the
volunteer force to organize the social media activities.
Similar to most of the other parties, only few local groups were present on Facebook. Due to a
lack of people in the district organizations to regularly update such a presence, the ÖVP
campaign opted not to force it so as to the campaign would not be rendered “ridiculous” or
unauthentic.
FPÖ
The organization behind the Freedom Party of Vienna’s social media campaign was reduced
to the minimum. While the media production team shared video and audio productions for
web 2.0 publishing, the administrative support for the HC Strache page on Facebook was
done, apart from Mr. Strache himself, by one person, the FPÖ’s national IT director, JS.
According to him, one full-time job was required to complete all the social media-related
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work on Facebook and YouTube.The campaign abstained from using volunteers to do any
social media campaigning to avoid misunderstandings.
Similarly to the other party’s policy on the matter, the FPÖ did neither force any local district
groups to have their own Facebook profiles, nor did they organize it centrally. While the
campaign manager offered support to any groups who showed interest by providing
multimedia content, it was done on a voluntary basis.
Die Grünen
As confirmed by PK, the Greens valued the costs allocated in this area as a “meaningful
investment”, resulting in about 5% of the marketing budget spent solely on social media
activities. By comparing the hours necessary to complete the work, the 1 ½ full time jobs
dedicated to the area seem similar to all the other parties, but the organization behind it
certainly is not.
Other than the ÖVP and the FPÖ, the Greens were the only smaller party who had part of
their online department of the Viennese organization entirely dedicated to the web 2.0 work.
Another stark difference to the afore-mentioned parties is that the Greens explicitly focused
on content that differentiated from the one presented in the traditional campaign. As stated in
the interview, the team posted newspaper articles and other content that did not originate in
the campaign headquarters to start discussions among green-interested users.
Furthermore, the campaign also put a focus on having as many local groups as possible
present in social networks. By having at least one “web person” in each local group, the
campaign made sure that their efforts of motivating those to create Facebook groups and the
like were fruitful. In retrospect, the Green strategy proved to be the most successful one in
regards to local groups, as can be seen in Table 6. Not only did those groups’ Facebook pages
and profiles garner the most “friends” or “likes”, they were also the most numerous.
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Volunteers were used extensively in the local groups, whereas paid employees worked mainly
in the campaign headquarters. Apart from that, the campaign also insisted on having the
candidates maintaining their own profiles.
7.3. Campaign aims: target groups, goals
Most notably of all aspects of a social media campaign, the determined target groups and
goals varied the most between the four parties. While many campaigns did not even work
with a clear target group definition, others were aware and changed their communication style
accordingly. Goals however were mostly related to awareness messaging, although most of
the responses indicate that the campaign officials were aware of more subtle aspects that they
wished to achieve with their social media activities.
SPÖ
Even without consulting officials, it was clear to an observer that the party tried to serve
voters across all target groups. By directly copying all offline campaigns into the realms of
the social web, the SPÖ had the possibility of providing each voter with tailored information;
be it teenage voters, women, the retired population or loyal party members. In that respect, the
segmentation was done by differentiating the message instead of targeting specific groups
with the entire social media campaign. By stating that the medium cannot be used to target
specifically, it can be debated whether or not the SPÖ’s campaign was ahead of time or
simply unobservant, seeing the possibilities presented by social media for more efficient
customer relationship management (see chapter six).
In terms of goals, the excessive use of Facebook and the spreading of the campaign over all
possible channels of the web 2.0 replicated the offline campaign’s goal of maximum exposure
and awareness messaging.
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While the resources available to campaign headquarters surely made them succeed at this
goal, it can be debated whether or not achieving the goal of maximum exposure did anything
to further the overall campaign goals of winning the election. It could have been, that using
social networks for more specific purposes, such as engaging young voters in discussions that
cannot be had over traditional media outlets, and furthermore proving that the very large and
therefore seemingly “distant” party does indeed position itself “by the people”, would have
been more successful.
Even from the official side, the viral campaign done over YouTube, where videos about the
“Gemeindebauten”4
ÖVP
were published, were aimed specifically at the party member base instead
of specific target group from the electorate. However, according to exit poll data (Perlot,
Zandonella 2010), the SPÖ lost about 32.000 votes from the last election to the nonvoter-
block, a number that would suggest that the party did not succeed at motivating their base.
Since the ÖVP has, due to the party’s ideology, political program and policy making, the
image of being very conservative in multiple aspects, the ÖVP Vienna tried to use social
media to distance themselves even further from the national party. In accordance with the
offline campaign, the social media track’s goal was to position the party in a more young,
tech-savvy, urban part of the electorate. Apart from the positioning, the goal of all social
media activity for the campaign was to get out their political message through even more
channels. As previously mentioned, social media marketing professionals insist on the
importance of the “social” aspect and object to using the web 2.0 in a similar manner than
traditional media outlets.
4 Social housing provided by the city of Vienna
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Regarding target groups, the campaign stated that due to their relatively small budget and the
small organization behind the web 2.0 activities, they were not aimed at any specific group
(apart from the natural segmentation of reaching only voters that have access to these
channels, as was acknowledged by the campaign).
FPÖ
The FPÖ campaign was very well aware of the target groups they were servicing with their
social media activities, and made extensive use of the usage statistic tools provided by
Facebook. According to JS, the big part of the users was made up of the age group of 18-25-
year-olds with urban backgrounds in Vienna and Linz. In comparison, their YouTube
statistics suggested a focus on the 35-45-year-olds.
Furthermore, the FPÖ was also much more specific and determined in terms of measurable
goals. JS cited a goal of 100.000 fans of the HC StracheFacebook page for the Viennese
campaign. Even though the goal was ultimately not achieved by Election Day (and as of
December 30th 2010, still had not been), a goal measurable in numbers may have had a
motivating effect on campaign employees, as well as the users themselves.
Another, more intangible goal was set as well, as the campaign official explained that the
wish was to use social media as a tool to present Mr. Strache as he “really is”. As such, JS
agreed that the personal connection created by social networks was a big advantage for them,
as they were able to use the tool to “humanize” the political person.
Die Grünen
The campaign headquarters of the Greens, according to PK, coordinated both their goals and
target group definitions accordingly and proved to have a much clearer view on their work.
By focusing their social media activities on internal mobilization, the web 2.0 marketing
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targeted those who had once voted green or could think about doing so, and the age groups
were concentrated on young voters. PK did however note that on Facebook, they registered a
surge in female users who were over 60 years old and as a result, tried to incorporate this
information into their work. Furthermore, he had seen a differentiation concerning the
content-producing users and those who only consumed, with the former being mostly men
and only the part of low-level interaction (meaning discussion of said posted content) being
balanced between men and women.
As PK had also stated, the main goal of the campaign was internal mobilization. More
precisely, especially the mobilization of people who might declare themselves as being “fans”
of the Green part on Facebook without having voted for them before or being an active party
member. Consequently, the campaign did not formulate quantitative goals but rather
qualitative ones, especially in how the “sharing” of Green-related content could influence
voters in the final phase before Election Day.
Another qualitative goal for the campaign was to further cement the party’s image as a
technology-savvy organization that stayed on top of all trends.
7.4. Tools used
As explained in chapter four, the web 2.0 presents marketers with various tools to use.
However, as could already be seen in the campaign descriptions in chapter six, the parties
used only few of them visibly in the summer and fall of 2010. The reasons for this vary from
a simple lack of resources to a conscious focus on the main social networks. The following
information is largely based on observations by the author and was then adjusted according to
any differentiating information given by the interviewees.
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SPÖ
The SPÖ relied on multiple channels in their social media campaign, most notably Facebook,
Flickr, YouTube and Redbook, their internal social network.
The Facebook campaign was “led” by the official SPÖ Vienna page, which, however, was
beat by the youth campaign page of “Ich bin Wien” in terms of “likes” (see Table 4). While
the account “Donauinselfest” in Table 6, of the annual open-air festival on Vienna’s Danube
island, organized and sponsored by the SPÖ Vienna, may not seem like a campaign account,
MT stated in the interview that the party still made use of its high number of “likes”. As the
page ultimately reached 40.103 “likes” on Election Day, of which about 90% of the users
came from the Vienna area according to MT, this strategic move is not surprising.
On Twitter on the other hand, the SPÖ Vienna was struggling for relevance. As can be seen in
Table 7, the accounts of SPÖ candidates barely managed to reach over a couple hundred
followers each, at best. As some of the accounts were not even active on a regular basis and
there was hardly any interaction with the Twitter community, the numbers do not surprise.
Even though campaign organizers are aware of the benefits of Twitter for politics, stating that
one can “immediately answer” and “find out what is important to people”, it seems as though
this track of the social media campaign was failed by execution and a lack of personal
involvement of the candidates.
Flickr was used to publish campaign photographs but did not have any other role in the
campaign similarly to the use of YouTube, which was also merely a tool to publish official
campaign videos.
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ÖVP
As previously mentioned, the ÖVP Vienna used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube in
their online campaign.
On Facebook, neither of their three main campaign pages and profile managed to reach over
3000 people, with youth candidate Sebastian Kurz coming in the closest (see Table 6). Still,
the social network played an active part in internally organizing the campaign, seeing as the
HB stated that it is used for “events, information, to mobilize [their] volunteers and to
organize them.”
Even from the official site, the campaign representative interviewed mentioned that Twitter
war only used to inform party functionaries on the go, and not as a campaign tool. As can be
seen in Table 7, only three accounts were directly attributable to the campaign and all of them
had below 350 followers. While Sebastian Kurz was being quite active before Election Day
by regularly posting information on where was is campaigning at the moment, his Twitter
Feed has since been rendered inactive.
Flickr as well as YouTube were used to promote official photographs and video of the
campaign. While the activity during the campaign on YouTube was quite regular, the last
video posted (as of December 29th 2010) in the “vpwien” channel dates back to October 7th,
while the last video posted via the ChristineMarek was on election day. The situation on
Flickr is only marginally different, with the photos of “oevpwien” stopping on September 16th,
while Christine Marek’s photo stream saw three occasional postings of new pictures in the
time span between October 2010 and December 2010.
This begs the question as to whether or not the ÖVP Vienna sees social media as merely a
tool that can be used during campaign times. Since, at is was described in section 6.1,
professionals see continuing contact between and authenticity as important factors for the
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success of social media campaigns. Should web 2.0 activity dry out after Election Day,
however, it would not seem as though an organization is truly interested in creating an
ongoing debate in the social web. Furthermore, they would subsequently lose the advantage of
aggregation, since all campaigns would have to re-start their efforts without the “fan base” of
previous accounts.
FPÖ
In the campaign description, it was already mentioned that the FPÖ used only two social-
media services, namely Facebook and YouTube, with a heavy focus on the former. The
reasons for this seem to be quite clear to the campaign and also appear reasonable in review.
By using their small personal resources to administer those two outlets properly, the FPÖ
managed to fulfill both the important rule of social media marketing to provide content
(through the very regular postings of information and multimedia on the HC Strache page as
well as their YouTube channel) as well as create an atmosphere of individuality by foregoing
awareness messaging through multiple, confusing channels. With over 70.000 fans and
friends spread over the Facebook accounts of HC Strache and the local district groups, the
FPÖ managed to reach the most people with their social media campaign, leaving the other
parties far behind (see Table 6). The situation on YouTube was similar, with their YouTube
channel reaching over 1.100.000 people more than the channels used by the other campaigns
(see Table 4).
When asked as to why none of the candidates used Twitter, JS responded by stating that they
were only interested in using the “market leader”, which was Facebook in this case.
Furthermore, there was a hint at the suggestion that the desired target group may not be
present on Twitter, a thought that HB had shared, stating that “only media people” used the
service in Austria. As explained in section 4.3, the Austrian press and media had a very
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difficult relationship with the policies and marketing of the FPÖ, which makes the campaigns
decision to circumvent Twitter seem reasonable and justified.
Die Grünen
Of all parties examined in this analysis, the Green Party was the only one who made use of
other social networks apart from the ones mentioned before, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and
YouTube. PK explained, that as part of their initial phase of the campaign, the web
department tested multiple new social media platforms, such as FourSquare, Google Buzz and
Netlogg. As the latter two turned out to be too small for the campaign, the eventual focus
landed on FourSquare, whose GPS-based location services, as mentioned in chapter five, can
be used in conjunction with Twitter. The base for their decision as to which platform would
end up as part of the campaign, was the resources available. In a clear alignment with the
rules of effective social media marketing, they decided not to use those were there was not
enough aggregation and not enough resources from their part to actively, regularly and
continuously engage in the activities.
The Green Twitter presence was most notable among all web 2.0 application, since the
Viennese candidates who “tweeted” were not only the highest in terms of numbers but also
followers. As can be seen in Table 7, the Greens were the only party with a notable and more
importantly, significant Twitter presence. Furthermore, their accounts did not show a massive
reduction in activity as could be seen with politicians on Twitter from all other parties. By
using FourSquareand staying in constant conversations with other Twitter users, the Greens
showed that they certainly understood the use of this particular social network better than
most.
On Facebook, their main candidate Maria Vassilakou was present with a personal profile,
while “Die Grünen Wien” had a page as well. However, as can be seen in Table 6, even
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though they managed to surpass the ÖVP and SPÖ in terms of absolute numbers, the question
remains why the party who is most active in all social networks was not able to gather more
of their possible voters on Facebook. Even after the launch of their interactive “Ich mach
Grün” platform, which was supposed to further intensify all activities, the numbers did not
increase significantly. As a result, it is to be debated whether or not the Greens’ Facebook
campaign had a considerable impact on the campaign at all. One argument to be made is that
to specifically target technology-savvy voters that stay on top of new trends and participate
actively on social networks, Twitter was the more appropriate tool for the Greens to directly
influence their desired target group.
Interestingly though, Facebook proved to be the only part of the web 2.0 campaign that was
used as a direct companion to another marketing track: public relations. As such, the web
department was in constant interaction with the press department, campaign management as
well as ‘participation and targeting’. In this regard, one could also argue that the most
remarkable difference for the Facebook campaign was that it had the most similarities and
coordination with the traditional track. In comparison, the Twitter campaign was developed
organically and served as an independent track where voters and interested users could
communicate with the candidates, an aspect that would have perhaps also worked on
Facebook.
7.5. The ‘two-way conversation’: critique and feedback
As previously mentioned in chapter six, authors such as Drury (2007) and Meadows-Klue
(2007) put an emphasis on the importance of using social media in a two-way conversation
for marketing. For political campaigns, this could be interpreted as to how they deal with
feedback and critical postings, and how the campaign tries to integrate user-generated content.
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SPÖ
The social media team of the SPÖ decided to work towards “user-generated ideas” instead of
user-generated content. Organizers actively tried to implement certain input that had come in
through social networks, such as viral marketing suggestions (like creating a “red wave” on
the biggest Viennese shopping street with people dressed in red t-shirts) or self-organized
campaign events.
ÖVP
While their campaign did not have any specific policy towards user-generated content or
feedback, the campaign official underlined the importance of local politicians engaging in
conversations about their “Grätzelstories”5
FPÖ
in Facebook. The functionaries and candidates are
encouraged to demand involvement and opinions from their “fans” and “friends” on
Facebook.
While the FPÖ did not have any specific web 2.0-campaigns aimed at generating user
involvement, there were occasional ‘special events’ on Facebook. For example, there was a
giveaway contest for theater tickets to see “Robin Hood” in the summer of 2010, which was
promoted exclusively on Facebook. The users who won tickets had a personal meet-and-greet
with HC Strache afterwards, of which the photographs were later posted to his Facebook page
again, providing a perfect example of integrating online with offline marketing. Apart from
such special promotions, HC Strache himself and his supporting Facebook administrator
aimed at answering as many requests as possible that came in through the social network,
explaining that most of the content was designed specifically to spark discussions.
5 Familiar term used to describe stories about districts and areas in Vienna
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Die Grünen
The Green Party has been known to feature creative, interactive elements in their social media
campaigns, ever since the 2008 national elections (see chapter 8.6). During the Vienna 2010
campaign, the Greens launched their first complete, dynamic, new media campaign platform
“Ich mach grün” (see chapter 6 for description).
With regards to PK’s statements, it is possible to conclude that the Green Party has a thorough
understanding of the importance of feedback, user-generated content and the two-way
communication style. Based on the knowledge that the web 2.0 is interactive and in political
campaigns, needs to have a certain ground and connection to the “real” campaign, the Greens
used the following techniques: regularly asking for small, creative contributions or using the
web 2.0 to organize campaign events (“rent” a Green politician for your private campaign
event). The Greens also acknowledged the importance of political bloggers, regularly inviting
them to campaign events.
7.6. Benefits and risks of political social media marketing
While political scientists and researchers as Peter Ulram were quoted (APA, 2008) as stating
that even though Austrian politics still focus heavily on traditional, poster advertising, it is the
most inefficient tool to carry political messaging, other forms of political advertising are still
only in their early stages of use in Austria.
The first social media campaigns were started during the national parliamentary elections in
2008, and only few of the parties had coherent social media campaigns that were visible to the
average user. Social media agency Die Socialisten, for example, organized a project for the
Green Party where users were able to submit their own poster concepts via Facebook6
6 See http://die.socialisten.at/2008/11/die-gruenen-facebook-wahlplakate
.
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Initially, the idea had been conceived by Green politician Christoph Chorherr on his blog7
SPÖ
.
However, this was only an early start and the answers to the questionnaires suggest that many
campaign officials view the new channels very critically and are wary of putting too much of
their resources at stake. Still, there is some evidence to suggest that the overall awareness of
the big parties during this campaign was restricted to their local organizations, as the press
secretary of chancellor Faymann announced in January 2011 that his official social media
presence was about to be revealed, with the eventual goal of using the technology for the next
national elections in 2013 (Pink and Pöll, 2011), giving the Green Party in comparison to the
national organization of the SPÖ a head start of five years. In light of the importance of
‘aggregation’ and timely application of new social media technology in order for web 2.0
marketing to work, the general reluctance of the majority of the Austrian party landscape
seems like a big gamble.
Concerning the general attitude of the SPÖ Vienna towards the concept of political marketing,
there is a clear focus on getting across the ideology or a “message”. MT showed a reluctance
to compare a the politics of a party to a “product”, and explained that people would buy a
whole package of policies of which they would like some and some they wouldn’t like,
making it hard to compare to a product. However, similarities with brands in terms of using
corporate identity with logos and symbols, was acknowledged.
The 2010 campaign was open and welcoming to the new marketing opportunities of the web
2.0, with MT citing the following major advantages: direct contact with the voter, quick
responses, and better market research. As for disadvantages, MT stated the following:
balancing authenticity and problems with candidates’ attitudes towards social media.
7 See http://chorherr.twoday.net/stories/5049146
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While the advantages are largely congruent with the literature (state-of-the-art campaigning
and better CRM through attitudinal data and quick feedback), there was little to no allusion to
the problems of over-estimation of the technology as well as the difficulty of aggregation.
ÖVP
HB’s views towards political brands were rather critical, explaining that the biggest difference
lies within the simplicity of marketing products compared to a politician, who has to adapt
constantly to a changing environment. While this statement may be contradictory in the sense
that good marketing constantly adapt the product to the target group as well as a politician
would, there is of course a truth in stating that political messaging is much more differentiated
than communicating a product. The interviewee did however make the prediction that
political marketing would become more stringent and consistent in the future, similar to
product brands.
Concerning their stance on social media, the ÖVP positions itself as very open towards the
new innovations, stating the following advantages: fun, low costs, easy to spread information
quickly, appearing more “young and urban” and “closer to the people”. The campaign saw
disadvantages in the following aspects: traditional marketing rules do not apply, tough
competition, snowball-effect of negative campaigning. However, the idea that due to the more
personal connection of social media with a candidate, web 2.0 marketing is better suited for
politics than traditional methods was dismissed quickly.
While the literature may disagree with the notion that the “usual” marketing rules and
frameworks do not apply to social media, HB did show many parallels by alluding to the
over-estimation of the effectiveness and the difficulty of aggregation in the competitive
landscape with a restricted target group.
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FPÖ
The party’s general approach towards marketing was very different compared to the SPÖ and
ÖVP, as JS showed a much more open view of comparing political to private sector brands,
explaining that the Freedom Party oriented themselves along the demands of the voting
population.
Regarding their stance on social media marketing, party Chairman HC Strache has an active
role in his personal profile and page on Facebook, suggesting that the party values their social
media appearances. JS confirmed this suspicion by stating that the Chairman demanded that
the party be more involved with new media, mostly due to the belief that the future electorate
will get their information on political events the same way today’s teenagers do: through
social networks. This represents a clear parallel to the literature, seeing that the FPÖ in its
official party position accepts web 2.0 marketing methods as an essential tool of modern and
up-to-date political marketing.
Furthermore, JS sees a more profound advantage in the different communication in social
networks, making it possible for a party to communicate their views more clearly in a way
that the traditional media channels would never present it.
JS showed a thoroughly positive view, making no reference at all to commonly cited
disadvantages and instead focusing on possible misunderstandings in social networks, mainly
due to posters from different political parties or trolls8
8 “In email discussion lists, online forums, and Usenet newsgroups, a troll is […] a provocative posting intended to produce a large volume of frivolous responses. The term can also refer to someone making such a posting ("a troll") or to the action ("trolling", "to troll").” Indiana University Knowledge Base, 2011. What is a troll? [online] Available at: http://kb.iu.edu/data/afhc.html
.
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Die Grünen
In their general view of marketing politics, the Green and PK showed a very positive attitude,
stating that the similarities come from the fact that private sector brands as well as political
parties can be associated with attributes and characteristics.
In regards to social media marketing, PK laid out many parallels to the benefits and risks
known from the literature. As for advantages, PK cited low cost structure, direct
communication and direct feedback and communication, For disadvantages, he named the
over-estimation of effectiveness, the learning effort for the marketing team to adjust to the
different style of communication.
7.7. The campaign in the framework of CPM
This part of the analysis shall highlight the relationship between web 2.0 strategy, overall
party orientation in regards to the CPM framework according to Lees-Marshment, its
principles and implicationsand furthermore, also discussing the findings of Robinson (2010)
and Ormrod and Henneberg (2010).
SPÖ
In terms of orientation, the SPÖ Vienna may not show a clear position, but does reveal a
rather dominant reliance on market orientation.
MT stated different stages of orientation in the interview, saying that the purpose of the
campaign is to “convince” people of positions they may not hold, while staying true to the
principles of the Social Democratic Party and that for most SPÖ voters, there were certain
aspects they may support and others which they don’t. As for an instance of market-
orientation, MT specifically named the implementation of the results of the 2010 referendum,
when the party had to “re-align” itself with the public’s opinion.
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Election results and exit polls however show a much more definite stance. Not only did the
SPÖ Vienna hold the absolute majority before the elections: their relatively strong majority
result would suggest that the SPÖ Vienna is a true MOP. Furthermore, exit polls (Perlot and
Zandonella, 2010) showed that the voters of the SPÖ believed the party to represent their
views in large numbers, instead of naming particular issues or policies in their reasoning for
the choice made in the voting booth.
The findings of Robinson (2010) which state that voter-orientation in advertisements
eventually leads to success in elections can also be seen as confirmed for the case of the SPÖ.
The afore-mentioned focus of the campaign on mayor Michael Häupl represented voter
demands, as evidenced by the exit-poll data, which showed that Mr. Häupl was the number
one reason for voters to choose the party.
In terms of the orientation in accordance to Ormrod and Henneberg’s (2010) ‘attitudinal
aspects’, MTs answers seemed to suggest a divide between internal and voter orientation. The
web 2.0 campaign, and the overall campaign in general, showed a heavy focus on internal
member motivation, most visible through the afore-mentioned ‘Redbook’, the SPÖ’s own
social network. No other party showed such dedication to internal motivation through social
media. The immense infrastructure and service to all target groups on the other hand would
suggest voter orientation.
ÖVP
Paired with the election result of 14 % of the electorate and the evidence gathered from the
interviews and campaign analysis, the assumption can be made, that the ÖVP Vienna is an
SOP, with minor influences of a product-oriented strategy.
The ÖVP Vienna could be seen as product-oriented in a way that it stands true to its
“convictions” and relies on “consistency” in appearance, program and voting base, as HB had
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stated it. The campaign however showed a strong focus on sales. By repeatedly underlining
the importance of “getting out the message”, HB tried to explain the belief that expanding the
party’s profile in Vienna and the mind of the Viennese would be the only strategy to succeed.
Similarly to the SPÖ, the advertisements of the ÖVP Vienna seemed to confirm Robinson’s
(2010) findings again, only in a different direction. HB described political advertisements as
inherently “conservative”, and paired with the selling-aspect, the party’s focus on
‘convictions’ and the eventual election results showed that the non-voter-orientation might
have had a negative influence. According to exit polls, only 7% of the voters chose the ÖVP
because they had felt that the party represented their views (Perlot and Zandonella, 2010).
Lees-Marshment (2003) however, had also stated the theory that every part would act market-
oriented at some point, or try to do so. HB had stated that she believed in the importance of
candidates reacting directly to the voter’s demands and wants as well as that a political party
needs to “constantly adapt to new circumstances”. Whether or not this belief was shared
among her colleagues or was implemented in any way stands to be debated.
Interestingly, the ÖVP also showed a strong competitor-orientation. The strong focus on
publishing the campaign message across as many channels as possible was explained as a way
to “counteract” against the competition’s strategy.
FPÖ
When asked directly whether or not the FPÖ is market-oriented, JS confirmed the suggestion
and even went as far as to say that one may also call it “populist”. By being decidedly
“approachable” and “understanding peoples’ problems”, HC Strache represents the ultimate
market-oriented politician in a way that he does not sell any particular policy or program to a
particular voting block but rather present a program that has been designed in accordance to
people’s opinions.
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However, the fact that the FPÖ Vienna did not reach the absolute or relative majority of the
electorate, suggest otherwise. Exit polls (Perlot and Zandonella, 2010) show that over two
thirds of FPÖ voters made their choice based on the party’s anti-immigration policies,
showing a clear product-focus of the voter.
As a result, this would only support the theories of Lederer et. al (2005) that the FPÖ defies
such classifications as the ones provided by CPM. By having a clear product and not steering
away from it, while at the same time showing market- as well as sales-attributes, HC
Strache’s Viennese FPÖ continues to be hard to categorize.
Robinsons’ theory on advertising also holds true for the FPÖ since the already mentioned,
popular topics such as ‘immigration’ were heavily promoted on posters. Whether or not a
classification according to Ormrod and Henneberg’s orientations can be given is as unclear as
for Lees-Marshment’s, but some signs of voter-orientation were definitely present.
Die Grünen
Exit polls for the Green Party allow to operate under the assumption, that the party is very
much product-oriented and only shows some sales-oriented as well as even fewer market-
oriented tendencies. Perlot and Zandonellas (2010) presentation shows that most Green voters
chose the party for specific points out of their political program.
Along with the low number of voters choosing the party because of the main candidate or to
counter the possibility of another term of the SPÖ’s absolute majority (which was a strong
reason for both FPÖ as well as ÖVP voters), one could propose that most Green voters do so
out of conviction. During the campaign as well as afterwards, the Vienna Green Party’s
website showed a very content-focused interface. Unlike the grand market-oriented SPÖ, the
Greens posted articles on very specific political issues, not fearing the presentation of hard
facts and numbers, which could also be seen as unproductive in selling.
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Another indicator of product-orientation and the party’s long-term dedication to it is their
principle of “base democracy”, meaning that all party members have equal rights in deciding
on the party’s political orientation, candidates and leadership.
The campaign however, did also show the sales-oriented aspects. PK for example stated that
one important motivator behind using Facebook in the social media campaign for example,
was that people would be able to show their convictions by ‘liking’ Green-related items on the
site and subsequently multiplying the effect through the immediate appearance of this
information on their connected friends ‘feeds’ of it.
Also in regards to their web 2.0 campaign, the Greens had a heavy internal-orientation. PK
repeatedly underlined the importance of internal member and voter mobilization, something
that was later supported even more intensively through the platform ‘ich mach grün’ (see
chapter six for more information), which was directly targeted at Green supporters and those
who already had some interest.
7.8. Results, success, efficiency
While it is difficult to deem any campaign successful or unsuccessful, especially without a
transparent view of internal strategy, goals and costs, it is possible to try and make
connections between results, exit polls, loyal and disloyal voter and the hard data gathered
from the analysis of the web 2.0 campaigns (see Table 6 and Table 7 for reference).
SPÖ
According to the final results published by the MA 629
9 Magistratsabteilung (administrative department) by the city of Vienna respsonsible for organizing the elections and publishing their results.
(2010a), the SPÖ Vienna eventually
reached 44,34% of the electorate, losing 4,75% in comparison to the last elections in 2005.
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Before Election Day, only two major polls had put the party below 45%, with the most cited
ones seeing them at around 47-49% (DiePresse.com, 2010).
Voter migration analysis (Perlot and Zandonella, 2010) showed that the SPÖ lost the largest
part of their voters to the FPÖ (45.000), while the second largest group of 32.000 voters
decided to stay at home and not vote at all. This represented the largest group of non-voters
for any party.
While their strategy of focusing on Mr. Häupl with both their offline as well as the online,
social media campaign, was successful and effective (see above, section 8.7), the internal
orientation on party members could be deemed an unsuccessful effort. When looking at the
intense resources put into internal mobilization, it seems especially disappointing that the
party lost so many people to the non-voting block.
Overall, the large size and big-scale design of their web 2.0 campaign with its multiple tracks
and different accompanying websites, could have been a conflicting factor to the internal
mobilization strategy.
ÖVP
By losing approximately the same percentage of voters as the SPÖ, minus 4,78%, the ÖVP
slipped from second to third place with 13,99% of the electorate (MA 62, 2010). While all
polls had put the party in a better position with around 17% (DiePresse.com), the party
eventually lost a significant number of voters to all other parties and only gained voters from
the non-voting block (Perlot and Zandonella, 2010).
Whether or not the campaign was successful can be judged by the following indications:
firstly, the exit polls showed that most of the voters made their choice based on either
conviction or to prevent another victory for the SPÖ, meaning that the campaign and its
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themes did not act as big motivators for the voters. Secondly, only 24% of ÖVP voters made
their choice because of main candidate Christine Marek, which can be taken as an indicator
that her image campaign was unsuccessful.
In regards to the social media aspects, it should be noted that the ÖVP had the least of its
voters in the block under 29 years old. While the party’s goal for its web 2.0 efforts was to
improve their image and make them appear “younger” or less ‘frigid’ in a way (or as HB had
put it), their misunderstandings of the rules of social media marketing (see chapter six) might
have undermined the campaign. A perfect example for the misguided attempts would be the
‘text campaign’ that included text message-like advertisements “from Christine Marek” in
various print journals. Even though these advertisements tried to imitate the look and feel of
social media tools by making the messages 140 characters long (like on Twitter) and by
calling them ‘text messages’ (like from a cellular phone), the fact that they were printed in
journals and published as print advertisements makes it seem as though the campaign
managers had completely misunderstood the meaning of social media and the way that these
networks function and can be used for marketing.
Die Grünen
Among the four big parties and its three losers of the elections, the Green Party lost the least
in comparison to their 2005 results. With a loss of about minus 1,99% to an eventual final
result of 12,64%, it could be said that the Greens held up quite well, relative to the SPÖ and
ÖVP (MA 62, 2010a). Earlier polls had put the party in a similar percentage range
(DiePresse.com, 2010).
The voters lost for the Greens went either to the SPÖ or the non-voting block (Perlot and
Zandonell, 2010). Most interestingly though, especially in light of their campaign strategy, is
that the Green Party was the only one of the four that managed to have an opposite
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demographic structure among their voters. Unlike the three other parties, who had more voters
the older the age group was, the Greens had their largest voter block in the group of 16 to 29
year-olds. In this regard, the campaign’s decision to focus on a younger group, especially in
social media marketing, could be seen as the correct strategy.
However, Perlot and Zandonella’s (2010) analysis also showed that only very few voters
based their choice on the presence of main candidate Maria Vassilakou. Seeing that the
campaign did not have an as heavy focus on their main candidate as the SPÖ or FPÖ, which
was evident for example on Facebook, where Ms. Vassilakou was only represented through a
personal profile instead of a wider-range page (see Table 6 for comparisons), it could be
argued that this did not impact the voter’s choice in an influential way.
Finally, it could be said that while the Green Party’s campaign was adequate and fitting for
their defined target group and successful in a way, it could still not overcome the limitation
brought on by their product-orientation (see section 8.7).
FPÖ
Clearly and also objectively, the FPÖ came out of the Vienna elections as the sole winner. By
taking in 25,77% of the electorate with a gain of 10,94% relative to the last elections (MA 62,
2010a), the party took second place and managed to prevent another term of an absolute SPÖ
majority, their often-proclaimed main goal for Election Day.
Polls had put the HC Strache’s party anywhere between 19 to 21% (DiePresse.com), showing
an eventual large gap between predictions and the final result. However, these discrepancies
between the poll data and the results can easily be explained through the voter migration
analysis done by Perlot and Zandonella (2010), which show that the FPÖ gained most of their
new voters either from the non-voting block or the SPÖ, which would even out the
differences of the polls again.
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In regards to their campaign design, their focus on diminishing the chances of the SPÖ and
promoting their main candidate HC Strache proved to be very successful, as they eventually
turned out to be the main streams of reasoning for the FPÖ voters. Also in terms of their web
2.0 marketing, the results showed that the party had a large stake in the age group of 16 to 29
year-olds, supporting their decision to focus heavily on social media due to its ability to reach
young voters.
One factor that could be seen an argument against a successful FPÖ campaign however can
also be found in the exit poll data, which showed that three thirds of the voters had already
made their choice before the campaign event went into any ‘heated’ phase.
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8. Conclusion
All in all, the image that is transported by the sum of the fall 2010 election campaigns and
their social media tracks is a very differentiated one. While some have strived on creativity
(the Green Party), others relied on size (SPÖ). While some tried to keep it simple (FPÖ),
others got slightly lost in the possibilities (ÖVP).
A major, overarching theme among the majority of the four parties was definitely a lack of
comprehensive strategy. The web 2.0 campaigns were not completely integrated into the other
tracks of the campaign and often did not seem to follow clear strategic goals or target group
definitions. In regards to how the campaigns compared to the literature, the most overlooked
important success factor was ‘aggregation’ and only very few social media tracks truly made
use of the ‘social’ aspects of all networks.
In terms of how the campaigns compare to each other, two parties stood out, even though they
could not have been more different in the feel, look, content or execution of their campaign:
the Green Party and the FPÖ. While the Greens made the most use of social media and had
the most sophisticated campaign of all, the FPÖ stood out due to the efficiency and
effectiveness of their efforts. What made the campaigns most notable in the end was the way
in which both parties understood the underlying principles of the social web and how they
were able to implement the web 2.0 tracks seamlessly into a coherent marketing framework.
The Green Party may not have been as successful in terms of numbers, but their web 2.0
interface that guided a user through all the different possibilities he had to promote the Green
Party across the Internet was most definitely impressive, especially in light of the party’s
limited resources in comparison to the efforts of the SPÖ. Whether or not the FPÖ’s social
media campaign had a significant impact on the party’s rousing success at the elections
cannot be determined without any doubt, but it is also beside the point. The campaign
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succeeded at achieving the goals the management had set beforehand and served its purpose.
In that regards, the social media campaign of the FPÖ could be seen as the most successful of
all: not only had the party managed to work according to the rules of effective social media
marketing, they also understood the web 2.0 purpose as an additional tool in a coherent
marketing effort that should not be overrated in order for it to support the rest of the
campaign.
Seeing that this was the first Austrian election campaign where all big parties tried to integrate
social media tools into their online marketing campaign, it can be said that the field is still in
its early days. While marketing in the past years has focused on creating a comprehensive
appearance through Integrated Marketing Communication (Hutton, 1996), it would seem as
though that newer technologies are harder to implement into a connected web of strategies
and instruments. This however provides future research with many grounds yet to cover. Most
importantly, sophisticated and useful research will have to focus on what social media can
actually provide in a campaign in terms of measurable output. Furthermore, a strong debate
on the value put on new media will be inevitable, as the evidence regarding the restricted
target groups, the inputs and the importance of social media is either conflicting or non-
existent. Most importantly though for any practical analysis will be a comprehensive
framework to apply to a social media campaign. Otherwise, any effort to compare campaigns
and their effectiveness in the future will be based solely on speculation and scattered research
and therefore, useless.
It will be most interesting to see whether the ‘social’ rules of the web 2.0 are really as
indecipherable as they seemed to be for some marketers, or if time will tell that the Viennese
parties have learned from their mistakes and finally mastered this foreign language.
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Annex: Interview Transcripts
A. Transcript of the interview with Peter Kraus
Peter Kraus, a student of political science and socio-economics since 2006, served as the
online campaign coordinator for the Green Party of Vienna from January until December
2010. He started his career in 2008 in the development of political agendas on human rights
at the Green Party in Vienna and continued his political work as the consultant for LGBT and
social affairs. During the 2009 elections for the European Parliament, Kraus was part of the
team responsible for the National Green Party’s web 2.0 campaign. He now serves as deputy
chief in the office of Vienna’s Deputy Mayor Maria Vassilakou. The interview took place in
the Green Party’s offices in the Viennese city hall in July of 2010.
Part one: political marketing
Q: How is a brand such as „die Grünen“comparable to one from the private sector?
A: It is comparable, because you associate certain characteristics with brands. [In the private
sector] this would be certain product characteristics and in the political field, it would be
certain political characteristics that you associate with a brand. Like with a brand such as „die
Grünen“, to which you attribute certain attributes such as „openness“, „liberalisms“, „social
justice“. In this regard, I find it to be fairly similar.
Q: Does you party have a certain position on web 2.0-marketing? Are there any
advantages or disadvantages to it?
A: For political parties, it is simply a completely new way of marketing, of PR: because it is
direct, it is low-cost, especially the latter, to be honest. In regards to die Grünen: we put a lot
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of effort into it. Not only as a party but also the people that work here or as representatives,
especially because out voters are present here in a percentage that is above average.
Regarding the advantages and disadvantages: I would see a disadvantage for example, in the
fact that the all social media is being overestimated in terms of reachability of target groups
and of course because the process is controlled differently than traditional communication.
Q: Is this really a disadvantage?
A: Yes, it is for an organization. [In contrast to] one-way-communication, social media is not
just another tool to blast out press releases but a completely different way of communicating
with people, and that means a learning effort. Yes of course, it is also presents an advantage
but also a big organizational learning effort.
Part two: target groups
Q: Which target groups are you trying to reach with your web 2.0-campaign? What is
the target group definition?
A: This is quite interesting. We mainly use social media for our internal mobilization. This
means that we use it to reach people that can imagine themselves voting green, or who have
already done so in the past. This would be the very rough target group definition. However,
there are age restrictions of course: the people that we are trying to reach directly are younger,
meaning under 50 years old. There is one exception however: women over 60 are a strongly
growing group on Facebook. We do notice that there is feedback coming from there.
Regarding their personal ideology, the people tend to go more into a liberal direction. It is
mostly men that are being addressed there. Especially the area where it comes to producing
content, not just consummation. You notice it in the statistics, that „low-level interaction“ is
very [gender-]balanced. However, as soon as it comes to producing content, it is more men.
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Q: So you do not think that there is any target group that lies outside of those who are
already „green“?
A: No, it serves mostly as a tool for internal mobilization. Not necessarily those who vote
green per se, but I am also thinking about those who in Facebook, which is pretty public after
all, out themselves with a quick „I like ‚the Greens‘“. There is some reference to reality here.
Part three: goals
Q: What are your web 2.0-campaign‘s goals? Is there a goal definition in regards to
measurable targets or anything else?
There are no quantitative targets, although I do set those for myself in my work. The web 2.0-
campaign is an integral part of the mobilization. While there are quantitative goals, there are
many qualitative ones: the web 2.0-campaign is especially important on the finish line for the
so-called „final mobilization“ and also to stay in direct contact. Now this is not a quantitative
goals such as „having x fans“ but more to find as many people as possible who will actively
promote „green“ in their networks.
Q: In this regard, the goal is to develop a „base“ in web 2.0?
A: Yes! Meaning, it is long-term. There are no campaigns which end on day X, it has to be
designed for the long term.
Q: How is the connection to the Greens image? For example, that you may try and
promote the brand „green“ as the one which is involved in web 2.0?
A: Yes, that is correct, I forgot that. It is of course always important to cultivate one’s „online
image“. That is obviously a goal as well.
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Q: Do you think that web 2.0-marketing is a better tool to promote certain attributes
(such as familiarity of a brand, differentiation, vitality) than other methods would be?
A: Yes, I do think so, under the condition that one has understood how communication work
there, absolutely, because it is two-way communication. On the one hand, you have the
advantage as an organization that you can get feedback almost in real-time for whatever you
are doing at the moment. On the other hand, the users have the advantage that they are closer
[to the source]: they get unfiltered information. In comparison, one-way communication
through posters would be filtered, so you have to think about whether to believe what you see
or not. With two-way communication, whether you want to [communicate] with a party or
with a person, the identification is always greater.
Q: Just last week there was interview published in „der Standard“, where the
interviewee states that web 2.0 had completely revolutionized Marketing, since it had
„humanized“ communication. Is this true and is this the big advantage?
A: Yes, the information is more social. It is about a user who, instead of just going to the
website and getting information from there, is now able to interact „humanly“ with a
candidate in social media. It make the brand „die Grünen“ more human because you can
communicate directly with people instead of reading a text that somebody has written.
Q: In this regard, do you think that web 2.0-marketing is a more adequate tool for
politics, that „old“ forms were never really an ideal tool to achieve the purpose?
A: I think so too! As I have said before, with the direct feedback, the marketing function in a
more target-oriented way. I can approach people and will know in real-time where the
problem lies, where a demand is and is not being received positively or even where people
demand much more! You notice where you can be brave.
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Q: Do you also use web 2.0 for internal and not only campaign-relative targets such as
recruiting new members?
A: We have our own department for participating and targeting, with which we work closely
together. I think however, that it is important to mention that web 2.0-activites in this area
never work when there is no accompanying „offline-activity“ that happens afterwards or
parallel. The „Dean for America“ campaign works as an example here. It was basically THE
big web 2.0 campaign before Obama. They were involved in everything; the problem was the
people did not end up voting. The problem here was that those were all web 2.0 things that
did not have accompanying offline activities.
Q: Is user-generated content included in reaching the mentioned goals, is it part of the
goal?
A: In a way it is, we do call actively for people to participate, and there will be a campaign
like this, where users are being asked to post small, creative contribution. For example:
organize a small election party and invite a „green celebrity“. We also try to give online
opinion-makers such as bloggers special support, like inviting them to Green-events so that
they can report from there. Just recently we organized a blogger-trip to Brussels, that the
people blogged about.
Part four: social media campaigning
Q: In which social networks are present? Are these more established ones or are new
sites included?
A: We are on Facebook of course; it is our main instrument, simply because it is the most
powerful. Twitter: more [for] opinion leaders, still you have to be there due to multiplication
effects. We are on 4Square, we are still testing though whether it pays off as it is not very well
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known in Austria. We have also been testing Google Buzz for a well but that is not really
taking off. We are on Flickr, Youtube. We are no longer on StudiVZ, we are not on the
blogger network. We are also testing Netlogg. It is pretty powerful as well but has a very
restricted target group. You cannot get in there with politics. I am of the opinion that it is all a
question of support. The criteria to be well represented, is to be there where it matters and to
be there the right way.
Q: How do you use Facebook? How is it managed and administered?
A: Out web department manages it, I am responsible. We attach much importance to it being
part of the entire public relations. Meaning that our work is always being coordinated with the
press department, with the entire campaign, with participation and targeting. Those three
departments are in constant contact with each other and we then see which message or what
content would fit on Facebook.
Q: Do you also use it to do any organizational work?
A: No, it runs parallel. It is not being used to organize anything.
Q: Does the web 2.0-campaign differ from the offline campaign in regards to topics,
style or design?
A: We mainly use web 2.0 to point to things that we have not produced ourselves but which
might interest Green-voters. For example interviews with Green politicians or newspapers
articles, which might start discussions. In regards to style and design I see problems when
web 2.0 is not being considered from the start. Even though I think that there is always a way
to include web 2.0, if you do not consider it from the start, it might not work at all.
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Q: What is being maintaining and administrated by employees, what by the candidates
themselves?
A: Everything official is being administrated by employees, all personal profiles by the
candidates themselves. I fit were any different, the user would notice. It becomes more „real“
if the candidate does it himself.
Part five: Budget
Q: How big is the budget in relation to the rest of the money spent on marketing?
A: It is not big in budget terms, about 5% of the marketing budget. However, the work here is
cheaper. Personnel costs make up the most past, advertising not really. It is a meaningful
investment though, which is why we employ people [in this department].
Q: How many employees work on web 2.0 exclusively?
A: Two out of three of our employees in the web department work on web 2.0, in working
hours that would approximately 1 ½ full-time jobs. All in all, it is basically three people that
work on it.
Q: How many people are there which work voluntarily, also in the area of user-
generated content?
A: There is at least one staff members in each local group, a „web-person“ who deals [with
these things]. [People] have worked intensively in the past few months to support the web 2.0
sector. About half of our local groups are also present as such [in social networks]. We
support them through training, designing logos. All in all, it is about 20 to 30 people that we
can fall back on [if necessary].
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Part six: other questions
Q: One thing that is noticeable across all campaign, even before campaign time has
officially started, is that Die Grünen are the most present of all in Twitter and Facebook.
Is Twitter part of the strategy? Are candidates asked to participate?
A: All candidates, also on the local level, are being asked to participate in some way in web
2.0. There are training offers, etc. However, this all runs under the conditions that they also
„want“ to. I do not see any benefit in forcing people, because it will end up being
embarrassing. It is about finding [those] candidates which are willing to do something and to
give them support, then they will also do it. 25% of our candidates are on Twitter, 65% on
Facebook. That is a number with which I am very content with.
Q: Do you think that the differences in comparison to all other parties are a result of the
Die Grünen having a different attitude towards social media or marketing in general?
A: The different attitude towards new media is mostly a result of Die Grünen being simply
younger on average. I also think that we have fewer reservations towards marketing, because
it brings our organization of base-democracy to mind: staying in direct contact, everybody can
participate in the discussion that is all similar. This is why people have fewer problems with
it.
Q: As far as I remember, there have been negative experiences as well: die „grünen
Vorwahlen“?
A: Yes, that was a negative experience which has changed our strategy in a positive way. We
noticed that something went extremely wrong so now we have to put in even more effort to
keep this from happening [again]. In my opinion, it failed because of the people responsible.
It was not fear of web 2.0 but fear of complicated base-democratic processes and so on.
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Q: Was it an organizational problem to relocate a democratic process to this level?
A: Yes, that was a lot of effort. And what it very important: you can never go into it thinking
that something would be controllable. Then it does not work. Nothing that happens in web 2.0
is completely controllable.
Q: Is there fear in political marketing of the „snowball effect“ of negative press?
A: It is not really fear. You need to know upfront that it is not controllable just like public
opinion is not either. Just because you may have total control over posters and traditional
methods, you still do not have control over opinions.
Q: How do you deal with feedback? Is it used to make marketing more efficient?
A: You need to take whatever comes back very seriously and you also have to say that you
take it seriously. This is the only way to get out of negative press again. You do not need to
always contradict; you just need to get into a process of communication.
All in all, web 2.0 will always have such small disadvantages such as „it is not controllable“
when somebody posts something or that it spreads to fast. However, with it, you can build
much more intensive communication.
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B. Transcript of the interview with Henrike Brandstötter
Henrike Brandstötter, works for the ÖVP Vienna in their press department and was, during
their summer and fall 2010 election campaign, responsible for their web 2.0 activities. The
interview took place on July 20th 2010 at the Naschmarkt Deli in Vienna.
Part one: political marketing
Q: How are political brands comparable to those in the private sector?
A: I see very big differences here. Well done marketing for a private-sector-product is
extremely stringent. In contrast to a person, a product does neither live nor breathe. A
politician constantly needs to adapt to new circumstances, he needs to take a stand on certain
topics. A brand does not have to do this […] You need to be ready constantly, you always
need to have an opinion.
Q: Also when taking the brand „ÖVP“on its own?
A: This has not been done so far in politics, but I think it will come. That you focus on
consistency. We are not only talking about brand loyalty but also about a voter base. [The
voter base] does not vote because the logo is powerful but out of conviction.
Q: Is there an official party position towards web 2.0-marketing? What are the
advantages and disadvantages?
A: We are very open towards web 2.0, in comparison to Die Grünen however, we got into it
very late. The advantages are obvious: fun! It is fun to play with these tools. It is extremely
easy to spread information. You can charge politicians with emotion. And there is the cost
factor of course. A disadvantage obviously, is that it does not work according to the classical
marketing rules. There are politicians that do it themselves like for example Isabella Leeb,
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one of our city councilors […]. People get the feeling that they know her really well […].
Christine Marek[s Facebook profile] is being administrated by me, there is a notification
however stating that „her team manages this“. The disadvantage is that you cannot let her
answer.
Obviously it is [also a disadvantage] when your political opponent is faster and better at using
[these tools]. Like the legendary press secretary wars on Twitter. Also, negative campaigning
spreads faster than in the past.
Part two: target groups
Q: What is the target group you are trying to reach with your web 2.0 campaign? Is
there a target group definition?
A: At first there is the voter base that we are trying to mobilize to go and vote and apart from
this maybe 3-4% outside of the voter base. In this situation that we have in Vienna, there is
not much room for possibilities next to the SPÖ. We do not keep more detailed statistics.
However, there are also different projects that reach all sorts of target groups across the
spectrum. We do not act in accordance with older people, obviously.
At the moment, we use the tool of publishing traditional short messages through print media,
140 striking characters on current topics.
Part three: goals
Q: What is the goal definition of the web 2.0 campaign? Are the goals qualitative or
quantitative?
A: We try and get as many of our politicians in the media. The goal is the message, pound it,
pound it, pound it. However, we are only a small team. We do not even have a special web
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2.0 department. There is one person in charge of the website, I do the web 2.0 part of it along
the way.
Q: Could it be that social media marketing as a tool is a better fit for promoting the
vitality of a brand or for differentiation?
A: Especially in the ÖVP, yes: because through this you can explain to young, urban people
that we do not eat little kids. You can change attributions with it. Young people think that we
are conservative and old, we use too much money we are free of fun and unsexy. It is not
really easy to break through these attributions. Of course, some of this is homemade and some
of it may also be true. With web 2.0, you can counteract this by posting funny things and
reacting fast. […] Often, these are less „hard“ messages, which are also funny sometimes.
Q: In a recent interview in Der Standard, a book author has stated that web 2.0 has
revolutionized marketing and „humanized“ it. Is this true? Is this an advantage for
political marketing?
A: You can come closer with it, you do not feel as though you are far away. Politicians across
all parties say „we are out there with the people“. They cannot always be. For this, web 2.0
presents a possibility to bring people closer to politics.
Q: Could it even be, that web 2.0 is better suited for political communication than other
instruments?
A: I would not say it that way. There are people who do not use computer, who do not read
newspapers, who do not watch the news on television. You still need to reach all of them with
your message. Web 2.0 is an important channel, which continues to gain more influence. Still,
you should not forget: come fall, all of us will be putting up posters.
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Part four: social media campaigning
Q: In which social networks is the ÖVP Vienna present?
A: There is going to be an extra campaign website and we also use Facebook, Flickr,
Youtube, Twitter; The latter mostly to inform functionaries, not for mobilization or spreading
messages. In my opinion, it is a media tool that people from the media use, a single person
cannot handle it, and I do not think that it is necessary. I prefer Facebook, where you can set
up a pretty world [around somebody] with pictures, videos and statements. It is more tangible
and touchable.
Q: How do you use Facebook? Is it also used for organizational purposes?
A: Yes! We use it for events, information, to mobilize our volunteers and to organize them.
Q: Concerning the campaign in web 2.0: does it differ from the usual campaign in any
way regarding style, design or messages?
A: Yes, this will come. But at the end of the day, political advertisement is conservative and
that is alright like that. You have to be represented; you have to see that the people go along
with it. With completely outlandish stories, you may end up running into a wall. For example,
when functionaries or older people that [are used to] handing out flyers, do not understand it
at all. So we will not do anything that will rock people’s socks off or for which we will win
any awards. It not necessary either. It is not about being creative in political advertising; it is
about raising your profile.
Q: What part of the campaign is being administrated by employees, which part by the
candidates themselves?
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A: It is up for everybody to decide on their own, whether or not they want to use it. You need
to feel comfortable with it as well. Some candidates ease into it without problems, with others
you notice that it does not really work like that. I give them tips and suggestions and they are
open for it too, except for Christine Marek, who we manage in-house. Other than that,
everybody does their own thing. We provide them with content, videos and pictures.
It is important here that the candidates tell their „Grätzel-„Stories. In their own districts is
where people know them, they know the problems there. These are stories that even I do not
know sometimes, whether or not there is a pedestrian crossing missing somewhere. The
people are more interested in what happens in their neighborhood.
So they have to start polls, calls to action but never one-way! With normal press releases, you
may as well fall asleep. They should call on people to act, to ask them „what do you think
about this?“.
Part five: budget
Q: How big is the marketing budget for web 2.0 activities?
A: A half-time job. It is personnel costs and for example advertisements on Facebook, but it is
still very little.
Q: Are there any volunteers involved?
A: Volunteers should not do this [kind of work]. They should get active privately, but they are
not used to do any work for us. They like to go outside.
Part six: special questions
Q: What about strategy? Not all of your local Viennese groups are on Facebook yet.
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A: No, they are not, and they should not be. It is so much worse when a local groups [on
Facebook] just stagnate and drag on. We do not have the manpower to do this the right way
[for all of them]. If they wish to do it themselves, they should and we support it. […]
Q: Are there any plans to organize democratic processes online similar to the „Grüne
Vorwahlen“?
A: No, since we simply to not have base-democracy as a principle. We are organized
hierarchically, which also has its pros and cons. […]
Q: Is there fear of negative press and the „snowball-effect“ in web 2.0?
A: Yes of course. If we do not get out the negative messages, then the others using new media
will do. You need to counteract here. The SPÖ likes to do this on weekends. They have 100
people sitting there while we are sitting in front of our laptops, trying to counteract. All
organizations and parties are afraid of negative press that something will happen. One issue
here is of course the one of „Kampfposters“.
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C. Transcript of the interview with Mathias Tötzl
25-year-old Mathias Tötzl works in the press department of the SPÖ Vienna and was
responsible for the party’s web 2.0, as well as other online campaigning, during the election
campaign in the summer and fall of 2010. The interview took place on September 21st 2010 at
the café “Kantine” in Vienna’s Museumsquartier.
Q: I will start with a very basic question: how can you compare a political brand - such
as the SPÖ - with a private sector-brand?
A: In my opinion, there's very little comparison, but it is a tough question. At times, the
instruments may be identical; the message however is completely different. For a party, things
like political parties and messages are aspects but there is a bigger package here. When you
buy laundry detergent, you want it to wash your clothes properly. When you have a political
party with which you want to identify yourself, there are some aspects which are more
important to you, some are less. It is always a whole “package”. We try to underline certain
aspects of content for different target groups, there is however always something else that
goes along with it. There may be people who, let’s say, like our social policies but on the
other hand, think we are not going far enough with environmental policies. There is always
pro and contra, you need to find a balance.
So in regards to a “product”, there are some things that will make me agree [with the
statement], but you never have to sell a complete package […], there is never a similar
diversity. In that sense, brands… of course, there are similarities with brands: we have our
symbols, we have our wordings, and we have our design elements, such things.
Q: So you would say that classical “characteristics” of brands were similar but that the
differences lie in how you market them?
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A: You have to do more than just sell. You have to convince people and explain to them what
it is all about and what is important. To get back to the laundry detergent example: you would
not have to explain what is “really” behind it.
Q: So do you see your party as a market or a sales-oriented organization?
A: Of course, there are instances where the SPÖ needs to orientate according to what the
people want. However, there are certain core values of social democratic party from which we
cannot stray from. I would say that about 90%, we try and sell our policies and try to make it
clear to the people that what we are suggesting is also good for them, good for the city.
The referendum [editor’s note: public opinion poll in the spring of 2010, initiated by the SPÖ
Vienna] serves as a good example here. With things such as the 24-hrs underground-train
service [editor’s note: as a result of the referendum], there had been a lot of skepticism in the
party beforehand, and the majority’s opinion in the party was that the disadvantages
outweighed the advantages, due to costs, etc. This is where we realigned ourselves with the
people’s opinion, where we shook down old reservations against the topic […].
Q: Is there an official web 2.0 position in the party? What are the advantages and
disadvantages of using it [for political purposes?]
A: One of the advantages is that you can get into direct contact with people, that you can
answer [questions], and that they have an outlet to let their opinion be heard. What is also [an
advantage] is how easily we can see how people respond to things. With classical poster
advertising, you can test them before, which is of course something we do, but you cannot
know like with social media. [There] you see how often something is being re-tweeted, how
many views something gets on YouTube. You can compare in real-time what is catching on,
etc.
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Well, the disadvantages. It is always difficult, with a party like the SPÖ, which does not have
a lease on web-credibility, to be able to find a balance where it still appears to be authentic.
As I have said in an interview with Der Standard, to the question of when there will be a
Twitter account for Häupl, when will there be a Facebook profile. There just will not be
anything, it would not be authentic. Otherwise, you would end up with something like
Wilhelm Molterer, who was “twittering” while he was standing on stage. This does not go
down well. With what the Heinz Fischer campaign did, it was clear that it was not him
twittering but that there were other people doing it for him, and this was not a problem. With
the major however, it is clear that he is not available for that, for having somebody following
him, twittering about his every move. It would be dumb to try something like that.
Web 2.0 marketing always has to be compatible with the [candidates], it is a question of how
you deal with it. You may have to put different people to the front who are comfortable with
it.
Part Two: Target Groups
Q: What is the target group [of your social media campaign] you are trying to reach and
is there a target group definition?
A: There is no general definition in our web strategy saying “we only want to communicate
with younger people here”. It would be illusionary to try something like this, as the users in
YouTube for example are very evenly spread [among different groups]. Of course, they are
generally a little bit younger than the large part of our voters, not surprisingly but it is not a
huge gap. So we do split up the messages: we have a youth campaign, we have messages for
retired people, we have messages that are designed for the working group, but you cannot
divide them by the medium [you use to communicate]. We have different web tracks: our
youth department has the “I am Vienna” [campaign], which is of course orientated at the
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rough estimation of the target group. Whereas, the things that come from the SPÖ Vienna,
many older people are being targeted there as well.
Q: Still, all these different campaigns are on Facebook? Would it not be the case that
due to the instrument, the target group is different?
A: Well, it is of course limited to internet users. In general, they are younger but the trend
continues to align it with the general public. […] Still, you cannot say that the web-campaign
is only orientated towards younger people.
Part Three: Goals
Q: What about the goals in your social media campaign: are they measurable, such as
views or “fans”, or are they more intangible goals, like branding yourself as a younger
and vital party – similar to the Greens - or for differentiation purposes?
A: It is a mixture. It is of course also about brutal numbers. However, I would not define it
through Facebook fans and the like. This also relates to the authenticity and the candidates
again. We have different Facebook pages, but the one which you can clearly associate with
the SPÖ ist the SPÖ Vienna Facebook page. There may be an inhibition threshold, even for
people that will vote social democratic, to declare oneself as a fan of the SPÖ Vienna. A
Michael Häupl fanpage would get more fans, as the polls show that he himself is very
popular. But the major simply does not have a Facebook page, nobody would buy it.
Q: Do you also use social media to mobilize your own base, the party members?
A: Absolutely, that is a very important point. During the campaign, we produce videos about
street campaigning, about “Gemeindebau”-Stories, et cetera. This will not interest the
majority of the electorate, but it will interest our members. What is going on? How can I
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contribute? Another thing, where web 2.0 was very important – or rather, the web in general –
was for me, to put all the campaign materials online so that people can see, ‘these are our
campaign themes’. This was met with a lot of criticism at first, out of fear that somebody
could manipulate the graphics more easily. But, it is very important for our own target group
[within the member base].
Q: Also that people declare themselves as SPÖ Vienna fans on Facebook?
A: Yes, and it is also about getting information about the campaign. What is happening in the
city, what is happening in the party? We are trying to get the atmosphere across. For example,
there is “Team für Wien”. They do a lot of stuff, especially over “Redbook”, our own internal
social media network. […] You can invite people, you can order campaign materials.
[Redbook] was developed by us; it has been online for some years now. Basically, it existed
before Facebook got big here. Of course, people doubt that now, that we had the same idea
around the same time. The [networks] stagnated for some time, but with a re-launch it grew
again.
[Our internal mobilization] runs through different channels, Facebook, the Website, and
Redbook. There are some interesting aspects, like something that we very shamelessly copied
from Obama[‘s campaign], where you have a map that shows you ‘where is Team für Wien?
What is happening right now?’, to try and network people.
[…]
Q: Do you think that maybe social media marketing is a much better tool for some
activities: to mobilize people, to familiarize them with a brand, to ‘appear’ different in
some characteristics.
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A: Definitely. Our message is, ‘we need your support, everybody counts’. Everybody can
contribute so that it will work. In that regard, we are very dependent on feedback. There have
been comments on Facebook/Redbook that turned into campaign events. Just recently, there
was something with a ‘red wave’ on Mariahilferstrasse, where some people dressed in red
started to create an atmosphere and energy there in the street; it looked wonderful in the
cityscape. It was an idea, that came completely from volunteers. There are people that are not
members but still want to support the party. There are some that just want to support the
major. This idea came in through Redbook. Then there was one through Facebook where a
guy posted a picture of himself on the Kahlenberg, holding a sign saying ‘Häupl is awesome!’
on the Kahlenberg mountaintop. So now we organized a big hike together with him, Häupl,
and we gave them professional signs this time [laughs].
This is all great for motivation, this really does mean a lot.
Q: In July, a social-media author was quoted in “der Standard” that web 2.0 marketing
is ‘humanized communication’ and that it brings new ways for people to connect on a
human level with a brand. Is that true? It that the biggest advantage in political
communication?
A: Yes, there is a direct connection somehow. You know that there is somebody sitting on the
other hand, in contrast to a poster. Still, you should not overrate it, since our main focus will
still be on the street [campaigning]. There is nothing that can replace the direct contact with a
person on the street. This is why our campaign runs mainly on the street. But still, of course,
[web 2.0] does communicate something different about a brand, it is very direct. You can do
neat things with it. There was this idea with a candidate, who even though he may not be the
person that you associate with new media, was the first politician to offer a ‘personalized
video’ with him, where you can insert your name into the clip, ending up with ‘Rudi thinks
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about you’ and he gets up in the morning and sees your picture in the mirror and the like. It
self-depreciating, but we do now that things like that are not enough, which is in the end, the
message of the spot.
Q: How is user-generated content included in the goal definition? I suppose this will lead
us back to the “feedback-loop”?
A: Yes, user-generated content for us is in this case more “user-generated ideas”. We do not
have anything like the Green’s project for the last national elections with “create your own
Green poster”, it is nothing like that but it is about concrete ideas, what event could you start?
Part Four:
Q: What web 2.0 applications do you use and how would you rank them according to
importance?
A: We are in Facebook with all the different campaign tracks and some local groups are
present […] We have a YouTube Channel of course, there are extra channels for the “Ich bin
WIEN” youth campaign. They do their own thing, as they have a good budget and it works
very well. We post all our pictures on Flickr, there are so many possibilities for people to
share the photos and comment on them [… ].
And of course, the Donauinselfest is on Facebook as well! […] It is huge, there are about
40.000 members there, but it is of course more about non-political things. […] According to
the statistics, most of the people there are from Vienna, about 90%.
Twitter… well, we do have an SPÖ Vienna account, but it is pretty much empty or just
messages from Facebook. For us, Twitter is usually for candidates. […] I am on Twitter as
well and when there is something, like just recently when Der Standard discovered a
Photoshop-mishap on one of our posters where an arm was missing, so for something like
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this, I can immediately answer and react over Twitter, personally. There are many media-
people there. You can find out what is important to people, not only for our member-base but
for everybody through trending topics, et cetera.
Q: How do you use Facebook? Is it advertising-only or do you organize events or other
things there as well?
A: We do post events and try to mobilize people with it. For the mobilization, we use “Team
für Wien” intensively because this is the platform with people that came there to participate
actively. We announce events, et cetera […].
Advertising [on Facebook] will be coming now [in the last phase of the campaign] and also
Google Ads and the like.
Q: As I understand it, the campaigns are almost identical in regards to design and
political themes. Do you arrange things differently when used in the web 2.0?
A: The style is certainly different: what we write, very generally, is different because we are a
very young team, so the phrasings and the wordings are more laid-back.
The main themes of the campaign however, are being transferred basically without any
changes. There are themes such as living together, jobs, et cetera that are also important for
us.
Q: What work is done by employees, where do the candidates themselves get active?
A: Candidates, as far as I know, are all on Facebook with their own profiles, there is nobody
else doing it. An exception would be Raphi Sternfeld, who has a profile and a fan page. There
is one where the girlfriend has access as well but apart from those with “fan pages”, it is all
personal profiles. It could be that when, the city council is on the campaign trail, her secretary
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takes a photo on her blackberry so that the council is on it and then posts it to Facebook, those
things happen of course. But for 80 – 90%, the candidates write all the content themselves.
Q: How many percent of the marketing budget is related to web 2.0 activities? How
many “full-time jobs” are employed solely for web 2.0?
A: […] It’s approximately 1 full-time job, doing web 2.0 for the Viennese SPÖ.
Q: Are there volunteers working on the web 2.0 activities as well, such as in the local
groups?
A: Of course, the volunteers outweigh the employed workers by far here. As I said, apart from
the one full-time employee, it is all volunteers. From the entire web 2.0, it is surely 80-90%
voltunteers.
Q: How does it work with the local groups’ presence on Facebook? Are they advised to
open up and maintain such a presence, is there one volunteer designated in every local
organization to do these things?
A: Our local organizations are rather big and very independent, which is why the Viennese
party cannot really order them to open a Facebook fan page. I often write them emails saying,
“we can give you assistance on these things” or if they post inappropriate things, you may
point it out to them but there are no strict orders on anything: especially for the candidates.
There are no guidelines like “you can post this, but you cannot post that.”
Q: Is this being suggested to the candidates, that they should have Facebook profiles and
that they should start twittering? Are there any training?
A: There are trainings available for people who are interested in it or who are starting out and
are overwhelmed by it in the beginning. Those [trainings] are usually quickly fully booked.
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There is, however, the rule that when somebody is not comfortable with it, and they will not
do it out of their own will, then we do not force them because it would be embarrassing. This
is why we said that there will not be a Häupl fan page or profile.
Q: I did notice, that there were not too many candidates on Facebook and that not many
local groups were on Facebook?
A: Obviously, we do remind them regularly that they should get active, but again, when there
are not comfortable, they also should not do it. Those who are comfortable do it and they do it
well. The thing is that many people are used to the way they do ‘political communication’ on
the street and it is alright that way. […]
Q: I do have another question regarding “Redbook”: how is it used? Does every SPÖ
member get an account?
A: Basically, access is moderated in a way. It is not restricted to SPÖ party members, it is
based more on recommending people to join. […] Those who join that come from ‘Team für
Wien’ are mostly not party members.
Q: How many members do you have in Redbook?
A: There are about 2000, nation-wide, but with a very heavy focus on Vienna. Especially with
‘Team für Wien’, where about 500 members in Redbook come from, it is becoming more and
more Vienna-centric. They share things, documents are being downloaded, they organize
events, et cetera. We actually further developed the features of Redbook according to the
needs of ‘Team für Wien’, which is why we added the ‘location’ feature.
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Q: It has often been mentioned that the online-teams for some campaign fear the
snowball-effect on the web, especially when it comes to negative press. Do you feel that
way too?
A: That is not a problem of social media. If somebody says something stupid, it will get
around without social media as well. If something would happen, somebody says something
scandalous or strange, you cannot stop it.
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D. Transcript of the interview with Joachim Stampfer
While Joachim Stampfer usually serves at the FPÖ national IT-coordinator, the summer and
fall 2010 campaign in Vienna had him overseeing the party’s web 2.0 activities. Working
closely with the party chairman himself, Mr. Stampfer was mainly responsible for the main
candidate’s social media appearances. The interview took place on September 7th in the café
and pastry shop Sluka in Vienna.
Part one: political marketing
Q: Where do you see the difference between a brand of the private sector and a political
brand?
A: Our brand is very comparable, actually. [H.C. Strache] is approachable; he understands the
peoples’ problems and may even implement them in political agendas. In this regard, you may
compare it with a private sector brand. In politics, there is no use for selling products that
nobody needs or wants.
Q: In that respect, would you say that the brand „FPÖ“ is comparable because the party
itself is market-orientated?
A: Yes, you may call it that or even „populist“. We look out for what the citizens need and try
to implement it.
Q: What it your stance on Web 2.0 or social media marketing? Is there an official party
standpoint, is it positive or negative?
A: [Social media] is not only demanded by our Party Chairman, he even participates in it
himself! We also use it intensively as a means of communication. There will come a time
where nobody will watch ZIB 24, ZIB1 or ZIB2. The majority of teenagers already get their
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information from the web, from social media, from online newspapers. We just have to go
along with this. You have to be on Facebook, where the users are receptive to information.
However, that is only one part of the story. The second part, of course, is that we now have a
unique opportunity to explain our point of view clearly. Often, those things get cut in
traditional media. What do we really mean, what does H.C. Strache really want? Uncut and
unedited.
Q: Are there any negative aspects as well? For example, some argue that the positive
aspects are a trade off for the fact that social media cannot be controlled like other
marketing tools?
A: Obviously, this presents a set of problems as you never know who is behind the posters
and users. In an open discussion board, you can present things as you wish, or someone else
may even delete it. However, that is not something that we wish to do. My experience from
the past years has shown that the group usually solves these problems on their own. The other
participants will notice who has an honest motive and those who don’t have one, will
disappear with time.
Part two: target groups
Q: What is the target group for your social media campaigne? Some may argue that the
fact that not everybody has access to Web 2.0 is a disadvatage.
A: According to our Facebook statistics, which are very practical and highly interesting, we’re
very strong with the group of 18-25 year-olds, mainly in urban areas such as Vienna and Linz.
However, on YouTube, the age group is 35-45 year-olds. That is a remarkable difference. We
don’t see this a an independent marketing block, it is a part of a big package. For example, the
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content that we produce for other marketing tracks such as press conferences, is never
separate from the one that we use in web 2.0.
Part three: goals
Q: Are there any measureable goals in terms of user numbers or „fans“ or in a way in
which you wish to transform the party’s or H.C. Strache’s image?
A: Just recently we formulated a very ambitious goal, namely to reach 100.000 people in our
Facebook community. Giving [H.C. Strache’s] personal „friends“ and the current members
count on the fanpage (57.000), it’s more than realistic that we will reach this goal.
Q: And in regards to image? Are there attempts to use social media to appeal younger,
more modern or more future-oriented?
A: This is not really to be declared a „goal“ right now. It is always interesting to pick up a
newspaper and to read about what you apparently are. My personal goal is to present H.C.
Strache as he really is. How he is like in person, how he is a human being, what he likes, what
music he listenes to. There are also Facebook-specific contests with him. For example, there
was a „Robin Hood“-Cinema even, where his fans could win tickets for an evening with him
at the theater. This was only marketed over Facebook and the first 100 people to enter got to
go. It was a real success, he was there afterwards to talk to people, all in all for 4 hours. The
people I talked to about it all said „this is amazing!“, that he was just so different in private
conversation.
Q: Is social media marketing a better tool for certain goals, for example to communicate
a brand on a more personal level?
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A: Of course! It’s interactive and the contact is very different. I can react immediately. [H.C.
Strache], as I said, posts things himself, when he tells people what he likes, he can reach so
many at the same time.
Q: An author gave an interview to the newspaper Der Standard in July, saying that
social media marketing revolutionized marketing and „humanized“ it. Is this true and
is this the big advantage that web 2.0 offers for political communication?
A: I would agree with that, it fits with us.
Q: What is your position on user-generated content? Is it in any way party of your
strategy?
A: You try to go along and answer all the request. However, it’s not really controllable and
there are trouble-makers online as well.
Q: Is user-generated content being supported by special promotions?
A: Yes obviously, our topics are polarizing. This results in communication and is of course
designed for this purpose. When he [H.C. Strache] posts something, he may have 1000
feedbacks, sometimes even up to 2500 or 3000. The content which we produce is specifially
design to promote discussions. And it. Will. Not. Be. Deleted. There are of course some
postings that I will have to take out due to security reasons. You have to ask yourself, is this
guy a politically motivated idiot? There are some really harsh …. Everything else that I can
somehow regard as appropriate, I leave. The rest, the group manages on ist own. There are
some interesting opinions being posted there as well. There are many users that post some
useful and insightful things.
Part four: social media campaigning
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Q: Your party is only on Facebook and YouTube. However, there are other channels,
such as twitter.
A: Our Twitter is only being fed by Facebook posts. Web 2.0 in general is important, if not
essential nowadays. It is information material that you can distribute without cost, picture,
videos as well. It will become more and more important in the future but in some areas, we
are still only in a starting phase. However, these are all also areas of development that we can
fall back on for our next campaign, such as the future 100.000 Facebook fans. Still, at the
moment there is much more happening on the other marketing tracks.
Q: This actually leads me to my next question: how does your party use Facebook?
There is a relatively high number of Viennese local FPÖ organizations there as well.
A: Yes, that is correct. On a national level, we only use it as the „person H.C. Strache“, we
orient ourselves as a national party according to our top politician. However, everybody may
create their own Facebook profile. If somebody wants guidance, I will give those instructions
and training on how to use it. Still, they have to create their own content and manage their
account on their own.
Q: Why do you not use twitter? Does the target group not fit?
A: I will illustrate this decision with a comparison: when I try and look for something on the
Internet, I use Google. I don’t go to AltaVista or Yahoo. Facebook is the market leader, if we
use it we have 80% already covered. In this regard, I do not see a reason why we should be on
Twitter. We are spread decently across clientele and age-groups with Facebook and YouTube.
It is also something that we can handle easily and I would rather do it right than throw myself
into something else.
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Q: How is the social media campaign different from the rest of the marketing efforts in
terms of style, design or political agenda?
A: You have to coordinate your efforts with the classical advertisements of course. However,
as i said, this is just a small part for us. Usually, it is a political support for the themes [that we
set offline]. We look for other things that we can discuss online. There are topics, such as
instant reactions to daily political happenings that are immediately in web 2.0, so that you can
react before any newspaper does.
Q: What part is being administered by the candidate itself, what part by employees?
A: Things such as request, I do for him [H.C. Strache], since it would be impossible for him
to do that himself, it is just too much. He has got his iPhone with him whenever he is out
[campaigning], he posts pictures and links and answers question. Content-production,
however, photography and videos, which is being shot and cut in-house, is being put online
by me. If we are out and there is not photographer [from our team] at hand, I will take a quick
picture with my Blackberry and upload it [to his Facebook profile]. Everything that I write, he
would write as well. He comments these things from time to time, it goes along naturally.
Part five: budget
Q: Can you give some insight into the part the web 2.0 budget takes up in relation to the
entire marketing budget?
A: […] it is approximately one full-time job. Of course, there’s photography and video-
production that goes into that as well [which I do not count].
Q: How many employees work on social media exclusively? Are there any volunteers
involved?
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A: Nobody works exclusively [on web 2.0] and we do not use volunteers for this kind of
work, it would simply result in too many problems, there could be misunderstandings.
Part six: special questions
Q: Have you made positive experiences with social media marketing so far?
A: Absolutely, as long you can work comfortably with Facebook.
Q: Are there any plans to do more things on-line, such as internal party organization,
similar to „Grüne Vorwahlen“?
A:No.