Just how big is the online political communication market? And why should an entrepreneur or business man care about online political campaigns? The simple answer is this: there are numerous possibilities and business opportunities that have emerged from political campaigns shifting towards the online. Find out what are the key elements of a political campaign in the 21st century and discover an important paradigm shift in this domain: from services to products.

1. Business Opportunities
in Online Political Campaigning
(Product Development Roadmap)
Lucian Despoiu

2. Agenda
1. About Kondiment
2. Politics and the Internet
3. Political campaigns in the 21st century
4. How big is the online political communication market
5. Major Lessons learnt during the past 20 elections
6. What has been done so far
7. A Paradigm Switch (from services to products) - Collaborative Model
8. Introducing Kombo

3. 1. ABOUT Kondiment

4. About Kondiment
Kondiment Group is one of the most successful Performance Marketing Agencies in
Eastern Europe and one of the first agencies in EUROPE to focus on (online) Political
Marketing.
Our dedicated team of specialists offers integrated online marketing and
communication services, as well as technology solutions and services to parties,
independent politicians and political consulting firms.

5. Kondiment’s Core Industry Expertise

6. Key Members of Kondiment Group

7. Recent Political Projects

8. Our offices

9. 2. POLITICS
AND THE INTERNET

10. Politics and the Internet
How many of you
voted at the last elections?
(Most of you consider politics… “not relevant” for your business, right?!?
Me too  )


11. Politics and the Internet
In fact…
We are wrong:
Politics and Politicians ARE massively influencing
OUR playground/BUSINESS ECOSYTEM


12. Politics and the Internet
- Online media, portals: cookies usage is under political
decision now
- eAdministration (how we pay taxes online, register
companies, sign digitally) is under politics and politicians
decision
- Anti-Trust, Acquisitions approval
- Microsoft, Google Fees in Europe
All these…and more… in the hands of those that don’t
understand technology, internet, online marketing, etc

13. Politics and the Internet
Quick example:
TV Channels – perceived as “strategic”
for political acts, for political
communications, for voters decision
processes.
This is WHY politicians are very careful
IN HELPING them

14. 3. POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
IN THE 21ST CENTURY

15. Political campaigns in the 21st century - The Context
Internet has changed political campaigns and party management
drastically:
On one hand, voters turned digital in their media habits
• Hyper-atomization of media channels
• Everything goes social or mobile (or both )
• Content has been re-elected as... king

16. Political campaigns in the 21st century - The Context
Internet has changed political campaigns and party management
drastically:
On the other, parties and candidates found themselves facing new
challenges/issues:
• media is now entertainment  harder to become relevant as politician
• richer information flow in the digital ecosystem  harder to identify, manage
and keep voter’s attention
• no internet marketing and communication skills @ the party, campaigns level
• excess of data available (web, internet, analytics). No relevant data on voting
habits

17. Political campaigns in the 21st century

18. Political campaigns in the 21st century
THE FUTURE… IS NOT ONLINE

19. Political campaigns in the 21st century
THE FUTURE… IS NOT OFFLINE

20. Political campaigns in the 21st century
Integrating ONLINE And OFFLINE efforts
E-mail (voters management) Telemarketing
Social Networking Door-to-door campaigning
Applications Traditional media
Advertising Community organization
Party management Mass meetings, rallies
Internet lobby Offline lobby

21. Political campaigns in the 21st century
While traditional means of political marketing remained mostly the same, a new trend
has emerged in online media:
Giants such as Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft have engaged in offering specialized tools
and features to politicians, parties and voters alike.
The shift:
SERVICES PRODUCTS

22. 4. HOW BIG IS THE
ONLINE POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
MARKET

23. (online) Political Marketing
How big is the market?
• Presidential Elections
• Parliamentary Elections
• Regional Elections
• Local Elections

24. EU Cities By Number Of Inhabitants

25. Facts on EU alone
1. EU’s total population is of about 503 million people
2. And 44% of these people reside in cities of 50,000 inhabitants or more
3. To be more specific, there are:
• 20 cities w more than 1 million people
• 33 cities w between 500,000 and 1 million people
• 395 cities w between 100,000 and 500,000 people
• And about 1350 cities w between 50,000 and 100,000 people

26. Local Election Campaigns in EU
Assuming an average of 3 parties and/or independent candidates facing off
in the local elections, and an average budget availability of services and
media:
1. About $ 50,000 for 50,000-100,000 cities
2. Aprox $ 100,000 for 100,000-500,000 cities
3. Some $ 200,000 for 500,000-1m cities
4. And probably $ 500,000 for cities w 1m inhabitants or more
We get a total spent of more than $ 370 million (and again, that’s just for
the local elections alone)

27. Europe Potential Market Size
(media, services and technology)
Local Election : 500 Mio USD (every 4 years cycle)
Regional Election: 300 Mio USD (every 4 years cycle)
Parliamentary Election: 40 Mio (every 4 years cycle)
Presidential Election: 30 Mio (every 4 – 5 years cycle)
TOTAL PER YEAR: approx. 220 Mio USD

28. And that’s Europe alone, but…

29. 5. MAJOR LESSONS LEARNT
DURING THE PAST
20 ELECTIONS

30. Major lessons learnt during the past 20 elections
1. SETTING ADEQUATE KPIs
Each campaign and candidate have different KPIs that need to be set up
accordingly and to take into consideration the political platform and overall
image of the party or candidate.
•Website&Blog: unique visitors, new vs returning, bounce rate, emails etc.
•Facebook & Social Media: ads served, clicks, fans, reach, emails, app users etc.
•Emails & sure voters data base: emails, open rate, unsubscribes etc.
•Activism: active people, emails etc.
•Online Media Press: AdServer impressions, clicks, widgets installed etc.
•MLV & VRM: no. of active supporters, no. of sure voters, emails collected etc.

31. Major lessons learnt during the past 20 elections
2. DEALING WITH NATIVE DIGITAL VOTERS
There are millions of voters out there – native digital voters, people that
spend a lot of time online and that have developed a certain digital sense
that helps them filter information better and faster.
They have to be taken into consideration when developing online political
campaigns.

32. Major lessons learnt during the past 20 elections
3. CATEGORIES OF VOTERS TO BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION
There are 5 categories of voters: sure voters, likely voters, undecided voters,
likely voters for the opponent and sure voters for the opponent.
A campaign should be started and ended focusing on likely and sure voters
and actions should be taken to convince them to Go Out To Vote (GOTV).

33. Major lessons learnt during the past 20 elections
4. CONTINUOUS CAMPAIGNING
An efficient political campaign is by no means built 45 days prior to the
elections.
You need time to reach visible results.

34. Major lessons learnt during the past 20 elections
5. MICROTARGETING AND OPTIMIZATION
An efficient online political campaign has to be micro-targeted and to
permanently be optimized (included here are: messages, media channel, web
presence, data collection, targeting, retargeting).

35. 6. WHAT HAS BEEN DONE SO FAR

36. What has been done so far
Google Politics & Elections
Focuses on the
empowerment of
voters. Voters now
have, in one spot,
news, information and
knowledge required to
become active
participants in the
country’s democratic
process.

37. What has been done so far
Politics & Elections Ads Toolkit
Four screens to victory:
Efficiently engaging
users through mobile,
TV, computers and
tablets

38. What has been done so far
Political Campaign Toolkit
Easily connect with
voters by creating
special, targeted
ads.

39. What has been done so far
Google + Politics
All followers get
important and
relevant
information on
political issues.

40. What has been done so far
Political Contributions
Candidates
can now
collect
contributions
from
supporters

41. What has been done so far
AdWords District Targeting
Politics now goes local;
politicians can create
ads and target them on
districts

42. What has been done so far
Consumer Survey Election Center
Google Insights for
events for the 2012
election.

43. What has been done so far
Civic Information API
Google allows
developers to build
applications that display
civic information such as
polling place, candidate
data, early vote location
etc.

44. What has been done so far
Voting Information Project
Offers tools to provide
voters with access to
customized election
information to help
them navigate the voting
process.

45. What has been done so far
Political Insights
Displays political
issues by
aggregating
queries
submitted to the
U.S. version of
the Yahoo! web
search engine
(May 2010 -
January 2011)

46. What has been done so far
Political Search Trends
Classifies search
queries according to
political leaning

47. What has been done so far
Microsoft Government
Campaign Ready - customizable
campaign web page, the
possibility to improve and keep
track of fundraising online and
options to connect with staff
and constituents with e-mail,
integrated social networks, and
more.

48. What has been done so far
Campaign Cloud
A web-based operating
system that consolidates the
functionality of multiple
web-based applications

49. What has been done so far
Rock The Vote
Engage and build
the political power
of young people.

50. What has been done so far
Xbox LIVE Elections
Live coverage of
major political
events.

52. What has been done so far
Steps We Followed
Until recently, Kondiment has offered services:
1. We’ve created Facebook Pages for parties,
APPS
PAGES ADS party leaders and independent candidates
TABS 2. We’ve created and published content:
•About •Page Ads
EVENTS
• About
•Timeline •Post Ads
• Timeline
•Photo •Sponsored
stories
POLLS • Photos & Videos
•Video
BADGES 3. We’ve created Tabs, Apps & Badges
4. We’ve created and published Events & Polls
5. And of course, we’ve created Ads and ran
Ad campaigns

53. What has been done so far
Objectives
 Identify categories
Party
members, voters, support
ers and activists
 Define/Develop
Identify Target Register convincing messages for
MAINTAIN RELATIONSHIP sub-targets
(women, youngsters, intel
lectual
elites, retired, jobless etc)
and use the internet to
turn them into “active
supporters”

54. What has been done so far
Ads
Strategy
Copy • Micro targeting (age, gender)
• Analyze conversion rates by
Targeting demographics
• Target opponents’ supporters
• Target by interests (if there is
Segmenting relevant data in the panel)
• Permanent optimization of the Ads,
Analyzing image/copy testing
• Find the most active demographic
groups (voters, possible voters, anti
Optimization voters, non voters)

55. What has been done so far
Ads

56. 7. A PARADIGM SWITCH
(FROM SERVICES TO PRODUCTS):
COLLABORATIVE MODEL

57. A Paradigm Switch: from services to products
From our experience:
- A cross-channel approach is mandatory;
- Working alongside party members is of the utmost importance;
- We need to start channeling our efforts (in a collaborative way) in the Product
Development
- Online efforts go hand in hand with the offline efforts of the party and all their
promoting activities
WHY EXTEND?
Internet has changed the way political campaigns work.
Our experience offers us a head start: we know what parties need, when they
need it and how they need it in order to easily manage data and integrate
different campaign tools

58. 7. A Paradigm Switch: from services to products
Analyzing what political parties we work with needed, we arrived to three
conclusions:
1. All parties’ activities need to be properly managed
2. A party needs a strong, coherent media presence and a constant dialogue with
supporters, potential members and voters
3. A party needs specific tools to reach its voters, coordinate and activate them.
4. Content/Massages to be sent by parties/politicians needs to be hyper-local

59. 7. A Paradigm Shift: from services to products
We developed a cutting edge suite that
integrates media management, voters management
and party management into one simple, easy to use tool:
KOMBO
We share Kombo with partners, developers, re-sellers or trainers
together with our experience and knowledge.

60. Kombo Collaborative Model

61. 8. INTRODUCING…

63. Kombo (Empowering Politics) is a suite of products
and services that can be used together or individually,
helping party officials and politicians:
 to better organize their internal staff
to more efficiently structure their campaign,
to mobilize voters
to keep them updated
to monitor voters behavior
to properly manage their media campaigns

64. 6. Introducing Kombo
The modules that constitute Kombo offer answers to
all specific political questions:
• How am I going to win?
• What do the voters care about?
• What issues are they interested in, and where
do they stand on those issues?
• What is the perfect message for campaign?
• How do I share my message?

65. 6. Introducing Kombo Suite
The 6 Kombo Modules are:
1. Web Presence
2. Media Manager
3. Treasure
4. Voter Manager
5. Party Manager
6. Social

68. Web Presence

69. Key benefits of the “WEB PRESENCE” module
• Allows politicians to engage party supporters and voters by building a
community and letting them share opinions and suggestions.
• Offers the ability to use social media channels to reach voters trough the right
channels
• Allows party members and politicians to build a coherent and accurate online
reputation, to attract new political supporters and keep in touch with existing
supporters
• Offers the possibility to efficiently use the online medium as the fastest way to
spread news about the party’s activity and to react to other events

71. Media Manager

72. Key benefits of the “MEDIA MANAGER” module
• Politicians and party representatives can now use available reports to select the
communication channels that have the maximum impact for their voters
• Raises the voters engagement in different activities
• Offers a better use of campaign budget
• Reduces overall media budget in an efficient way
• Offers advanced tracking systems to identify your voters and display ads relevant
to them

75. Key benefits of the “TREASURE” module
• All the general data of a country is gathered in one place for politicians and
party representatives to use in an efficient manner
• The data of the platform is gathered in a format that can serve all other
campaign tools
• Offers the possibility to segment voters by different criteria
• Represents an efficient way to keep your campaign costs to an absolute
minimum
• Offers all the information needed at once- no need for more databases
• It is a cost-effective solution that can easily be integrated with other systems

78. Key benefits of the “VOTER MANAGER” module
• Offers a decrease in overall campaign costs
• Allows party members to gain knowledge on voter’s interests.
• Parties can now get accurate feedback on the solutions they offer
• Parties can centrally manage direct communication with voters
• Politicians can protect sensitive data by consolidating multiple security systems
into a single reliable structure.
• The module allows party representatives to save time and financial resources
• Access to visual display of statistical information about voters’ structure on a map
• Overlay statistical data and learn relevant facts for the campaign

81. Key benefits of the “PARTY MANAGER” module
• Party representatives gain control over all aspects of party operations & track
every individual operation
• Improves collaboration and information sharing
• Provides active party members with the tools they need
• Offers a clear division of responsibility, an easier, cost-effective way to manage
and to track memberships
• The system accepts credit cards for payment of membership fees as well as
general donations
• Provides politicians and party members with a better control of the entire
processes: the information they want collected and those who have access to it

83. Kombo Social
Global and per country SOCIAL INDEX of
• Politicians & Parties
• Government & Parliament
• Political NGOs & Petitions
Focuses on Facebook (later also on
Twitter)
PRO version (for political campaigners)
Represents the perfect TOOL to drive AD
Sales (Politicians love to COMPETE: “The
Likes Syndrome”).

84. 6. Meet Kombo

85. Down The Road
Kombo – platform
What’s NEXT? – development and training a network of
“specialized interactive agencies”, applications developers,
political consultants across Europe and Africa (phase1), Asia and
South America (phase2)

86. Contant:
Facebook.com/Despoiu
lucian.despoiu@kondiment.com