Alex White » Politics

The most important campaigning article you didn’t read in 2010

Alex — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:19:55 +0000

Last year, Sasha Issenberg released an e-book, an excerpt from his upcoming book, called “Rick Perry and His Eggheads“. It details how Dave Carney, Perry’s campaign manager, invited four academics into his re-election campaign with a mandate to bring a scientific approach to an industry that normally runs on gut feelings and anecdotes.

But before he wrote this e-book, he write a detailed article for the New York Times, titled Nudge the Vote: How Behavioral Science is Remaking Politics.

If you are involved in running campaigns of any kind — political, union, progressive, environmental — then this article could be the most important article you can read this year:

The growing use of experimental methods — Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, calls them “prescription drug trials for democracy” — is convulsing a profession where hunches and instinct have long ruled. Already, experimental findings have upended a lot of folk wisdom about how votes are won. The most effective direct mail might not be the most eye-catching in the mailbox but the least conspicuous. It is better to have an anonymous, chatty volunteer remind voters it’s Election Day than a recorded message from Bill Clinton or Jay-Z. The most winnable voters may be soft supporters of the opposition, not the voters who polls say are undecided. (“Undecided” may just be another word for “unlikely to vote.”) …

The experimental movement in politics began a decade ago, when the Yale political scientists Alan Gerber and Donald Green conducted a study testing the relative effectiveness of basic political tools. As the 1998 elections approached, Gerber and Green partnered with the League of Women Voters to split 30,000 New Haven voters into four groups. Some received an oversize postcard encouraging them to vote, others the same message via a phone call or in-person visit. One control group received no contact whatsoever. After the election, Gerber and Green examined Connecticut records to see who actually voted. The in-person canvass yielded turnout 9.8 percent higher than for voters who were not contacted. Each piece of mail led to a turnout increase of only 0.6 percent. Telephone calls, Gerber and Green concluded, had no effect at all.

This scientific approach applies behavioural science, organisational behavior and psychology disciplines to election campaigns.

What can unions and progressive organisations learn from this? (And note: many unions in the USA, like the AFL-CIO, are already adopting these methods.)

Firstly: Don’t rely on the above anecdotes that direct mail and telephone calls “don’t work”. This whole approach is data-driven — based on split tests and control groups.

Secondly: Challenge preconceptions. Just because your union or organisation has always done direct mail or calls, doesn’t mean they do work. Test your assumptions and try something new. For information on how to actually run a test in a live environment during a real campaign, check out Doug McKenzie-Mohr’s book on Community Based Social Marketing (available for free).

Thirdly: More broadly, the progressive side of politics should take the science of campaigning more seriously in Australia. In America, millions are being invested on both sides, while in Australia there is very little research being done in this area — and almost all of it at universities, unconnected to practitioners. (Am I wrong? I know Make Believe took a more rigourous approach to the Greens Party Melbourne campaign, but this hasn’t carried on now Bandt has been elected; and perhaps there is someone in the ALP National Secretariat who is on to this, but I haven’t seen any evidence of this.)

Lots of campaigners and organisations have a problem known as path dependency. Decisions about what we do now are powerfully shaped by what we have done before. Hopefully, this article, Issenberg’s e-book and the various other blog posts like this one help shake you off your predictable path.

Pokies rout a call for grassroots action

Alex — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:13:37 +0000

Troy Bramston, former staffer for Prime Minister Rudd and author of Looking of the Light on the Hill, makes some salient points on the disappointing poker machine reforms:

That the ALP is unable to successfully advocate its policies or has the organisational capacity to campaign for them is causing concern in the party.

In an interview for this column, Bruce Hawker, one of the ALP’s most seasoned campaigners, said, “If you are going to take on a very powerful or a very wealthy opponent — like the clubs, the miners or the banks — then be prepared to have a fight because they will be prepared to use their dollars to get the outcome that they want.

“The problem for federal Labor,” Hawker said, “is that they don’t know how to campaign on issues any more. When they got a bit of heat over the poker-machine reforms, they had to backtrack, because they couldn’t win the argument for it.”

The pokie reform backdown is a terrible policy outcome, disastrous on a human scale, as well as having profound economic consequences for families, the community and the wider economy:

Speaking after the Prime Minister’s announcement of the compromise position on poker machine reform National Director of UnitingCare Australia, Lin Hatfield Dodds, said: “Problem gambling will continue to cause untold damage to the lives of people struggling with pokie addiction, with huge knock on impacts for their families and communities.”

“If the legislation outlined by the Prime Minister passes through Parliament we will have national legislation regulating pokies for the first time. This is a significant step in the right direction.

“The pokie industry profits from those most vulnerable in our community, relying on an immoral business model where 40% of the multi-billion dollar profits comes from less than 100,000 problem gamblers.

“The pokie industry and those who support it have thrown a lot of money at slowing down real reform. They may have saved their profits but not their standing in our community

“While we will not get the reform needed in this Parliamentary term, the pokie industry needs to be on notice that we will get there in the end. The human cost of the obscene pokies profit is just too high.

“Everyone is now on record agreeing that pokie reforms must be evidence based. Most of us, including the Productivity Commission, believe that the evidence for mandatory precommitment is already there and is unequivocal.

Like the mining tax, carbon pollution reduction scheme, and most other major reforms, this reform campaign was atrociously handled by the Prime Minister’s office and the cash-strapped ALP national secretariat:

And therein lies the rub. In addition to not being able to successfully advocate its policies, the ALP no longer has the membership, the local network or the capacity to organise at a grassroots level to campaign for its policies or to fight those who oppose them.

No other progressive group was able to mobilise community support for the poker-machine reforms. As usual, GetUp! only came in when it was too late and was ineffective. Paid advertising — almost exclusively what GetUp! does — was useless.

Saddled with debt from the 2007 election campaign and struggling to raise funds for the next election, the ALP is also strapped for cash.

Clubs, hotels and gaming interests were threatening a $40 million campaign in marginal seats. The money would fund television, radio and newspaper advertising. Unflattering life-size cardboard cut-outs of MPs would be positioned at the entrance to clubs.

Understandably, MPs beat a path to the Prime Minister’s office to get the reforms scuttled. While most independent MPs were not going to support the reforms, several government MPs were likely to cross the floor to vote against it or, more likely, abstain from voting.

Troy Bramston, in his book, advocates a revitalisation of the ALP focused on building grassroots campaigning capacity — in the mould of the US Democratic party, Organising for America and the various pro-Democratic organisations like Van Jones’ Rebuild the Dream group.

Unfortunately, while both the US progressives and conservatives are spending millions of dollars on activist training and leadership development (e.g. the right-wing American Majority and Leadership Institute or progressive Wellstone Action), there is almost no sign of this happening in Australia. Aside from Campaign Action (which is under-resourced) and the ACTU Education Centre, there is really no well-resourced group committed to activist training and leadership development.

If Labor wants to win any potential conflict with future special-interest groups that aren’t widely thought of as heinous (like Big Tobacco), then it needs to take activist and leadership development seriously — and not just ALP members but fellow travellers and progressives in general.

Stephen Colbert, Super PACs and the US Presidential election

Alex — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:10:08 +0000

If you haven’t heard, Stephen Colbert, the “right-wing” counterpart to Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, recently announced that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee. He had earlier established a “Super PAC“, Making A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and he has handed over control of the Super PAC to Stewart to comply with laws forbidding collaboration between Super PACs and presidential committees.

Shortly after handing over control of the Super PAC to Stewart, it started to run ads against Mitt Romney, and calling for people to vote for Herman Cain.

There is now an interesting debate going on over at Politico’s Arena about whether Colbert’s activities are healthy or toxic to the American political process.

Here are some of the interesting quotes from the discussion:

Stephen Colbert might be funny, but his exploratory campaign is no joke. The point he’s been assiduously making on “The Colbert Report” is a smart bomb wrapped inside of an absurd conundrum. Simply put, there is no greater force for campaign finance these days than Colbert. By following the tortured laws and starting his own super PAC, Colbert has unleashed a prank that could embarrass the body politic into real change.

… But Colbert was twirling a lot of plates way up in the air when he discussed the lack of control he had over ads run by the super PAC he created called “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.” Based on legal advice from a former FEC chairman who’s become a frequent guest on his late-night show, Colbert recently turned over control of the PAC to “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart. No sooner did they stage a ceremonial transfer of control than the PAC was on the air in South Carolina with an ad asking that if Mitt Romney believed corporations were people, and Bain Capital shut down some corporations, then did that make Romney a serial killer?

When Stephanopoulos pressed Colbert on the claim, the comedian exposed the self-serving loophole. “I don’t want any untrue ads on the air that could in any way be traced to me,” said Colbert, but not before trotting out the old nag, “I don’t know if Mitt Romney is a serial killer. That’s a question he’s going to have to answer.”

To ask people to vote for someone who is not even a candidate could hurt either party. The matter of running this country, keeping us safe, working to create jobs, healthcare, etc. is no laughing matter. Colbert should use his celebrity for good, encouraging people to vote. In short, he’s a jokester and should stick with that, he’s good at it. Running the country? I’m going to leave that up to our president, and whoever America decides should have the job for the next four years.

Considering there are people in countries like Afghanistan that risk their lives to vote, we should consider it both a privilege and an obligation; something men and women for years have fought and given our lives for we to have the freedom to do. Shame on Colbert; he might be funny, but I’m not laughing.

Stephen Colbert may be the only candidate willing to be honest about why he and his fellow Republicans are running for president: to protect corporations, not people. And that agenda is no joke.

The corrosive nature of corporate donations to Super PACs and presidential campaigns, exacerbated by the Citizens United case, is far more dangerous to the democratic process.

In my view, Colbert is doing democracy a service, demonstrating the corrupted nature of the US political system.

UPDATE:

The Christian Science Monitor explains the paper-thin line between coordination (illegal) and talking via the media (legal):

The point they’re making is that the line here is tissue-thin. The law says candidates cannot “coordinate” with super PACs. That means they cannot request, assent to, or suggest any super PAC activities.

But there is a loophole, or, as Colbert called it, a “loop-chasm.” A candidate can talk to his associated super PAC via the media. And the super PAC can listen, like everybody else.

“I can’t tell you [what to do]. But I can tell everyone through television,” said Colbert on Stewart’sComedy Central Show. “And if you happen to be watching, I can’t prevent that.”

Stewart then played a clip of Newt Gingrich calling on his super PAC to scrub ads attacking Mitt Romney for possible inaccuracies.

Stewart and Colbert then talked to elections lawyer Trevor Potter – who is the attorney for both Colbert’s exploratory committee and the super PAC – through the same phone. Stewart said he’d bought air time in South Carolina, and so on, and Colbert just said he couldn’t coordinate, but smiled or frowned, depending on which city the ad time was in. Columbia, no. Charleston, yes!

Is this all legal, or are these comedians pushing the legal envelope and in fact risking jail time?

Nope, amazing as it sounds, they’re doing everything right. Election law expert Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine, on his blog linked to clips from the show, and posted but one additional word: “hilarious.”

Social media and political news reporting

Alex — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:35:43 +0000

If you haven’t heard about Mitt Romney’s $10,000 bet, chances are you weren’t on Twitter during the Iowa GOP Candidates Debate on 10 December and the days following.

Mitt’s bet is a good example of how social media is changing political news reporting. Since the dawn of time, political reports have listened hard for good (“gotcha”) quotes and sound bites that sum up a debate, announcement or interview. Now, social media is changing the way journalists pick their sound bites, by amplifying certain quotes and giving journalists a real-time gauge of public sentiment.

Tweet via @blakehounshell - managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

Within minutes of the fated bet, Twitter started buzzing. While analysts mostly ignored it, the social media response was strong. The Twitter hashtag #What10kbuys was added alongside a lot of the #IowaDebate and #GOPDebate posts. Eventually, it started trending in its own right.

Social media amplifies

The Mitt Romney #What10kbuys debacle shows that social media can amplify your message to all corners. A few years ago, Romney’s comment would have gone reported in a nfew newspapers, for a single day. The social media reaction to Romney has shown that what you say as a candidate will get widely promoted — and most of it is outside your control.

The amplification is not what you say about your campaign, it’s what everyone else is saying. It allows an undercurrent of sentiment to become mainstream — like the strong response that was appalled by the cavalier way that Romeny made a $10,000 bet as though it were a dollar-bet.

Another good example is the video of Rick Perry appearing to be drunk at while giving a speech. This video went viral, although the speech and event itself was fairly minor and uninteresting.

Social media scrutinises

After the debate, the Democrats tweeted:

DNC: We want to know #what10Kbuys for you and your family. #IowaDebate

This helped not only to spread Romney’s comments further, but helped ensure that even people who weren’t watching the debate or following the GOP primaries have heard of it. What’s more, Romney’s defenders on Twitter have kept the hashtag going by trying to use it to attack Obama and the Democrats — leaving confused people days later to try to find out what it is all about.

The ALP and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (part 2)

Alex — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:22:14 +0000

The “marketing bible” The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout sets out marketing laws that the ALP routinely violates. The result of breaking these rules has seen dire consequences for this party: massive slump in support, a collapse in membership, policy drift and an inability to “cut through” in the media.

In my previous post, I covered the first five of the immutable laws. This post goes into rules six to fourteen. Many of these rules, like the earlier five, refer to each other. This demonstrates that you can’t follow, for example, only half of the rules but not the others. Success comes from following all of the 22 rules. Violating any of them risks failure or, at best, half-hearted success.

6. The Law of Exclusivity

Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind

The Law of Exclusivity means that two companies (or parties) cannot own the same concept or policy category as another. The first company to own the word precludes anyone else from owning it. For example, when you think chocolate, you think Cadbury. The question “which bank” summons the answer “Commonwealth Bank”. Panadol owns “pain relief”. No amount of advertising, bar a massive shock, will change those associations.

In politics, as I wrote in the first post, two political parties can’t own the same policy category as another. The Liberals own “economic management”. Labor challenged this by adding “in the interests of working families” because Labor owns “workers”. Howard tried to undermine this with “battlers”. However, in each case, the war of position was not over direct ownership of the concept, but to capture a sub-set of the category. When the Liberal/Nations try to own “education”, it is laughable, because that is Labor’s word, and the same with “health”. Labor can’t own “national security”, because the Liberal/Nationals own it.

The ALP and the Law of Exclusivity

The ALP at the moment is intent of fighting for concepts, words and policy categories that it can never own. This is because of a misunderstanding of market research. Focus groups and polling say that voters want the government to be “tough on boat people” and to “protect our borders”. So the ALP dutifully produces policies and ministers make speeches using terms of “hard head, soft heart” and “we condemn people smugglers”, and come up with the Malaysia Solution.

This fundamentally violates the Law of Exclusivity: Labor can never own in the minds of voters the “tough on boat people” policy category. Voters will always think the Liberal/Nationals are tougher. Marketing (and politics) is a war of perception; it doesn’t matter whether Labor’s policies are better, it is how they are perceived. On areas that the Liberal/Nationals own, they will always own.

We need to find different policy categories or sub-categories; Labor needs to use its own language, not the language of the Liberal/Nationals.

7. The Law of the Ladder

The strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder

The Law of the Ladder is a powerful rule in business and even moreso in politics. It is something the Greens Party have cottoned on to recently. Because all products are not equal, most people make their purchasing decisions based on a mental short-hand that Ries and Trout call the “ladder” – where on the product ladder are you located. Most people make a decision based on the ladder — they prefer the product or service on the top rung (that is, the brand that is the category leader).

Acknowledging your rank on the ladder is important because consumers (and voters) because most people make intuitive decisions based on your rung. There’s no point in pretending you’re the market leader if you’re second or third place, and people won’t accept it.

For example, Hertz is the world leader in car rental, with Avis coming in at number two. When Avis began a marketing campaign saying “we try harder”, it recognised its second place and as a result won a lot of customers.

When marketing, you need to market appropriately to your place on the ladder.

The ALP and the Law of the Ladder

There are lots of different ladders, for each issue category, and sitting over all of that is the polls and the election.

Labor is struggling with the Law of the Ladder because it did not win a majority of seats in the last election, yet is the government. In the mind of voters, it is not acting according to its “rung” placement. The wheeling and dealing in the 17 days following the election of the hung parliament in 2010 left a sour taste in the mouth of many people. Unfortunately, this is not a problem that Labor can easily combat, except by winning the next election.

However, a problem that the Rudd Government had was that it was the market leader, yet did not act like it. Rudd was a constant apologist for previous Labor governments, praised the economic record of Howard and Costello, and appointed Liberals to government and diplomatic posts. He acted in many ways like he was on the second rung in the voters’ minds, yet he was first.

Similarly, now Labor is second in the polls, it makes acting like we’re ahead difficult.

Of course, there are many rungs for many issues. And as Ries and Trout point out, marketing is about perceptions and positions, not products or quality. Your strategy must be based on accepting the run you occupy in the mind of the customer.

The Greens Party have shown they understand this, even if it is intuitive. They have accepted they are a minor party, and refer to Labor and Liberal/Nationals as “majors”. They stick mostly to policy areas where they are positioned as leader or second.

8. The Law of Duality

In the long run, every market becomes a two horse race

In mature markets are the typically only two major players. In desktop operating systems, there are two leaders, but lots of brands — Windows, Apple OS and then lots of little ones that no one’s really heard of. In soft drinks, there’s Coke and Pepsi, then lots of little brands. In shoes, there’re Nike and Reebok. In fast food, there’s McDonalds and Hungry Jacks.

The reason for this is that most consumers don’t have the mental space to manage scores of competing brands and find it easier in a stable market place to make a choice between two brands. As a market gets very mature, it will tolerate the presence of more than two players. However, the top two will have the lion’s share of the market. All other players are essentially in niche segments.

In most political systems, the same applies. Labor and Liberal, Labour and Tories, Democrats and Republicans. There are other parties (Greens, Liberal Democrats, etc), but they are bit players.

The two main players can be challenged or collapse. IBM was once synonymous with personal computers, but over time was successfully challenged by others like Dell and HP (and of course, Apple is still basically the number 2 player in the “computer” category). Similarly, a major crisis can dislodge a major player. Borders was once the number one bookseller in the world, but collapsed almost overnight due to debts.

Just because there’s duality, doesn’t mean the same two brands (or parties) will be there forever. (Don’t forget, the two main parties in Australia used to be the Protectionists and the Free Trade parties, and the Liberals and the Tories in the UK — then Labor & Labour came onto the scene.)

The ALP and the Law of Duality

This is one rule that the ALP benefits from at a meta-level. In a two party system, Labor benefits by being one of the two parties. However, when looked at from an issue category point of view (which often are changeable, immature “markets”), minor parties can compete. For example, the two leading parties on climate change are the Greens Party and Labor. The National Party competes with Labor in Victoria for the bush.

Labor is in trouble if it ignores the risk of being eaten by The Greens on multiple issue categories. They are aggressively positioning themselves in areas where it is just a Labor vs Greens contest, rather than a three-cornered race with the Liberal/Nationals. They are only focusing on niche policy areas and identity politics. This is also why the Liberals won’t go near issues like gay marriage — it’s a war of positioning fought by Labor and the Greens Party.

While Labor benefits from this law, it is not guaranteed that it will be in the two-horse race forever. We’ve seen the Liberal/Nationals realise this in Queensland, where they merged. They’ve turned three-cornered contests into two. They vacated the field in strategic seats during the Victorian election, turning inner-city contests into Labor-Greens Party battles.

9. The Law of the Opposite

If you’re shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader

When you’re number two, don’t copy number one. Do the opposite. The worst thing a secondary brand can do is copy the leading brand. Don’t be better, be different.

By positioning yourself against the leader, you take business away from all the other alternatives to No 1. If you are not the leader in a category but want to be a strong second, you need to position your brand opposite the leader (because as was explained in the previous rule, every market becomes a two horse race).

Ries and Trout use the example of Coke and the Pepsi (in the US). Pepsi used the advertising campaign of “taste of a new generation” to position itself against the market leader Coke, thereby targeting young people. If old people drink Coke and young people drink Pepsi, there is nobody left to drink other brands in the soft-drink category.

The key to this is to focus not on being better than your opposition, but to position yourself as first in your (new) category.

The ALP and the Law of the Opposite

I’ve banged on about this before, but Labor is a serial offender against the Law of the Opposite. Labor has spent years trying to emulate the Liberal/Nationals on key issue categories like economic management and national security. The 2007 election was notable for Rudd’s repeated statements that he was an “economic conservative”.

Similarly, relentless negativity against the opposition won’t promote your product. The obsession over the last twelve months of Labor focusing on Tony Abbott has meant wasted time talking about the other brand, rather than building Labor’s own. This is not to say “don’t criticise your opponent”, but do so in a way that talks up your own brand. Labor did this well when focusing on working families, and when Rudd targeted Malcolm Turnbull over climate change, positioning Labor as the party for action (the “greatest moral challenge”) and Liberals as deniers. Labor’s positives were portrayed favourably to contrast against the Liberal/Nationals’ negatives. Abbott jettisoned the Liberal/Nationals from the climate change issue category (which Howard had got them into in 2007), thus leaving the fight between Labor and the Greens Party.

On refugees, Labor violated the Law of the Opposite, by trying to be tough on border security, by chasing the banner of good economic managers, by obsessing over budget surpluses, and so on — all categories and words that Howard and the Liberal/Nationals own.

The enervating effects of Labor’s violation of this law are apparent in two areas. Firstly, it makes Labor ambiguous in the minds of voters. The old saying “why vote for Liberal-lite when you can vote for the real thing” is true. Furthermore, it opens up space for third-parties to occupy the ground Labor has given up. This explains the rise of the Greens Party. It also explains the inability for Labor to communicate.

Secondly, it has seen Labor’s membership collapse. Labor members join to participate in a party that stands for making Australia a more progressive country. Labor has its own unique language, history, traditions, culture and policy. Underpinning this is the idea that “Labor reforms from government” — but those reforms must be Labor reforms, not Liberal/National reforms. The cognitive dissonance created by chasing the Liberal/Nationals means that Labor members and activists are unable or unwilling to defend Labor or remain members.

10. The Law of Division

Over time, a category will divide and become two or more categories

The Law of Division means that over time, large categories will segment into smaller categories. Trout and Ries use the example of the “car” category. In the early 20th Century, there were only a few models of cars. However, over time, the category divided into “small cars” “luxury cars” “sports cars” ”pick up trucks” “hybrid cars” and so on. Similarly, when computers were first invented, there were only “computers”. Now, there are “laptops” “tablets” “mainframes” “desktops” and “supercomputers” (and more). In television, we once only had a few television stations. Now we have scores of digital and cable TV stations in Australia.

Why is this important in marketing? Because it allows brands to get into new categories as soon as possible and become the leader. For example, Apple has been languishing as secondary brand of computers until it exploited the new segment of “tablets” with the iPad. Although there were lots of makers of tablet computers, it was still a young, undeveloped market, and so allowed Apple to quickly grab first place.

A piece of advice that Ries and Trout emphasise is that when a brand extends to a new category, it is often wise use a new brand. This is because the original brand (if it is a leader) may be associated with the old category as a whole. Going to a new category can create confusion amongst customers. For example, when Toyota expanded into luxury cars, it created the Lexus brand, on the basis that it knew no one wanted to pay $60,000 for a non-prestige brand associated with small, cheap cars. When Volkswagen tried to expand from small cars in the US to the big car market, they not only failed (because no one associated large cars with the maker of the VW Beetle) but it also damaged their original market.

The ALP and the Law of Division

The ALP has shown in the past that it can exploit issue category division — and I’ve already discussed how it used “working families” to get into the lead for “good economic manger for working families“. Labor also “owned” the environment issue category for a generation under Whitlam and Hawke/Keating — until the Greens Party moved into sub-categories like “conservation”, “forestry” (and more recently, identity politics).

Similarly, the “health” category is divided, with the sub-category of “disability” finally emerging as an important issue in the last election. Labor was able win leadership in that category, is delivering major successful reforms in this area, and the disability sector recognises this leadership.

There is a salutary lesson for Labor. Issues are only going to get more fragmented. Labor needs to ensure that it expands to new issue categories that make sense for its existing areas of strength. There are some areas that Labor shouldn’t get into — long costly, pointless wars like Afghanistan. Similarly Labor should avoid fragmenting into two many disparate issue categories. There’s no point in being a big fish in a small pond — or a leading party on an issue that only a small number of voters care about. (This is where the Greens failed in the recent Victorian election; they were narrow-cast to a minority on small niche-issues.)

11. The Law of Perspective

Marketing effects take place over an extended period of time

Marketing is a long game, and short-term tactical gains can lead to long-term pain. Ries and Trout use many examples of brands that pursue short-term goals to their long-term failure.

For example, Donald Trump was man of the moment when he added his name to anything the banks would lend him money for — condos, casinos, airlines, golf courses, shopping centres and more. He was lauded as a success story by the financial media. However, after a few years, he was saddled with $3.5 billion in debt and filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Law of Perspective means that marketing should pursue the long game. Many companies and brands try to move products by holding sales. While sales do move products in the short term, excessive sales lead to consumers undervaluing the product and brand, and results in them never buying the product at full price (since they know they can just wait for another sale).

The ALP and the Law of Perspective

Labor has had scores of tactical wins this year over the Liberal/Nationals — most spectacularly with the change of speaker to Peter Slipper from Harry Jenkins. This was an undoubted tactical victory, but simply reinforces the idea in the minds of voters that Labor only cares about politics not governing.

Marketing is a battle of perceptions. The Malaysia solution was seen as a quick fix rather than a considered policy. The repeated compromises that Labor has made on headline issues, like the mining tax back-down to the mining industry, reinforces the idea that Labor makes decisions on the run, rather than having a long view in the national interest. Rudd’s retreat on climate change and dropping the CPRS after the breakdown at Copenhagen is another example of a short-term tactical decision that caused long-term damage to Labor.

12. The Law of Line Extension

There’s an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand

The Law of Line Extension is the inexorable move towards putting your brand into more and more market categories. This ultimately leads to loss of sales in the original product, declining market share and confusion in the mind of the consumer.

Simply put, the Law of Line Extension says you shouldn’t take one successful brand and try to put it on products in another category. In the long-run, it damages both brands. For example, in the US, Coke tried to get into the clothing market, by producing a range of Coke-branded clothes. For several years, this did very well, but then the trend ended and Coke was left with millions of dollars worth of stock that it couldn’t sell. Dell is well known for making computers, but when it tried to get into Dell-branded smart-phones, it spent several years and millions of dollars and failed, shutting down its smart-phone division.

Politically, more is not better. We saw this with the recent election of Liberal/Nationals governments in NSW and Victoria, where Baillieu and O’Farrell didn’t release policies in a range of important issues. They kept their line focused on areas where Labor was weak (trust in NSW, delivery failures in Victoria) and where they were strong (perception of economic management).

The ALP and the Law of Line Extension

Labor seeks to govern for the majority, rather than narrowly play to a minority of voters. Unfortunately, you can’t be all things to all people. While Labor has successfully (tactically) pursued a widening group of swing voters in non-traditional areas and electorates, this has been to the long-term detriment of the Labor brand.

Labor focused on the “Middle Australia” of mortgage holders, small business people and voters with no traditional commitment to Labor. This won Labor a bunch of seats, federally and at a state level. However, in order to keep those seats, Labor alienated a lot of traditional voters and abandoned positions that long-term supporters cared about.

As the next Law explains, Labor needs to narrow its focus to build a leading position in the mind of the voter. It is better to be strong in a few leading areas, than weak across the board.

13. The Law of Sacrifice

You have to give up something in order to get something

The logical follow-on of the Law of Line Extension is the Law of Sacrifice, which says that you need to reduce your product line rather than expand it. Ries and Trout argue that winning strategies see companies focus on a single category, word or product. The main example they use is Federal Express in the US.

FedEx sacrificed the large package delivery market and aggressively went for the overnight delivery market. They built up a strong brand recognition for this market — and they “owned” the concept and category of “overnight”. This turned them into a massive business. When they then tried to get into the world-wide delivery market, they lost market-share and lost a lot of money. There are many other examples, for example in the clothing market — where successful brands focus only on particular sub-category. Nike makes only sports clothes (not formal wear); the Gap makes casual clothing; Armani makes only high-fashion, and so on.

The Law of Sacrifice is the corollary to the Law of Focus, but takes it further. It says to be successful, you need to sacrifice in three areas: product line, target market, and constant change. Successful brands focus on only a small number of products. They focus on a specific target market. And they resist the temptation to change strategy every financial year.

The ALP and the Law of Sacrifice

Labor’s electoral strategy has been in violation of the Law of Sacrifice. It has been an “all things to all people” strategy; a compromise strategy trying to please two widely divergent groups at once.

Look no further than the Murray Darling Basin plan that was announced recently by the MDB Authority. Led by a former Labor minister, it tried to chart a middle path between the competing demands of the irrigators and conservationists. On the one hand, farmers wanted the bulk of the MDB water for their crops; on the other, conservationists wanted the bulk of water for environmental flows. The compromise pleased no one and in fact, simply angered both.

Labour in the UK broke the Law of Sacrifice when it became seen as pandering to the City and big business, while at the same as introducing strong reforms like the minimum wage and paid parental leave. The incongruity exploded with the loans for peerages scandal, which damaged Labour’s perceptions in both the City and its traditional working-class constituency.

14. The Law of Attributes

For every attribute ther is an opposite, effective attribute

The Law of Attributes says that secondary brands shouldn’t copy the leader. They own the category’s leading words. Ries and Trout advise, instead, to own the opposite word. If Microsoft owns “enterprise”, then Apple owns “designer”. If IBM owns “big” (super computers) then Dell owns “small” (personal computers). The leaders have positive, successful attributes associated with their product or service.

If you end up emulating the winning attributes of the opposition, then you’ll fail. They own those attributes in the mind of the consumer.

Of course, not all attributes are equal. Going after attributes that are too niche, or are negative, obviously won’t work.

The ALP and the Law of Attributes

Labor needs to recognise its successful, powerful attributes it has, and not seek to emulate the Liberal/Nationals.

A good example of Labor’s failing in the Law of Attributes is the debate on uranium mining and export to India. Labor’s attribute of internationalism was a central plank in Labor’s history — establishing the United Nations, signing up to international treaties like Kyoto. We made our name on the world stage through our stellar success with multilateral negotiations on trade and whaling. Labor has always been a principled party and its consistency has gained Labor enormous international respect. We have always opposed the nuclear industry in Australia, and advocated nuclear disarmament.

The incremental steps towards greater acceptance of nuclear energy and uranium mining violates this attribute — and creates confusion for voters. A far better strategy (short of a principled opposition to uranium mining and nuclear energy altogether) would be to wholly embrace the nuclear industry. While this risks “copying” the Liberal/Nationals, it would at least be consistent — and Labor could position it as a solution to climate change (which it is not), which would be a way to tap into existing Labor issue categories.

It is also worth pointing out that the Law of Attributes in a political sense relies on consistency. The Liberals hammered home their primary positive attribute for a decade: “good economic management”. Labor under Rudd (except for a few periods on reconciliation, climate change and health in 2009/10) highlighted a dizzying array of political attributes. During the election, when our main slogan was “Moving Forward”, it was jettisoned (after Press Gallery mocking) after only a week or two. Under Gillard, the problem has been trying to emulate Liberal/National attributes on refugees, and the surplus/economic management. The obsession with “announceables” and the desire to feed the chooks meant that Labor never highlighted its own core, positive attributes.

My next post will cover the remaining Immutable Rules. In the mean time, it’s worth pointing out the warning that Ries and Trout give at the end of their book, which is that much of the advice in their book runs counter to corporate culture and deeply ingrained attitudes to selling products. Most corporations are obsessed with “benchmarking” (the practice of analysing the competitors’ products and services to get industry “best standards” and improving your own product to match or exceed those standards). Most corporations encourage brand extension. Advertising agencies continually want to try new things or appeal to more and more customer segments, rather than follow the Law of Focus.

The same attitudes exist in the ALP. Labor’s campaigning and electoral culture is stuck in a rut, and many decision makers are fixated on tactical victories and “winning” the evening news. There is a weariness to anything long-term, of repeating the same key message over and over, and pressure from all sides to have a policy for every occasion.

A good example of Labor’s unwillingness to learn and adapt is the paper written by David Peebles.

Marketing the ALP

Back in 2005, David Peebles wrote a paper called Marketing the ALP (download it here). While he uses buzz words like “strategic marketing” and “market intelligence” (explaining why few people would have read his paper), many of the conclusions and recommendations he makes are spot on. His key point, which is made in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, is that the “core product” (the Labor’s values) must be aligned to the “tangible product” (the leader, the policies, the candidates). A disconnect between these things creates a credibility gap amongst voters.

I encourage you to read through Peeble’s paper and reflect on the last 12 months, compared to 2007-09.

How the ALP violates the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (part1)

Alex — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 03:32:42 +0000

Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote the “marketing bible” The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing back in 1994, and it remains a marketing classic even today. These two renowned marketing consultants explained that successful marketing follows rules or laws that are violated at a marketer’s peril.

For over a decade, the Australian Labor Party has routinely violated many (most!) of the laws of marketing, and has paid the price. Except for a brief period in 2007, when it got its act together in the lead up to the “Kevin 07″ Federal Election, Labor’s record during this time has been one of systematically losing elections, losing “market share” (primary vote) and losing “brand advocates” (members).

This post goes through the first five “immutable laws”, briefly explains what it is and how the ALP has violated them. I note that some of the laws are followed (on purpose or inadvertantly), but they are the exception, not the rule. I will go through the other laws in later posts.

1. The Law of Leadership

It is better to be first than be better

The Law of Leadership is about convincing people that you are first in a particular market. This is because it is easier to persuade someone that you are first than it is that you are better. In marketing, the “leading” brand in a category is usually the first entrant into that category.

Because marketing is a battle of perceptions, people perceive that “if you are first, then you must be the best”. This is the case even if subsequent brands enter a category with a better product/service. Secondary entrants are seen as inferior, even if they are not.

The ALP and The Law of Leadership

In politics, marketing “categories” can be thought of as issue areas. Health, education, housing, climate change, national security, and gay marriage can be thought of as “categories”.

The ALP has historically been the category leader for many issue areas: workplace rights, health, education and so on. The traditional strong policy areas for Labor. Labor was founded on progressive outcomes on these policy issues. On these examples, the ALP follows the Law of Leadership.

However, the ALP has violated this law by trying to enter other categories and act as the “market leader” – such as on “economic management” and “national security” – issue categories where the Liberal/National Party are first. Beacuse politics is about perceptions, the ALP cannot be better at those issues because the Coalition was “first” — even if Labor has clearly better policies in these areas.

2. The Law of the Category

If you can’t be the first in a category, set up a new category that you can be first in

The Law of the Category relates to the concept in which the range of products or services are broken down into discrete groups of similar or related products/services. For example, the category of “computer” has sub-categories of “super computer”, “personal computer” “laptop” “tablet” “desktop computer” and so on.

Ries and Trout argue that if you can’t be the first in a particular category, try to find or create a new category. For example, in the category of “cars”, Toyota created a new category of “hybrid cars” in which it is now the global leader.In the world of marketing, “consumers” are always interested in what is new, not necessarily what is better. This is why a marketing strategy of producing a “better” product when you are the second entrant into a category is a failed strategy. It is very difficult to overtake the market-leader.

The ALP and the Law of the Category

I’ve already noted that categories can be seen as policy issue areas, and that the ALP is a leader in several established issue categories. A brief look at the Greens Party shows how political parties can create new categories and be a leader. While the ALP may own the general category of “equality and fairness”, the Greens Party have created a sub-category of “marriage equality” and become the market leaders. Even if the ALP supports same-sex marriage, the Greens Party were the first entrant in the minds of voters (this is not a reason for the ALP not to support same-sex marriage).

This is why the ALP should not talk about “green energy” or “green jobs”. It should create different categories of “clean energy” and “clean energy jobs” to own the issue category. The same goes for categories “owned” by other parties: “Accountability” = Democrats, “tough on border security” = Liberal/Nationals, “looking after forests” = Greens Party. It doesn’t matter how draconian Labor makes its refugee policy, voters will always perceive the Liberal/National Party to be the party that is “tough on boat people”.

The Law of the Category doesn’t mean come up with a new name for existing policy areas. It means thinking creatively about policy challenges and social pressures; the area and difference must also be meaningful. If the category is too small, it won’t matter.

3. The Law of the Mind

It’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace

Marketing, like politics, is a battle of perception. While policies (and products) are important, how they are perceived is more important. The Law of the Mind is about getting your idea or concept into the mind of your target audience (or consumer). Once an idea is there, it’s almost impossible to change (unless there is some major shock or trauma).

For example, Xerox will always be a photocopier company (despite their attempt to make computers), Microsoft will always be a large, evil corporation and a Labor government will always be a “tax and spend” government. In order to change established perceptions, you need to “blast” your way in. For example, Apple managed to blast into our minds with their ipod campaign, which allowed them to transform from a computer company to a media company.

Ries and Trout make the point that to get into the mind, it helps to have a simple product or service name. The simpler the idea is, the more understandable it is. In politics, “stop the boats” is more understandable than “regional processing”, and “axe the tax” is shorter and simpler than “the Clean Energy Future Act” or “carbon trading”.

The ALP and the Law of the Mind

The ALP is a serial offender against the Law of the Mind. While it is associated with certain categories (health, education, etc, as I’ve mentioned), it regularly wastes enormous time and effort trying to change people’s established perceptions. Similarly, it is “first” in people’s minds on a whole bunch of bad issues — like the knifing of Rudd or the “broken promise” on carbon pricing.

The goal of The Law of the Mind is to “own” a word or concept. At the moment, the Liberal/Nationals are trying to make Labor own the words “crisis” “incompetant” and “debt”. Similarly, the ALP is giving up its traditional ownership on words like “compassion” “equality” and “environment” — all to chase after the mind-share of concepts firmly embedded with the Liberals.

This is a classic problem that besets people who don’t understand how to use market research. Pollsters and focus groups would tell the ALP that they want a government that is “tough on boat people” and that ” marriage is between a man and a woman”. Labor’s response has been to “give the voter what they want”, as well as a shopping list of other attributes. This means Labor provides a draconian refugee policy, and Gillard’s pronouncements that she does not support same-sex marriage. Unfortunately, these concepts are already “owned” by the Liberal/Nationals. By chasing those concepts and that mind-share Labor is diluting its ownership over other words, allowing the Greens Party to snatch up the categories.

Additionally, Labor has missed the opportunity to capitalise on conceptual shocks that could have given it ownership over new concepts. The Global Financial Crisis was an opportunity for Labor to seize the mantle of “good economic managers” and how ruinous the Liberal/Nationals were. Instead, Labor spent the crisis talking about how close to ruin we came, then didn’t fight back against accusations of mismanagement (pink batts, school halls) and apologised for the debt. Now, three years later, Labor has yet again been sadled with the “debt” concept — and is reinforcing it by constantly talking about getting back into surplus (therefore highlighting that we’re in debt).

4. The Law of Perception

Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions

The quality of a product is not a determinate of how successful it will be in the market place. A good example is with smart phones. On every spec, the iphone has been outdone by one or more smartphones. Yet the iphone is still the most successful single model of smartphone on the market. Similarly, people take on associations with brands that no amount of marketing can change. When Coke famously introduced New Coke in the USA, market research and over 200,000 blind taste tests proved that it was a better product than Pepsi and “Coke Classic”. Despite a massive advertising campaign, New Coke was third, behind Pepsi and Coke Classic in first place.

The product itself is not central to marketing, it is the perception. Everyone knows that Volvos are the safest cars to drive. This is because Volvo owns the “safety” word, was the leader in the category of “safe cars” and because it has won the perception battle. Even when other brands like Toyota and Ford make cars that are safer than a Volvo, people will still associate Volvo with safety.

The ALP and the Law of Perception

Something I hear quite a bit in Labor is that “if only we had good policies”, then we’d be polling better. Or, “the problem is our bad/ill-conceived/left-wing/right-wing/etc policies”.

The Law of Perceptions means that how people interpret our policies is more important that the detail of the policy itself. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have policies, and it certainly doesn’t mean we should hand over policy-making to marketers, pollsters and focus groups.

What is means is that policies that run counter to people’s perceptions won’t change their mind. They’ve already made up their mind. Our policies should be made within the framework of our values and principles — which means, the positive issue categories that Labor “owns”.

People think that Labor is “weak” on boat people. No amount of tough policies on refugees will change that, no matter how detailed or considered the policy is in reality. The reason that the Liberal/Nationals have such an easy time of talking about policy is because marketing doesn’t happen “in reality”, it happens “in the mind”. They “own” “good economic management” in the mind of the voter, so it doesn’t matter that their costings are missing $70 billion in savings. It’s a losing battle and Labor shouldn’t fight it.

Labor should fight on its strengths. A good example is during 2007 when Labor started talking about “working families”. While the commentariat and many Labor supporters tired of this, it is founded in excellent principles because it created a new issue category and a new word for Labor to own. When polled about “who could manage the economy the best”, most people answered “the Liberals”. When asked “who could manage the economy the best for working families”, most people answered “Labor”. This is because “working families” was a sub-category of “the economy” — Labor was first in the category and because it linked to other issue categories that Labor was associated with (workplace rights, fairness, justice, etc), it won the battle of perceptions. The Liberals can own “the economy” but that was irrelevant as long as the policy debate was about “the economy for working families“.

5. The Law of Focus

The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind

The Law of Focus challenges us to boil our marketing message down to just one idea. Ries and Trout use the example of Coke, which for generations owned the word “refreshment”, while Hoover owned the word “vaccuum-cleaner” and Heinz owned the word “ketchup” (this is an American book afterall).

A key element to the Law of Focus is to resist “line extension” — trying to associate your brand with multiple products in different categories. They use the example of successful companies that have encountered trouble due to line-extension, such as IBM. IBM was once associated with “computers” but extended its brand to many different products across multiple categories, including software, satelites, and so on. As a result, those lines largely failed and the core business, computers, was undermined. Similarly, when Coke tried to extend its brand into clothing and fashion, it worked for a few years, and then the market crashed overnight, saddling Coke with millions of dollars worth of unsellable stock.

In politics, the Law of Focus means staying true to the central tenents of your party. The Liberals for example are damaging their brand by proposing “big government” policies rather than free-market ones (for example, their paid parental leave scheme and their direct action climate policy). Labor damages its brand through a “tough on refugees” policy and (less recently) its indefensible support for the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement back in 2004.

The ALP and the Law of Focus

You can’t be everything to everyone. Branching out into different areas can be dangerous, as it weakens the brand (or in the ALP’s case, the party) as a whole. Ries and Trout say, “No matter how complicated the product, no matter how complicated the needs of the market, it’s always better to focus on one word or benefit than two or three or four.”

This means Labor needs to kill the long, detailed policy explanations and the “policy announcement a day” approach. This is where Labor is unable to communicate about what it has achieved because we’re all over the place.

During the last Federal Election, Labor would announce a new policy every day, and sometimes several policies a day. We had no focus. Although we have lots of great policies, we should concentrate our effort and what we say to one key idea. Less is more. Too much policy information, too many “new” policies, too many new announcements.

The most successful time for Labor was when it spent months talking about the same issue: Rudd rode high on the back of months of talk about the CPRS, climate change and Copenhagen (and was let down because of unfulfilled expectations). Similarly, when he was tanking in 2010 against Abbott, he turned perceptions around by spending a month visiting hospitals and talking about health reform. Because of the focus, the message got through and people started to listen.

While this may infuriate the Canberra Press Gallery, who will complain bitterly on Insiders and in the pages of The Australian, we know that messages become stronger when they are narrowed and repeated.

Concluding thoughts

Marketing is a dirty word in some circles, but much of what Ries and Trout talk about is common sense, and if it were expressed without using the term “marketing” “segments” “products” or “brand”, it would largely be accepted as sound political advice.

(It’s worth acknowledging that although The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is a marketing classic, many contemporary marketers rail against it and consider many of the laws to be out of date or irrelevant.)

Reading books like Inside Kevin 07 and Looking for the Light on the Hill, which purport to be “insider” accounts of Labor from 2007 to 2010, it’s clear that Labor is trying to adopt modern marketing techniques. Unfortunately, while many of the methods of marketing have been adopted — direct mail, television advertising, market research and focus groups, the principles behind the marketing have not.

Because Labor’s membership has hollowed out, mass marketing techniques, branding, and positioning are all filling in the gap left by a once-active membership. Lots of active members serve as ambassadors and chamions for a cause, and ensure that internal forums and discussions are geniunely representative of the community at large. Market research can only go so far when, after the focus group is over, there is no one to champion the meaning behind the information and interpretation is left to party officials and ministerial advisors.

Labor, despite the fact that it regularly violates these laws, can turn itself around.

The discussion within Labor following the Bracks, Carr, Faulkner Review into the 2010 Federal Election has focused on rule reform. This is a red herring. Labor’s problem is not rules, or factions, it is that members don’t know what Labor stands for anymore. Because Labor has given up its issue categories, pursues ones that dilute its brand and has no focus. Strong values and a clear vision will assist with all five of these rules.

In the next post, I’ll cover more rules such as the Law of Exclusivity (why Labor can never own a Liberal concept) and the Law of Duality (why Australia will always have a 2 party system).

Pokies and dopamine: why we need mandatory pre-commitment

Alex — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:45:11 +0000

The sickening anti-reform campaign being run by the gambling industry against the introduction of pre-commitment technology is utterly appalling to all people with a conscience.

The pokies industry is even more pernicious because it relies on neurological manipulation to encourage addiction. The Australians who become problem gamblers are being purposely exploited by the pokies industry, who extract $12 billion each year from gamblers. There are 100,000 problem gamblers in Australia, and an additional 200,000 people who are significantly at risk of developing a full-blown addiction (source).

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. It helps regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them.

Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, describes how pokies manipulate our dopamine neurons.

Why does an excess of dopamine in a few neurons make games of chance so irresistible? The answer reveals a serious flaw in the human brain, which casinos have learned to exploit. Think how a slot machine works: You put in a coin and pull the lever. The reels start to whir. Pictures of cherries and diamonds and figure sevens fly by. Eventually, the machine settles on its verdict. Since slot machines are programmed to return only about 90 percent of wagered money over the long term, chances are you lost money.

Now think about the slot machine from the perspective of your dopamine neurons. The purpose of these cells is to predict future events. They always want to know what occurrences — a loud tone, a flashing light, and so forth — will precede the arrival of the juice [reward]. While you are playing the slots, putting quarter after quarter into the one-armed bandit, your neurons are struggling to decipher the patters inside the machine. They want to understand the game, to decode the logic of luck, to find the circumstances that predict a payout. So far, you’re acting just like a monkey trying to predict when his squirt of juice is going to arrive.

But here’s the catch: while dopamine neurons get excited by predictable rewards — they increase their firing when the juice arrives after the loud tone that heralded it — they get even more excited by surprising ones. According to Wolfram Schultz, such unpredictable rewards are typically three to four times more exciting, at least for dopamine neurons, than rewards that can be predicted in advance. (In other words, the best-tasting juice is the juice that was unexpected.) The purpose of this dopamine surge is to make the brain pay attention to new, and potentially important, stimuli. Sometimes this cellular surprise can trigger negative feelings, such as fear… In the casino, however, the sudden burst of dopamine is intensely pleasurable, since it means that you’ve just won some money.

Most of the time, the brain will eventually get over its astonishment. It’ll figure out which events predict the reward, and the dopamine neurons will stop releasing so much of the neurotransmitter. The danger of slot machines, however, is that they are inherently unpredictable. Because they use random number generators, there are no patterns or algorithms to uncover. (There is only a stupid little microchip churning out arbitrary digits.) Even though the dopamine neurons try to make sense of the rewards — they want to know when to expect some coins in return for all those squandered quarters — they keep getting surprised.

At this point, the dopamine neurons should just surrender: the slot machine is a waste of mental energy. They should stop paying attention to the surprising rewards, because the appearance of the rewards will always be surprising. But this isn’t what happens. Instead of getting bored by the haphazard payouts, the dopamine neurons become obsessed. When you pull the lever and get a reward, you experience a rush of pleasurable dopamine, precisely because the reward was so unexpected, because your brain cells had no idea what was about to happen. The clanging coins and flashing lights are like a surprise squirt of juice. Because the dopamine neurons can’t figure out the pattern, they can’t adapt to the pattern. The result is that you are transfixed by the slot machine, riveted by the fickle nature of its payouts.

The gambling industry — and the poker machine owners — know this. Gambling addiction and problem gambling is a physical addiction, centred on the dopamine neurotransmitters. Poker machines are specifically designed to target our dopamine receptors.

Slot machine addiction is considered to be the “crack cocaine” of gambling for a few different reasons.

Slot machines are designed by psychologists and other specialists who are specifically instructed to design slot machines to seduce and addict people.

The new video multi-line electronic slot machines have graphics and colors that are very compelling and stimulating to the eye.

The music in video slot machines is very stimulating, repetitive, seductive , and truly reinforcing. There is strong subliminal suggestion in this.

The bonus rounds in video slot machines can encourage continued play, even amidst great losses, since bonus rounds are very exciting and provide a rush.

The speed of play, and the speed of modern slot machines keeps your adrenaline pumping, especially with all of the above factors.

The jackpots in slot machines can be huge, however, the chances of winning these jackpots are equivalent to winning the powerball lottery, if not more improbable.

Slot machines can be a place to “zone out”. Today’s slot machines can put you into a hypnotizing trance that is hard to break out of.

Slot machines require little or no skill, making it easy to just sit there and push the buttons, without a thought, forethought, or contemplation.

It is very easy to keep playing slot machines because all accept dollar bills, and give players coupons upon ending play. Money loses its’ value and becomes “monopoly” money.

ATM Machines are usually in close proximity to the slot machines, again, encouraging continued play.

Many slot machines use denominations of 1 cent to 5 cents. This fools the gambler into thinking that they are not spending much. What is not being said, however, is that the maximum bet can be as high as $15 to $20 per spin. Is this really a penny or nickel machine?

The misleading campaign being run by the gambling industry (with the sanitised name of Hotels and Clubs lobby) is contemptible. It is even more contemptible because it is built on and is protecting an activity that we have little natural defence against — it exploits how our brains work.

(Frank Luntz describes how he advised the gambling industry to rename itself the “gaming industry” to remove negative connotations.)

For all the reasons Nick Xenophon has campaigned for on gambling reform for many years, Australia needs to introduce mandatory pre-commitment.

The conservative dilemma

Alex — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:55:49 +0000

Clay Shirky, a professor of new media at New York University wrote about the Arab Spring and the role social media played in helping spread the message of protesting movement. His comments about conservative (government) responses to these movements is particularly interesting given the police crackdown against the various Occupy X events in Melbourne and Sydney.

Disciplined and coordinated groups, whether businesses or governments, have always had an advantage over undisciplined ones: they have an easier time engaging in collective action because they have an orderly way of directing the action of their members. Social media can compensate for the disadvantages of undisciplined groups by reducing the costs of coordination. The anti-Estrada movement in the Philippines used the ease of sending and forwarding text messages to organize a massive group with no need (and no time) for standard managerial control. As a result, larger, looser groups can now take on some kinds of coordinated action, such as protest movements and public media campaigns, that were previously reserved for formal organizations. For political movements, one of the main forms of coordination is what the military calls “shared awareness,” the ability of each member of a group to not only understand the situation at hand but also understand that everyone else does, too. Social media increase shared awareness by propagating messages through social networks. The anti-Aznar protests in Spain gained momentum so quickly precisely because the millions of people spreading the message were not part of a hierarchical organization.

…This condition of shared awareness — which is increasingly evident in all modern states — creates what is commonly called “the dictator’s dilemma” but that might more accurately be described by the phrase coined by the media theorist Briggs: “the conservative dilemma,” so named because it applies not only to autocrats but also to democratic governments and to religious and business leaders. The dilemma is created by new media that increase public access to speech or assembly; with the spread of such media, whether photocopiers or Web browsers, a state accustomed to having a monopoly on public speech finds itself called to account for anomalies between its view of events and the public’s. The two responses to the conservative dilemma are censorship and propaganda. But neither of these is as effective a source of control as the enforced silence of the citizens. The state will censor critics or produce propaganda as it needs to, but both of those actions have higher costs than simply not having any critics to silence or reply to in the first place. But if a government were to shut down Internet access or ban cell phones, it would risk radicalizing otherwise pro-regime citizens or harming the economy.

The conservative dilemma exists in part because political speech and apolitical speech are not mutually exclusive.

Welcome to Melbourne (via @pacific_justice)

I’m under no illusion that the Occupy Melbourne and Occupy Sydney events will have the longevity of the Occupy Wallstreet (99 Percent) movement. Although we are in early days, the key challenge for the Occupy X events is to transition from events to organisation.

In any case, the phenomenon I observed with Occupy Melbourne is that many, many progressive people who were dismissive of the event in its early stage, were “radicalised” when it became clear that the police were planning to violently evict the occupiers from City Square. Awareness of the event was generated by mayor Doyle’s decision. Sympathy was created towards the occupiers when they were subjected to unwarranted police brutality. “Mainstream” progressive people who had stood at arms length made the decision to stand by the more fringe progressive elements who had made up the Occupy X events.

A similar thing happened for the Occupy Wallstreet movement when police broke up a march across the Brooklyn Bridge and their other hard-handed attempts to break up the occupation. Non-radicalised people, sympathetic to the notion that corporate America has run amok, came out to support the occupiers. It is also worth noting that the Occupy Wallstreet movement was born from the Adbusters group — and thus benefited from considerable organisational infrastructure and experience from its early participants.

While Shirky’s comments are mostly directed at totalitarian regimes focused on stamping on middle-class revolutionary movements, there are at least some parallels in how people respond to censorship and crackdowns in Industrialised nations.

Where the similarities break down is the role of those movements providing political leadership. In the successful cases, the people protesting in Egypt or Tunisia provided genuine class leadership. They were made up of the middle-classes and regime technicians. They possessed at least some legitimacy.

The US 99 Percent Movement is growing that legitimacy as more and more “serious” groups start to support the movement – the environment groups, labor unions, progressive think-tanks, and Democratic politicians — all of whom provide a counter-hegemonic shield. The organisers of the movement are more in tune with their progressive constituency. They lead (through their occupation) but not too far ahead (most occupiers want to influence Democratic politics like the tea party influences Republicans).

The Australian Occupy X events have yet to evolve into this more advanced state. Of course, it is early days. The 99 Percent Movement in New York was largely ignored for weeks before it broke into the mainstream. Can the Occupy X events continue? How much stamina do the protesters have? Can they tap into their allies and break into the mainstream?

The conservative dilemma remains for the various State Governments — the more they act against the Occupy X events, the more they increase the legitimacy of the protesters and radicalise their supporters.

New Rules for Purpose Driven Organisations

Alex — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 06:49:33 +0000

Jeremy Heimans, the CEO of Purpose.org – an “incubator” benefit company that supports major global progressive campaigns – has written an interesting article with five new rules for organisations to build their brands through being purpose driven.

The entire article is worth a read, and Heimans – who also founded Avaaz and Get Up – makes a good number of points for organisations wanting to be taken seriously on social change.

Start with internal transformation.
If you’re not there yet, avoid declaring victory.
Champion a movement, not a campaign.
The stakes must be high.
Most important, ask your consumers to take action.

In my view, the final rule is the most powerful and significant – especially if you care about empowering people.

Heimans makes the point:

Successful social initiatives that create real social impact will need a combination of 20th century top-down persuasion-brands that tell the world their point of view through marketing and communications-with the tools of 21st century engagement: movements that provide the tools for advocacy, social involvement, distributed evangelism and self-organization.

Many progressive organisations, such as unions and climate action groups, focus on empowering members and supporters to make the change, rather than having staff of the organisation wave their magic wands and solve the problem. Tools like Twitter, MailChimp and CMSs like WordPress empower normal people to take online action – and increasingly make off-line, real-world action easier to organiseand coordinate.

For an additional, and excellent, resource on purpose-driven campaigning, check out this PDF by Make-Believe (the PR firm responsible for the Federal 2010 Greens campaign).

Short book review: Words that Work by Frank Luntz

Alex — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 07:54:13 +0000

What can infamous Republican word-smith and pollster Frank Luntz tell progressives about effective communication?

As it turns out, quite a bit. In Words that Work, Luntz reveals his magic tricks and secret messaging memos, and (for a book written before the 2008 US presidential election) makes some predictions about the future of American politics.

For progressives interested in effective communications, writing, messaging, campaigning and media management, this book should be essential reading. While Luntz and the messages he crafts are conservative, the tools he uses are not political – and in fact should be a part of the progressive arsenal. Luntz’s reputation speaks for itself. He invented the term “death tax” (to replace inheritance or estate tax) and “climate change” (to take the heat out of global warming). He was the mastermind of Newt Gingrich’s successful “Contract with America” during the Clinton years.

The key take-away for Luntz is “it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear”. This mantra is repeated time and time again – and what it means is that effective communication is about how your audience understands your message, not the precise words you say. Some words, phrases and terms can mean different things to what you intend. As Luntz says: “It’s not enough to be correct or reasonable or even brilliant.” This is something that progressive causes can still improve on.

Luntz goes into how he determines for his clients what words to work – and what people hear, and if you’re interested in polling and focus groups, this is fairly meaty stuff.

For progressive campaigners who are interested in how they can improve their, Luntz goes through his ten rules for effective language:

1. Simplicity: Use Small Words
2. Brevity: Use Short Sentences
3. Credibility is As Important As Philosophy
4. Consistency Matters
5. Novelty: Offer Something New
6. Sound and Texture Matter
7. Speak Aspirationally
8. Visualize
9. Ask a Question
10. Provide Context and Explain Relevance

Most of these speak for themselves – and if you want to read more, the Amazon preview lets you read most of the chapter where Luntz goes through his rules in detail, and with lots of examples. Seen in context with George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant, Luntz turns Lakoff’s “framing” into practical, effective guidelines that can be referred to on a daily basis. Most of this advice is also a more down to earth version that can be found in the entertaining Made to Stick that I reviewed earlier.

For an Australian context, a lot of this book is not relevant. Most of the “words that work” – where Luntz provides some words and phrases that he says are very powerful and effective in a political and business context – are very American specific. Despite this limitation, the half or two-thirds of the remainder of Words That Work is worth a read if effective communications is your deal.

You can get Words that Work from Amazon.

Short book review: The Whites of their Eyes by Jill Lepore

Alex — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 07:47:13 +0000

If you’re like me and you know very little about American history, and you’re bemused by the rise of the conservative Tea Party movement in US politics, then this book is for you.

Jill Lepore is a Massachusetts professor of Revolutionary history. She too was intrigued by the rise of the Tea Party – which is so divorced from the original Boston tea party, and decided to document the rise of the conservative movement. The Whites of their Eyes is the result – an engaging exercise in contrasting contemporary perceptions of the US Revolution with the documented reality.

An interesting motif that runs through The Whites of their Eyes is the anti-intellectualism of the Tea Party, and the rejection of non-conservative interpretations of Revolutionary history. The Tea Party’s (and the Republican’s in general) depiction of the Revolution is simply factually wrong on many levels. This of course doesn’t matter – conservatives reject any other interpretation as liberal propaganda.

As someone with relatively little background of the American revolution or the founding, or the biographies of the various founders (interestingly, the term “Founding Fathers” was not used until the late 1800s), this book was a great primer. Lepore doesn’t just look at the main “movers and shakers” but digs into the lives and views of “normal” people who lived at the time.

The scariest thing about this book is that it exposes (to a “liberal” audience) how the conservative movement is rewriting history to serve its own agenda. The same is starting to happen in Australia. It is downright dangerous.

You can get The Whites of their Eyes from Amazon.

We are all Arbeiderpartiet members

Alex — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 23:34:50 +0000

Nick Martin, Labor’s National Assistant Secretary, has written a fine blog post commemorating those Norwegian Labor members who were murdered by an ultra-right wing gunman.

I have copied the post below, and encourage you to visit the blog and leave a message of support for Arbeiderpartiet and its members.

Right across the world people have been shocked by the attacks on Norway, its people, its democratic institutions and on the Arbeiderpartiet – the Norwegian Labour Party.

We are all horrified to see so many young people who were committed to building a better world brutally gunned down. The chilling stories of survivors will stay with all of us forever.

At this terrible time for members of the Arbeiderpartiet, and their youth organisation the Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking (AUF), many Australian Labor Party members have expressed their grief and sorrow as the tragedy unfolded before us.

On Saturday night, a group of around 25 members and supporters of the ACT Branch of the ALP led a vigil at the Norwegian Embassy in the quiet Canberra suburb of Yarralumla to pay silent respect to all those who had been through the attacks, and to express their solidarity with our colleagues in Norway.

It is this type of support that binds together “Labour” parties around the world. We are a small, closely-knit family of parties with shared histories.

We have a special bond with our colleagues in Norway, built over many years. We recently rediscovered some of our shared history while researching local Labor History stories. It was moving for local Party members in Brisbane to find an old scrapbook which had been sent between women members of the Queensland ALP and the Women’s Section of the Arbeiderpartiet in the 1960s. The scenes show not only pictures of everyday life in Norway for women, but also show the childcare, maternity leave and other reforms built by our colleagues in the Arbeiderpartiet. The sharing of their experiences are a beautiful reminder of our friendship with Norway.

On Saturday morning, the ALP National Secretariat sent our comrades in Norway a message of support and sympathy. In it we offered any assistance we could provide, a sentiment shared by our thousands of members.

As Norwegians deal with the terrible aftermath, we are already seeing the resilience of the nation. One of the young survivors said to international journalists “if one person can show so much hatred think how much love we can all show together”.

These are our friends, colleagues and comrades – some known to us directly – and others bound to us by our shared commitment to social justice.

Today, and for the future, we are all Arbeiderpartiet members.

Leave a message of support here.

In times like this, I am reminded of the attempted murder of progressive Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by a conservative extremist and the culture of hatred perpetrated by conservative media and pundits that was very much to the fore at that time. We must all be on guard against violence – including violent ideas.