Halo: A Political Advertising Strategy for The Digital Age
Genesis
The Halo Strategy is based on “The Halo Effect” introduced Edward Thorndike in his 1920 article, “A Constant Error in Psychological Ratings”. Thorndike originally coined the term referring only to people; however, its use has been greatly expanded especially in the area of brand marketing.
The term "halo" is used in analogy with the religious concept: a glowing circle crowning the heads of saints in countless medieval and Renaissance paintings, bathing the saint's face in heavenly light. The observer may be subject to overestimating the worth of the observed by the presence of a quality that adds light on the whole like a halo. The effect works in both positive and negative directions (and is hence sometimes called the horns and halo effect). If the observer likes one aspect of something, they will have a positive predisposition toward everything about it. If the observer dislikes one aspect of something, they will have a negative predisposition toward everything about it.
The halo effect is very present in the field of brand marketing. One common halo effect is when the perceived positive features of a particular item extend to a broader brand. A notable example is the manner in which the popularity of Apple’s iPod generated enthusiasm for the corporation's other products. A halo effect with regard to health, dubbed a "health halo", is used in food marketing to increase sales of a product; it can result in increased consumption of the product in the halo which may be unhealthy.
A brand's halo effect can protect its reputation in the event of a crisis. An event that is detrimental to a brand that is viewed favorably would not be as threatening or damaging to a brand that consumers view unfavorably.
Think of Facebook’s recent data issues. People did not leave Facebook by the tens-of-millions and the organization is still considered something of a necessity to keep people connected. Their advertising revenues have not fallen off and because Facebook became a part of over one billion lives across the globe, they will continue to thrive even though the company and its executives have come under fire from the US government and major news networks.
Politics and The Halo Effect
A study by Verhulst, Lodge & Lavine (2010) found that attractiveness and familiarity are strong predictors of decisions regarding who is put in a position of leadership. Judgments made following one-second exposures to side-by-side photos of two US congressional candidates were reasonably predictive of election outcomes. Attractiveness and familiarity were correlated with competence in this study. Candidates who appeared more attractive and familiar were also seen as more competent and were found more likely to be elected. Similar studies (Palmer & Peterson 2012) found that even when taking factual knowledge into account, candidates who were rated as more attractive were still perceived as more knowledgeable. These results suggest that the halo effect greatly impacts how individuals perceive political knowledge and it demonstrates the powerful influence of the halo effect in politics. So, do you have to be attractive to win public office? No. That is not what is really being said in the two studies but it can be perceived that way. Attractiveness is not just about physical attributes and can come in several different forms. For this exercise, let’s take pure looks off the table and focus on things like relatability, familiarity, association, and the voting public’s perception.
Clutter on Every Street Corner
When election time comes around, corners are flooded with signs and mailboxes are stuffed with direct mail pieces. The signs on the street corner are hard to differentiate and (usually) just have someone’s name, district or precinct, and use words like “vote.” It is truly like all politicians buy from the same sign store and do the same thing (because they have always done it that way). But, can you really tell a story with just your name and asking a stranger at a stoplight to vote for you based on your party affiliation? Yes, people do vote straight Democrat or straight Republican. They, also prefer to identify themselves as “Independent” to escape judgement or be seen as not having enough information or intelligence to vote at the candidate level. In short, straight party voting is simple and the easiest way to get out of a voting location and get your “I Voted!” sticker.
But, in the 2018 primaries, there were some negative effects to all of the candidate signs on social media. People took to candidates’ social media pages complaining about the signs. They used words like “litter” or asked, “When are you going to take your signs down?” I saw one person, on Twitter, tell a candidate that if they were “just going to leave your clutter and not pick up your garbage, because it is an eyesore in MY neighborhood, you just lost my vote!” It is hard enough to gain support from (just) a sign but did anyone ever think it could cause a candidate to lose support?
In Pharr County, during the primaries in March 2016, out of 21 candidates, only three were in compliance at a polling station. One candidate had a total of 25 signs. “If I was a voter I would think about the person that was following the law and I would think about a candidate that can count more than two,” said Pharr resident Kenneth Fletcher.
Junk Mail Strikes Again, and Again, and Again…
When looking at direct mail, which is a widely used medium in political races, there is more of an opportunity to tell one’s story and show who they really are. They can show an image of them, their family, etc. They can plug their website, election dates, their slogan, and promote their platform. It is a powerful way to tell your story because you have so much flexibility. But, when is too much, simply, too much?
I will use an example from a certain neighborhood in San Antonio, Texas. During the 2016 election cycle, one candidate enlisted a local advertising agency to handle their campaign. The advertising agency was quite accomplished and had been in business for 20 years. Since I had an apartment in the area, for work, I had a mailbox and usually checked it once a week when I was in town. In one week, I received three (yes, 3) direct mail pieces that were exactly the same. These were thick cardboard, high-gloss and beautiful. I looked at it and then it went into the trash with a heap of junk mail because I did not receive any important mail there because my home is really in Austin. This was not the last I heard from this specific candidate and just rolled my eyes every other week when I opened my mail box. I kept asking myself, “Who is giving this person advice? This is insane!” Was it the candidate’s belief in this medium that caused their message to go out countless times? Or, was the advertising agency thinking, “We got a live one here so let’s get everything we can.”
Old Ways Die Hard
Traditional mediums used “rules” for decades and, for the most part, they have always made sense. If you run radio, you need to run radio enough to leave an impression on someone (Called the “Rule of 3”). You just don’t sprinkle a spot here or there and hope your constituents hear it. If you are doing radio you need to do enough to saturate your target audience and reach them as often as possible. Roughly translated, “You need to spend a lot of money!” The same applies to television commercials and yes, even similar rules apply to print and its effectiveness. For the majority of people running for office in smaller districts, counties, precincts, etc., I have yet to meet one who would not love to have unlimited funds and dominate the airwaves. But, for most those funds aren’t as easy to come by as one would think and they do have budgets that have to cover operations and the general cost of doing business. So, what is the alternative?
Traditional media lived on the concept of saturation for decades and the same rules do not apply with digital advertising strategies. It used to be, “go big or go home…” and spending in a few select places but now a political candidate has to be in hundreds of places, at the same time. to reach their target audience. The hard truth is most agencies, due to partnerships, reseller agreements, and their own desire to make money for themselves, along with digital companies, who want you to buy their products and services, do not like this because it lessens their piece of the advertising pie. And, let us not forget the naysayers and conspiracy theorists who are claiming the negative impact of digital advertising trying to sustain their dying business model or old belief system for as long as they can. It is not like the digital age has not given rise to just as many negatives as it has positives.
Considering the last twelve months and all of the discussions about Russian influence in the general election, Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of Facebook user data, “fake news,” and the rise of platforms like Twitter which allows people to build massive followings, it has been quite the circus. But, one thing is undeniable: Digital is not going anywhere and is now the most strategic tool a politician can use (when done right). And, if we go back to “The Halo Effect” and look at key terms, like attractiveness, relatability, and familiarity a political candidate must have a 360-degree approach to the market and, essentially, be everywhere.
The Birth of “Halo”
I recently worked on a political campaign for a State House of Representatives primary and was introduced to the Chief of Staff via a mutual connection. After a brief conversation, we talked about strategy and their digital strategy revolved around Facebook. Obviously, the amount spent on social media over the last 3-4 election cycles on social media is staggering and caught their attention and they were committed to Facebook exclusively. The reality is that is only one way to reach your audience and even when spending money to get ads or posts promoted, you will be hard pressed to reach a large percentage of them. This is when we introduced, what we now call, The Halo Strategy.
The big question was how could we, with a limited budget, be everywhere at once?
It is much easier than one would think today. Why? The evolution of digital has created so many unique and powerful targeting options that you can literally select people based on age, gender, device like a phone or desktop computer, geography, content they consume, political affiliations, economic status, with children, by faith and the list goes on. This creates the ability to deliver the right message (or, multiple messages) to the right people based on who they are.
Familiarity. With the Halo Strategy, we would not look at one digital platform; we would look at several. Promoted posts and announcements on Facebook could run throughout the district talking about community issues and open houses. Ad creative using Display Networks (aka. Banners) could be targeted to military, families, business owners, the elderly and even men/women and run simultaneously (with different ad units for each audience segment) and tracked for effectiveness. Every endorsement became a news article running via Native (aka. Content Marketing) on websites like Fox News, CNN, ESPN, and even the largest radio station’s website in the region, where people consumer their weather, local and national news, sports and live their lives consuming content. Google’s search engine played a role with using their search engine platform (aka. PPC) to catch people who were looking for our candidate, their competitor, or asking questions about local politics. And, using email marketing we could, at the push of a button, hit 100,000 voting age citizens, broken out by gender and political affiliation, on their phones and in their inbox with more than just a “Vote for Us” message; it was a community update, announcing endorsements, making sure people knew when early voting began, etc. And, in the final weeks, we could take the new TV commercials and convert them to YouTube videos to play before someone was going to watch something else in key counties and cities. The strategy was to be everywhere and look at the internet as a whole. From catching someone reading about an endorsement on ESPN about a local leader to saturating key counties to target a specific gender who was leaning towards the other candidate, the campaign could deliver different messages to different people at different times in different ways. Familiarity? Check!
Attractiveness. Pictures tell a thousand words and there are some hard truths in politics and especially our personal lives. Does a Hispanic identify better with a Hispanic in a commercial? Yes. If someone is attractive do we have a different perception of them? Yes. Does someone dressed in a crisp suit give a perception of success? Yes. We see it in everything. The color of someone’s skin, the car someone drives or the clothing brands they wear can alter our perception of them. Just ask Abercrombie and Fitch who, in the nineties, had a PR nightmare because they were secretly hiring exceptionally attractive boys and girls, only.
Now, does this mean that every politician or public figure should schedule a boudoir shoot or make a modeling portfolio? No. But, it does mean that pictures and images of a candidate have a direct impact on their attractiveness. But, what also can have an even larger impact on someone’s attractiveness is their relatability.
Relatability. Perhaps the most important components of The Halo Strategy are relatability and our basic need to belong to something. It is not about “a picture” for a political campaign is it about imagery. For our candidate, we sourced every image imaginable from their files and found images of them standing front of a US flag shaking hands with two marines. There were personal pictures, already taken of their beautiful family, including their little girls. Standing on the side of a highway with a hardhat talking to TXDOT workers and promoting improved infrastructure tells a pretty good story, right? Who does not love children? Whether college scholarship recipients or grade school children, they both show examples of a commitment to education. Meeting with men and women in a retirement home shows commitment to our senior citizens. Adding the message of strength and power also can drive attractiveness by showing a candidate with a gavel, speaking to a public group, at a rally, or even speaking in a political setting can show a candidate who is “getting things done.”
Yes, this has been a strategy for every campaign in the past but now, digitally, you can find the people who will identify and relate to that message and effectively reach the right person with the right message. This allows for what we call “smart spending” and, in the digital world, it costs no more to run 30 creative concepts than it does to run three.
Parting Thoughts
Building influence to win a political campaign requires a lot of things to be successful. From the right candidate and platform to the right team and approach, everything needs to come together. In the 2016 Presidential Election, just look at the Republican Primary. 17 candidates walked onto a stage (not to mention lesser candidates who never made the major discussions and debates) and one walked away. In short, there were 16 losers. To win in today’s digital world, the number one thing to remember, from an advertising perspective, is that you cannot reach your base in just one place. We all go to different websites, consume information differently, use different devices, and engage, socially, with different platforms and apps.
Targeting a platform like Facebook, only, limits your audience. Of course, you need to build your following on Facebook. But, your communication plan, socially, must include, at the very least, Twitter, as well. Just buying millions of banner impressions for display ads, to saturate a market, can limit your story (have you seen the size of some of those on a phone?). Email marketing can have a massive impact but it too can cause the same fatigue that direct mail does because people do not want to hear from you, multiple times in a given week or month. Content marketing can place you across all news websites and get your articles syndicated but is not strong enough to build your brand on its own. It is not about domination in one or two of these; it is the strategic plan that incorporates all possible solutions to, literally, cause The Halo Effect to impact your chances to win your election and influence people’s votes.
About
With a career spanning over two decades of digital sales, operations, marketing experience, James Smith has developed a reputation for building high performance organizations for industry leaders. He is a public speaker, consultant, mentor, husband, and father.