How Can Big Data Help Political Campaigns?

The goal of every political campaign is to maximize the probability of victory. A campaign consists of two steps:

1. Identify those who would vote for you!
2. „Get out the vote!” (a political term for mobilizing voter turnout)

To succeed in any of these steps, politicians need every available information about their potential audience. To gain insight into the behaviour of the voters, campaign strategists are becoming more and more reliant on large datasets. Nowadays there is more than ever publicly available data about the population which can be merged with additional data sources, for example purchased databases from commercial firms. When enough data is gathered, experts and technologists with the help of data analytics endeavour to answer questions like: Which segments of the population should I include in the targeted audience? Which channels should I use to reach them? How should I persuade them to donate to the campaign?

Identifying your targeted audience properly is essential to the campaign. Focusing on those who are very likely to vote for you or against you is just a waste of time and money. Once you know your potential voters, you can move on to the next question: how to make sure that your supporters will actually turn up on the day of the election? Although Big Data is a relatively new phenomenon, campaign strategist always relied on some form of data (statistics) and numerous researches were conducted in the topic of ’Get out the vote” campaigns. For instance, whether a segment of the population can be mobilized by volunteers, who contact them on Election Day in person, or a phone call or an e-mail is more expedient.

In these days a growing number of politicials use data as a competitive advantage. Barack Obama may have been a pioneer of this field. His technology team consisted of coders, engineers and data scientists. Their goal was to figure out how social media and smartphones could contribute to the campaign. For each state Obama’s team conducted 5000 to 10000 interviews to determine the preference of the voters. Based on this information they looked for patterns between the voters and derived individual-level scores to estimate how likely is that a given voter would prefer Obama. In 2012 many experts attributed Obama’s success to his data-driven campaign.

References:

• http://www.infoworld.com/article/2613587/big-data/the-real-story-of-how-big-data-analytics-helped-obama-win.html?page=2
• http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/509026/how-obamas-team-used-big-data-to-rally-voters/
• http://www.cio.co.uk/blogs/mike-lynch-autonomy/barak-obamas-big-data-won-us-election/
• http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.28.2.51
• http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.nl/2014/05/big-data-in-political-campaigns.html
• image: http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/06/14/Outlook/Images/Obama_edited.jpg

by 419476dt

Would a smartphone kill switch deter thieves?

Stealing smartphones can apparently be very profitable. The more valuable the device is, the greater the payoff can be. ‘Apple picking’ (Pepitone 2013) will usually result in the highest payouts on the black market. This explains why smartphones are bait for thieves. According to Gogolak (2013), ‘about 113 smartphones are lost or stolen each minute in the United States and (…) cellphone thefts account for 30 to 40 percent of all robberies nationwide.’ If a smartphone is not protected by a password, private information can be accessed which can lead to identity theft.

The Secure Our Smartphones (S.O.S.) initiative was formed in 2013 to help oppose the rise of smartphone theft and the rising injuries and deaths resulting from it. This initiative proposes to add kill switch software to smartphones, which will allow users to remotely delete phone content and make it unusable in case it gets stolen.

However, a lot of smartphone companies already provide a standard application in their systems, e.g. Apple’s ‘Find my iPhone’ app and Samsung’s ‘Reactivation Lock’. This means that ‘at least 68 percent of U.S. smartphones already have something akin to the “kill switch” capability. And that number is only expected to grow: Google and Microsoft have also announced plans to put these kinds of features in their (…) systems.’ (Tsukayama 2014).

This August, a law was passed in California that requires smart phones to have a built in kill switch. However, this law does not specify how the switch should be designed and implemented (Lewis 2014). Currently the Dutch Ministry of Safety and Justice is consulting with smartphone companies about the kill switch. Opposition states that a kill switch imposed by a government might in the end give that governments the power to turn off people’s cellphones. What do you think? Is a kill switch a must have for every smartphone? And should it be imposed by governments?

References       

Dove LL 2014, Why don’t carriers want a kill switch for stolen phones? How Stuff Works, viewed 4 October 2014, <http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/kill-switch-stolen-phones.htm&gt;.

Gogolak EC 2013, Smartphone Makers Pressed to Address Growing Theft Problem, The New York Times, viewed 4 October 2014, < http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/smartphone-makers-pressed-to-address-growing-theft-problem/&gt;.

Lewis D 2014, California Passes Smartphone Kill Switch Law, Forbes, viewed 4 October 2014, <http://www.forbes.com/sites/davelewis/2014/08/29/california-passes-smartphone-kill-switch-law/&gt;

Pepitone J 2013, Would a smartphone killswitch deter thieves? CNN, viewed 4 October 2014, <http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/13/technology/mobile/smartphone-theft/&gt;.

Tsukayama H 2014, The smartphone “kill switch” explained, The Washington Post, viewed 4 October 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/08/27/the-smartphone-kill-switch-explained/

Vroegrijk M 2014, Killswitch krijgt prominente plek in Nederlandse Samsung-toestellen, NU.nl, viewed 4 October 2014, < http://www.nu.nl/gadgets/3894243/killswitch-krijgt-prominente-plek-in-nederlandse-samsung-toestellen.html&gt;

Will Apple bend under pressure?

Every year, Apple releases a new iPhone, and this year it was no more different than previous years. However, the release of the phone was not without hassle. The iPhone 6+ had some serious issues: when there is a certain amount of pressure applied on the iPhone 6+, it would bend. Obviously, for a €799 phone, this is unacceptable for a lot of people. This bending issue or bendgate has lead to a lot of discussion on the Internet.

And a few companies have made good use of this ‘bendgate’. Samsung for example had released the Galaxy Note Edge, which had a curved screen on the edge.

LG also had a phone that was curved, the LG G Flex and also released a funny tweet about it.

And even Heineken took advantage of the situation.

These three companies took advantage of the situation and were promoting their own product, while ‘humiliating’ the iPhone 6+. Viral marketing is nowadays very important when using social media. This article, written by Kaplan and Haenlein (2011), explains what rules you need to follow in order to make something viral. These companies created something memorable and interesting. As you can see in the tweets, all three products are bend or curved.  Another option is to create humorous or hilarious messages in order to attract the attention of the reader. In all three cases, the caption of the tweet is pretty funny (if you have the same level of humour as I do). But companies do have to watch out with provocative or edgy messages. Sometimes it could work in your favour, but these kind of messages can also work against you. Fortunately for these companies, they knew what the limit was, and these messages worked in their favour.

In my opinion, these kind of messages are pretty funny and well thought. Creating something catchy to put Apple in a bad light whilst at the same time promote your own product. What do you think about these kind of social media marketing strategies? Funny, well-thought or childish? Or do you think bad marketing is also marketing in the case of Apple?

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Sources:
Kaplan, A. M., and Haenlein, M. (2011) ‘Two hearts in three-quarter time: How to waltz the social media/viral marketing dance’, Business Horizons, vol. 54, pp. 253-263.

Hein, B. (2014) ‚ Bendgate Day 3: Best bendy iPhone 6 jokes to ease your pain’, http://www.cultofmac.com/297744/bendgate-day-3-brands-brands-brands-jokes-jokes-jokes/ September 25, 2014.

China: Where The Fastest Growing IT Market Meets Firewalls?!

It was quite impossible to miss the recent IPO of the Chinese internet company Alibaba. With a closing valuation of more than $231 billion on its first day it only trails Google Inc., Apple Inc., and Microsoft Corp making it the biggest IPO in the history. The Chinese market is currently the second largest in the world. In addition, they have, by far, the world’s largest number of Internet and mobile phone users. Some even believe that homegrown apps are already outperforming their U.S. counterparts, and that China may eventually dominate much of the mobile e-commerce landscape.

But these facts holds a sharp contrast with the way the chinese population itself is allowed to use the Internet. Currently, China is the 6th most censored country in the world regarding the Internet. And while they officially deny it, the Chinese government has always implemented a high level of censorship. Internet, but also television, printmedia, radio, film, e-mail and textmessages are all inspected and controlled by the government. For the Internet in particular, they have installed a special software along with a huge number of inspectors to keep an eye on their citizens. Outsiders refer to the system as “The Great Chinese Firewall” as they are not able to access (and therefore enter) the Chinese market due to this.

One might ask how such a major market player can still deploy such old customs? And will they be able to hold on to these in the future? Naturally, such deeply embedded customs will not suddenly dissapear but with the ever growing internet market, in which they are increasingly involved, it seems impossible to keep banning outside information. In addition, recent events showed that the Chinese population is finding ways to bypass the censorship. During the recent protests in Hong Kong, demanding greater democracy, protesters have, among other, used the internet to express their dissatisfaction. During these, of course not approved, outings there were signs that China’s formidable censorship machine was struggling to keep up with smart commenters who found ways to bypass the authorities. Will this be the beginning of the end?

I am curious about your opinion! How do you think about China’s censorship? And how do you think they can maintain this along with its growing market? Let me know what you think!

Bibliography:

Frier, S. (2014) “Alibaba Passes Facebook in Market Value on First Day” bloomberg.com. [Accessed on 4 October 2014] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-19/alibaba-passes-facebook-in-market-value-on-first-trade.html

Einhorn, B. (2014) “How China’s Government Set Up Alibaba’s Success” businessweek.com. [Accessed on 4 October 2014] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-07/how-chinas-government-set-up-alibabas-success

USA Today (2014) “Top 10 Internet-censored countries” usatoday.com. [Accessed on 4 October 2014] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/05/top-ten-internet-censors/5222385/

Flannery, R. (2014) “Alibaba’s Success Is Another Wake-Up Call From China To Americans. Hear It?” forbes.com. [Accessed on 4 October 2014] http://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2014/09/21/alibabas-success-is-another-wake-up-call-from-china-to-americans-hear-it/

Black, E. (2011) “China’s Internet Censorship Harms Trade, US Companies” forbes.com. [Accessed on 4 October 2014] http://www.forbes.com/sites/edblack/2011/12/06/chinas-internet-censorship-harms-trade-us-companies/

How Kieskeurig infuriated the biggest webshops

Anyone who has followed the Dutch news last week knows that Kieskeurig has caused a lot of agitation with many webshops, under which three of the biggest e-tail companies in the Netherlands: Bol.com, Coolblue and Wehkamp.

For those of you who don’t know what Kieskeurig is: It is a big Dutch price comparison website for all kinds of consumer products; from electronics to clothes and from cars to memopads. Last week they introduced a new revenue model. For every click to your website you have to pay a certain fee and the height of fee is dependent on the product price. Expensive products like TV’s, smartphones and laptops will generate higher fees than for instance toys. Previously the fee was the same for every product (Emerce.nl, 2014).

This new way generating revenue didn’t go well with many of the big players in the Dutch online market. Bol.com and Coolblue were the first to take away products from Kieskeurig. Yesterday I attended Pieter Zwart ‘s (CEO Coolblue) monthly presentation for Coolblue’s employees where he said: “This is not the way we want to do business where Kieskeurig just suddenly decides to change things without our consult.” The only products from Coolblue that will remain in the Kieskeurig comparisons are the Coolbluefanshop products.

Wehkamp also stated that they do not agree with the way Kieskeurig one-sidedly changed the agreement, so they decided to terminate their contract and take away their products from the price comparison website (NOS.nl, 2014). Bol.com took a different approach and makes a cost-benefit analysis for each product to see if it is worth paying the fee. The consequence is that Bol.com has already removed a quarter of its products from Kieskeurig.

Kieskeurig has not yet responded to this massive exodus, but next week they will start talking to the directors of these companies in the hope that they can come to a solution (Pieter Zwart, 2014).

What do you think about Kieskeurig suddenly changing their revenue model? If you apply Porter’s five forces model (2008) I think that they probably thought that their bargaining power in this industry was very high, as well as the switching costs, but the industry has proven them wrong. Competitors suddenly became allies in their protest against Kieskeurig. What should be Kieskeurig’s next steps?

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Sources:

Emerce.nl (2014) Bol.com en Coolblue weg bij Kieskeurig, http://www.emerce.nl/nieuws/bol-com-coolblue-weg-kieskeurig, 30 September 2014.

NOS.nl (2014) Bol en Wehkamp weg bij Kieskeurig, http://nos.nl/artikel/704876-bol-en-wehkamp-weg-bij-kieskeurig.html, 1 October 2014

Porter, M.E. (2008) The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy, Harvard business Review, January 2008.

Zwart P. (2014), Coolblue Vrijdag Vragenvuur, Weena 664, Rotterdam, 3 October 2014.

The future of Angry Birds

While looking at photos of my exchange in Asia two years ago, I noticed something: the huge amounts of Angry Bird toys and t-shirts present in the background of my photos. I remembered us talking about the game, and how popular it had become in such a short time.

Angry Birds is a mobile game developed by Rovio Entertainment. Since the start of the game in 2009, the application has been downloaded over 2 billion times, with 263 million active users per month in 2012. After the initial success, Rovio started expanding the Angry Birds brand into areas such as toys and clothes. In March 2013 it even launched a streaming service with cartoons, which videos have been viewed over 3 billion times since then (The Guardian 2014).

Nowadays, about half of the income is generated by selling games, while the other half comes from the merchandise of Angry Birds products such as video’s and toys. Rovio is continuing to launch new versions of the game and cartoons, and even signed on for an Angry Bird movie.

However, when looking around these days, it can be noticed quite quickly that almost no one is playing Angry Birds anymore. This is consistent with Rovio’s press release of September, where it reported a loss of about 24% of its players: the number has lowered by 63 million to 200 million (The Guardian 2014). Even though this means Angry Birds is still one of the games on the market with the largest audience, it is a significant loss – it seems as if Angry Birds has passed its popularity peak.

In order to not rapidly slide down this slope, Rovio should consider its options for maintaining a strong brand image and keeping its revenues up.
In my opinion, there are 2 ways to take. At the moment Rovio has a split focus: both merchandise and the game are at the core of the strategy. The company could shift its focus to only one of those, thus emphasizing either the merchandise or the game.

Regarding the focus on merchandise, it seems a viable option. Angry Birds has become an established brand in several areas already: from clothes, to toys, to cartoons. With its cartoon being a great success, the chances of the promised movie becoming a hit seems highly likely. Rovio could leverage the strong brand image and popularity by expanding its merchandise into other areas, herewith increasing its revenues.

On the other hand, the focus could also be laid on the game itself. Rovio would have to continue innovation of the game by updating levels and launching new versions. However, other popular games such as Hay Day and Bejeweled have one major thing in common: they let users interact through platforms such as Facebook, hereby increasing the social component of the game. Angry Birds is a game purely played individually, which possibly might be a cause of the loss in gamers. Therefore, a higher level of social integration in the game could be a major factor in this strategy.

In the beginning of 2015 Rovio will get a new CEO: Pekka Rantala, previously marketing chief at Nokia. Will he know the answer on which direction to pursue? What do you believe to be the best strategy?

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/30/angry-birds-players-200m-rovio

http://www.rovio.com/en/about-us/Company