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Academic Review: Are presidential mobile campaigns at the tipping point?

An interview with Doug Busk, mobile technologies advisor to political campaigns, including the 2008 U.S. presidential election

 
By Logan Braman
 
Contributors: Michael Becker, iLoop Mobile, Inc.; Michael Hanley, Ball State University
 
Introduction
From the trivial to the pivotal the mobile channel is beginning to have an impact on politics throughout the world. As far back as 2001 text messaging has had an impact on politics. Text messaging chain letters were a key part of forcing Philippines’s President, Joseph Estrada to step down in 2001 (Wikipedia, 2007). Text messaging networks were disabled in Iran in 2005 and in Cambodia in 2007 by the governments who feared  the impact texting might have on elections (Wikipedia, 2007, Text Messaging Blocked 2007). As recently as November 2007, political sound bites have been turned into revenue generating ringtones.
At the Ibero-American Summit in Chile last month King Juan Carlos of Spain chided Venezuelan’s President Hugo Chavez by saying, “Why don’t you just shut up?”. The BBC reports that USD $2 million has been generated from an estimated 500,000 downloads of the “Why don’t you just shut up?” ringtone. 
The United States political scene is also now being impacted by the mobile channel. As the presidential campaigns take shape the use of the mobile channel is being taken to new levels. The following details a phone interview held December 12, 2007 with Doug Busk, Vice President of Industry Relations at SinglePoint and mobile technologies advisor to political campaigns, including the 2008 presidential election (Hanley, 2007). The interview was derived from Busk’s article “Election 2008: The Mobile Tipping Point” (Busk, 2007), which is available in the December issue of the Mobile Marketing Association’s award winning International Journal of Mobile Marketing (IJMM), see side bar for more on the IJMM.
 
Interview Review

                United States presidential candidates have increasingly used Web sites, e-mail and other online tools in recent campaigns. According to Doug Busk, the 2008 election will be the first time mobile campaigning will play an important role in the election. Multiple candidates are using text messaging (SMS) for voter outreach and fundraising, but Busk says mobile’s ultimate success won’t ultimately be determined after the election.

“How mobile might be used and what success stories might come out of it are the wild cards,” Busk says. “There’s always the possibility that mobile could affect a caucus or could affect turnout in a way that has a demonstrative impact on the end results in a tight race.”
                Mobile is becoming an increasingly important medium to candidates. Current mobile strategies to reach users who opt in include sending simple news announcements and calls for donations; video and picture messages could be used in the future. Whatever form the messages take, Busk says campaigns are concerned about how mobile efforts successfully affect two goals.
                “The campaigns that are using it are very keen to find out one of two things: does it drive votes or does it drive donations,” he said. “I think we can safely say that it’s not going to be able to drive donations, at least not immediately, but there may well be a possibility of it driving votes.”
                Donations, while desirable, present a difficulty to mobile campaigns because of complex campaign finance laws. Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is leveraging mobile to drive votes. Obama’s mobile efforts, which Busk is involved with, have included giving users coupons through text messages to buy items at the candidate’s online store, and responding to constituents’ texted questions.
                “I wish I had been a fly on the wall when the person who texted a question to the Obama campaign got a response back a day later answering their question,” he said. “I would have loved to see the look on their face. That’s really what excites me, not only about politics but also the power of mobile. It’s this wonderful little computing device you carry with you everywhere that can connect you to everyone in the world.”
                Mobile campaigning has an increasing allure for candidates, but will voters be affected by mobile efforts? According to Busk’s article, the answer lies in the past and how other campaign tools like online video have fared.
                “It was very hard to predict what the moment was that was going to make online video a campaign necessity, and then it happened with Senator Allen and the macaca incident,” Busk said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen now with mobile.”
                Despite the uncertainty, Busk is confident something will push mobile marketing into the realm of necessity. The catalyst for the tipping point is uncertain, but Busk said media use and knowledge of mobile, campaign use of mobile and user-generated mobile applications are the three most important areas.
                “Between those three areas you have what is effectively the dynamite for the mobile explosion. Something is going to light the fuse,” Busk said. “I don’t know what it is. It might be a user-generated ringtone that supports or is satirical of a candidate. It might be a flash mob at a particular candidate’s event that is organized over SMS.”
                Whether a proper situation to light the fuse will occur in the 2008 election or the future is the big question. To Busk, the question is easy to answer when the most important factors are considered.
                “The number one thing to remember is that we’re up to 250 million mobile users in the United States,” he said. “With two-thirds of them using SMS on a regular basis and many campaigns leveraging SMS, the opportunity is great for that tipping point incident to happen in 2008. I’d say stay tuned.”
 
About the author
Logan Braman is a junior at Ball State University, Muncie Indiana, majoring in magazine writing.
 
To provide feedback on this article, contact the authors at research@mmaglobal.com.
 
References
 
Busk, D. (2007, December). Election 2008: The Mobile Tipping Point. International Journal of Mobile Marketing, 2(2).
Hanley, M. (2007, 12/December). Interview. Telephone; Muncie, IN.
Rageh, R. (2006, 20/Aug.). Text messages, cellphone ring tones all the rage among young Iraqis. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless ... hones-popular-iraq_x.htm.
Text Messaging Blocked in Cambodia. (2007, 3/Mar.). Retrieved from http://www.tech2.com/india/news/mobil ... ocked-in-cambodia/4939/0.
'Shut up' Chavez is ringtone hit. (2007, 19/Nov). In BBC News [Electronic version].
Wikipedia (2007) Retrieved 10/12/07, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_messaging.
 
 
 
 

]]> Lisa Harris Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:12:52 -0100