Austin, TX – The firm Harris Interactive in Austin was successful in managing Benjamin Netanyahu’s online campaign and voter data, and now shares its secrets to the win in their first non-American campaign.
The firm is known for its creative ways to spread political messages and attain new voters. New York Magazine spoke to the company’s 28-year-old Vice President Michael Duncan about the specifics of the campaign.
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Clear definition against opponents
The firm was clear that President Obama was not a target or focus of the campaign, but focused on Israelis who were in support of stopping Iran.
The firm used splash pages in both Hebrew and English to direct users to Harris Interactive’s livestream of Netanyahu’s speech in front of Congress, then “cookie’d” their browsers to remarket to them, in addition to using search-engine and display ads to drive users to the speech in Harris’ page. They also reposted positive comments from elected officials and retweeted Twitter comments.
Only attack opponents whose supporters you might gain
Because the Israeli government has over 10 political parties, the company was very careful about how they communicated with supporters of other runners in the election. If they attacked an opponent harshly, those supporters might not have gone with Netanyahu.
Heavy use of Facebook
The firm gathered data from the backend of Facebook and targeted possible supporters with short viral ads.
Use social media until the last possible minute
The firm had a web video on the site where Netanyahu made his case directly to voters.
Use of Smartphone Apps
Israel has a heavy use of WhatsApp and the firm used that app to direct users to the polls.
This article was first published at vosizneias, by Mitch Stern
