driven media
you’re a media agency or outdoor specialist looking to create campaigns for your clients .
just over two - thirds of companies (68 per cent) are taking a more joined - up approach to media planning as a result of media convergence, research from mediaocean and econsultancy has found .
cmos ranked social media as the most effective media investment, rating it as the top driver for brand awareness surpassing digital and traditional advertising and search. high performing marketing organizations that use attribution models to maximize and unlock the value of social media channels were 10 percent more effective at using social media to drive brand awareness, over 9 percent more effective at generating customer engagements and over 9 percent more effective at obtaining prospective customer responses .
astoundingly, high performing cmos are 50 percent more effective at determining the impact of offline and online media, as well as emerging media types, device types and non - media factors (e. g. weather, traffic, economy) on marketing performance and growth than their cmo counterparts. fifty - two percent of high performing marketers adopted people - based targeting to incorporate more data about media, touch points and deliver higher levels of transparency, attribution and connection to financial outcomes .
the acnielsen hong kong homescan panel captures actual consumer purchase information via a permanent, syndicated and representative sample of a studied universe. in july of 2003 acnielsen administered a self - completed media habits questionnaire to its entire panel in the interest of examining the effectiveness of various media in reaching early users of a new shampoo. this case study highlights that the media habit data, when superimposed on the category behavior data of the same respondents, can provide rich insights on the media behavior of groups exhibiting a certain category behavior pattern .
however, 84 per cent of agencies felt that clients had a limited understanding of the impact of changing media consumption habits on their business .
the research highlights that the highest performing marketers (those that exceeded their growth plans by over 25 percent) are more data - driven and effective in the way they measure and manage marketing performance. cmos are far more confident in their media allocation decisions, forecastability and impact on sales, particularly offline sales attribution. amidst the current downward industry trend in marketing budget cuts, leading cmos advise spending aggressively on marketing measurement rather than trimming it in order to achieve greater media effectiveness and efficiency .
it was also found that over half (59 per cent) of companies say that media convergence has resulted in higher budgets for digital at the expense of offline budgets .
high performing marketers were significantly more data - driven in their approach to measuring, optimizing and reallocating their offline and online investments. those marketers built significantly (27 percent) larger internal staff dedicated to marketing performance measurement. over a quarter of the highest performing marketers are investing over 10 percent of their working media budget on performance measurement and analytics – three times the level of the rest of the sample. these trailblazers are 3 times more likely to say they will beat their sales targets by 25 percent or more .
the research, which included in - depth interviews with 13 agency and cmo executives and an online survey amongst 150 agencies, found that agencies believe convergence delivers tangible return on investment (roi); with 60 per cent believing it delivers more measurable campaign effectiveness, and 41 per cent stating it has driven direct sales uplift .
around a third (31 per cent) of the agencies surveyed noted that their clients were actively restructuring their organisations to manage their integrated campaigns more effectively, while 73 per cent of agencies believe a siloed organisational structure is preventing clients from taking a more integrated approach to media planning .
the methodology looks quite similar to the one that michal kosinski once developed. cambridge analytica also uses, nix told us ,
surveys on social media
and facebook data. and the company does exactly what kosinski warned of :
we have profiled the personality of every adult in the united states of america—220 million people ,
nix boasts .
linus gregoriadis, research director for econsultancy, added: “this study makes two things clear. first, marketers are shifting their working models dramatically to adjust for the new media consumption. second, many marketers still aren’t sure how they’ll keep pace with the change. we’re happy to have shed some light on what the smartest marketers are doing to transform with the times. ”
if you share your content on social media, monitor the traffic that comes through that source and how it behaves by utilizing utm parameters that are linked to your analytics account. keep track of how people are responding to your content by paying attention to audience follower growth and the amount of likes, shares, comments, and retweets on each of your pieces of content .
the copywriting portion of content marketing is the fun part, but in order to truly get the most out the content you produce it’s vital that you begin thinking about how effective your content is analytically. a truly effective content marketer combines both the creative and analytical aspects of proper content marketing to produce engaging, hard - hitting copy that is backed by significant amounts of quantitative research to inform what is being discussed. the following are some of the most important elements of proper data driven content marketing to keep in mind to help give your content marketing program a substantial edge over your competition .
on november 9 at around 8. 30 am. , michal kosinski woke up in the hotel sunnehus in zurich. the 34 - year - old researcher had come to give a lecture at the swiss federal institute of technology (eth) about the dangers of big data and the digital revolution. kosinski gives regular lectures on this topic all over the world. he is a leading expert in psychometrics, a data - driven sub - branch of psychology. when he turned on the tv that morning, he saw that the bombshell had exploded: contrary to forecasts by all leading statisticians, donald j. trump had been elected president of the united states .
on the same day, a then little - known british company based in london sent out a press release :
we are thrilled that our revolutionary approach to data - driven communication has played such an integral part in president - elect trump' s extraordinary win ,
alexander james ashburner nix was quoted as saying. nix is british, 41 years old, and ceo of cambridge analytica. he is always immaculately turned out in tailor - made suits and designer glasses, with his wavy blonde hair combed back from his forehead. his company wasn' t just integral to trump' s online campaign, but to the uk' s brexit campaign as well .
pretty much every message that trump put out was data - driven ,
alexander nix remembers. on the day of the third presidential debate between trump and clinton, trump' s team tested 175, 000 different ad variations for his arguments, in order to find the right versions above all via facebook. the messages differed for the most part only in microscopic details, in order to target the recipients in the optimal psychological way: different headings, colors, captions, with a photo or video. this fine - tuning reaches all the way down to the smallest groups, nix explained in an interview with us .
we can address villages or apartment blocks in a targeted way. even individuals .
hillary clinton, on the other hand, relied heavily on the legacy of the first
social - media president ,
barack obama. she had the address lists of the democratic party, worked with cutting - edge big data analysts from bluelabs and received support from google and dreamworks. when it was announced in june 2016 that trump had hired cambridge analytica, the establishment in washington just turned up their noses. foreign dudes in tailor - made suits who don' t understand the country and its people? seriously ?
surf a little the key to ensuring that what you’re writing is engaging is making sure that you’re staying on top of trends in your industry, and being aware of what your audience finds valuable. a fairly simple way to do this is to monitor social media conversations on twitter and facebook to stay abreast of news and developments. regularly check industry news outlets and the social profiles of industry influencers to see what “hot topics” are circulating amongst your audience. the content you create should offer some fresh perspective or an appropriate response / reaction to the particular topic .
“the unfortunate and inaccurate title of ‘non - working media’ in many marketing budgets is leading to continuing reductions in these expenditures. that is exactly the wrong outcome as measurement and data expenditures actually make the entire marketing investment more effective and efficient, ” said tony pace, former subway cmo and marketing accountability standards board chair. “marketers need to start thinking about the data they collect on their marketing efforts as a line item on the balance sheet and use it to fuel further marketing growth. it’s oxymoronic to think you can cut non - working dollars and reallocate it to working - dollars to achieve higher marketing performance. ”
just how precisely the american population was being targeted by trump' s digital troops at that moment was not visible, because they attacked less on mainstream tv and more with personalized messages on social media or digital tv. and while the clinton team thought it was in the lead, based on demographic projections, bloomberg journalist sasha issenberg was surprised to note on a visit to san antonio—where trump' s digital campaign was based—that a
second headquarters
was being created. the embedded cambridge analytica team, apparently only a dozen people, received $ 100, 000 from trump in july, $ 250, 000 in august, and $ 5 million in september. according to nix, the company earned over $ 15 million overall. (the company is incorporated in the us, where laws regarding the release of personal data are more lax than in european union countries. whereas european privacy laws require a person to
opt in
to a release of data, those in the us permit data to be released unless a user
opts out .
)
written by a network of activists, writers, and academics from strike debt, the debt resisters’ operations manual reveals how the predatory debt system works to increase inequality, undermine democracy, and ruin lives. it provides detailed strategies for fighting common forms of debt and lays out an expansive vision for a societal movement of debt resistance. the full text of the manual is available here for free .
that debt is neither inevitable nor ethical is one of the powerful assertions of strike debt, whose brilliant manual is both a practical handbook and a manifesto for a true debt jubilee: an economic rebirth in which the indebted are freed and financial institutions are reinvented. it' s a stunning intersection of ferocity (against the debt industry) and compassion (for the people whose lives are broken by debt). in years to come, we may look back on it as a landmark in social transformation; right now it is both useful and exhilarating .
the impact of the neoliberal assault on the u. s. population in the past generation has rightly been designated a' failure by design.' this failure is sharply class - based - for the designers it has been a grand success, and a failure for most of the rest. the same is true of debt. that sets two tasks for those who care about the health of the society: change the design, and find ways to cope as effectively with the failures it imposes. this valuable monograph by strike debt provides a good guide to undertake both .
this manual is a practical guide that will aid anyone who is struggling with debt. but even more important, it is a political guide that illuminates the myriad kinds of debt relationships that define our society and helps us imagine how we can begin to organize collectively against debt .
the debt resisters' operations manual is a powerful tool for resistance and creation. it shows how we can say' no!' to debt - resist and refuse - while at the same time opens the possibility of alternative ways of relating and creating real value together - based on solidarity and care .
the debt resisters' operation manual is a sober, practical book that will save its readers much money and many sleepless nights. at the same time it is a visionary text that goes into the bowels of the debt machine to chart a collective way out of the state of debt - induced indentured servitude that millions of americans face. it is the new debt resisters' movement' s opening challenge to wall street that is making the bankers anxious. get a copy and join the movement .
the debt resisters' operations manual is a guide for every debtor living in the united states. given that more than 75% of american households are in debt right now, its relevance cannot be overstated. the manual is ambitious in subject matter but grounded in tone: plain and clear english is the best weapon if we want to understand the deliberately over - complicated debt economy .
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join us in our fight against the pernicious culture of fear and creeping authoritarianism .
our coverage alternet has initiated our fear coverage with a flurry of articles, which is a good start​. but there is so much more to do. we need your help to move forward over the weeks and months ahead. please make a contribution today. everyone who makes a financial contribution * to our annual spring fundraising campaign will receive our new e - book, fear in america: the biggest threat to our democracy .
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we used drivenmedia to help us promote our small business saturday event in derby. we had never used truck advertising like this before, yet we saw 20 of all ticket sales converted whilst the truck was in circulation around derby. we will definitely be using drivenmedia again to promote similar events and services .
advertising with drivenmedia has been very effective for the college of business, we find the monthly gps both useful and fascinating. we can match new enquiries from locations our truck has been over the last 24hours .
hello and welcome to overdrive, a program that practices what it preaches, most of the time, on the subject of cars and transport. i’m david brown and in this program, we look at news stories with david campbell including: tesla ute porsche smashes all - time
recently a lloyds auction for classic motorcars sold among other things a ford falcon gt ho for over a million dollars. some may ask why but nonetheless that’s the big news, but a critical element of that auction was a 1964 honda s 600
a conversation with professor david hensher as part of a podcast series for the university of sydney institute of transport and logistics studies (itls), david brown had a conversation with professor david hensher the founder and director of the itls. the subject was on
welcome to overdrive, a program that proudly gives you the alternative facts to all aspects of motoring and transport. i’m david brown and in this program, we look at news stories with including: toyota gazoo racing wins at le mans toyota confirms super sports
the event, now known as pikes peak international hill climb, is the second oldest motor racing event in america behind the indianapolis 500. it is a hill climb in every sense of the word as long as you don’t think a hill as a
hello and welcome to overdrive, a program that ponders the philosophical and the practical aspects of motoring and transport. i’m david brown and in this program, we look at news stories with including: musk company to build chicago - to - o’hare express transport acciona 100 %
overdrive: cars, transport & culture a weekly radio program featuring motoring & transport news from australia & around the world, road tests, feature interviews and quirky stories. overdrive is broadcast across australia. hosted by motoring broadcaster david brown with regular contributors errol smith, david campbell, brian smith, paul murrell and brent davison .
interview with ron goodman. aussie class win in # porsche 356 against american big $ at leguna seca @ andersonknight urltoken
@ kiaaustralia # stinger - stylish car with some raunchiness. can it fill the gap that commodore and falcon have lef… urltoken
@ audiaustralia road test of latest # q5 and # sq5 suvs. quiet, smooth, great awd system. more car like than ever. … urltoken
latest insights, case studies and news from agencies, tech vendors, freelancers and other organisations .
the enhanced personalisation potential of online channels sees agencies expecting to deliver more targeted messaging on behalf of clients (61 per cent), while 60 per cent of respondents expected their clients to see more customer interaction online .
sarah lawson johnston, mediaocean managing director for uk & ireland, said: “convergence is delivering greater transparency in both data and analytics, however marketers are struggling to grapple with how they’ll handle the last mile of breaking down siloes. this study gives answers to what’s being done. ”
“clients should be leading the strategy. it’s in our interests as companies to take the message to customers and do it in the best way possible, ” said kristof fahy, cmo of william hill. “agencies are there to help you. i want agencies to bring me the little things that are interesting. most marketers i meet are avid consumers of blogs, always on the lookout for the next trend and this is something the agency partners should be doing and bringing to us. ”
mediaocean and econsultancy will share the full research results at a live event in london on 14 november .
build your marketing knowledge by choosing from daily news bulletins or a weekly special .
hit the c - suite spot. 75% of the drum magazine readership are senior management or above .
© carnyx group ltd 2018 | the drum is a registered trademark and property of carnyx group limited. all rights reserved .
there’s no question that producing a well strategized and maintained content stream is crucial for the success of any digital business. the benefits are numerous and include everything from an increase in visitor engagement onsite, improved search engine rankings through seo, and if your content marketing initiatives are done correctly, the establishment of a “sticky” factor that keeps people coming back to your site .
leverage google trends as a tool for your research efforts to see what terms and trends are significant in searches and just how many people are expressing interest in these terms. the tool also allows you to see a forecast for any given term and topic allowing you to gauge the projected amount of interest users will have in this subject as time progresses. build this data into your planning phase so that you can identify which topics and subjects users are seeking to learn the most about, and ultimately allow it to help you define what your content should be related to and how effective it will be in providing value to readers. the content you create should always be substantiated by correlating data so that you know your efforts aren' t going to be useless. to highlight the benefits of utilizing google trends, consider the idea of a relatively new subject within your space and perhaps there isn' t a lot of existing content on it. take a look at google trends to see if this subject may gain traction within the next few months, allowing you and your organization to get an edge over competition, and be one of the first to provide insights on the topic of interest .
keyword research once you have a relevant topic, you’ll want to do your site a favor by ensuring that the final product benefits your search engine rankings and is easily accessible to users. to do this, create content that contains keywords appropriate to the article topic as well as your business’ products or service offerings. a great tool for this is google keyword planner. the goal here is to find keywords that have a high monthly search volume mixed with low competition, which greatly improves the chances of your content appearing prominently on the search results page when a user searches for the particular set of terms or keywords that you’ve identified. these keywords cannot simply be plugged into your content in any way possible, but instead should be naturally occurring in a way that provides an excellent and relevant user experience while simultaneously giving you as much seo value as possible .
hopefully you’re using a tool like google analytics on your website to help you monitor your site’s performance. if so, allow a week or so to pass after posting your content to allow data about how users are interacting with your content to aggregate. once you do, dig through the following metrics to analyze the performance of your content and it’s effectiveness in reaching the goal of the content. identify what types of content is repeatedly producing the best results, and what content could use some improvements, is one of the best ways you can enhance your seo by using data to drive your content marketing initiatives .
while it shouldn’t be the only metric that informs whether or not your content marketing initiatives are successful, page views are a solid metric that can be extremely helpful when it comes to comparing different pieces of content. it will inform you about what your audience is interested in and also help you identify what pieces of content are the most important on your site for generating traffic .
you’ll want this as low as possible, as it indicates the content was engaging enough to send people elsewhere through the site. remember that if you’re posting content on a blog a bounce rate at or just slightly below 90% is perfectly normal .
these metrics are tied to bounce rate, and reiterates a visitor’s engagement with the content. the longer the average time is that users are interacting with your content the more likely they are to be finding that content helpful .
looking at these two metrics for the overall site will give you a good idea of how effective the content you’re producing is to the overall user experience, and how extensively users are engaging with your website as a whole as a result .
with data backing what you produce, you can work on continual topic optimization and mold your content program into a tool that cannot only increase your business’ success in terms of online traffic and sales, but also position you and your team as thought leaders in your respective industries. by utilizing tools and programs that allow you to optimize your content, and then examining what’s working and what’s not, you can proactively develop a content program that is tailored to most closely fulfill the needs of your audience, and significantly improve rate that your business grows .
brian is a marketing manager born and raised in nyc. in between bouts of saving the world with his superhero team, he likes to write and eat pizza .
september 12, 2017 (sterling, va .) – neustar, inc. , a trusted, neutral provider of real - time information services, today released the findings of a marketing accountability report in collaboration with the forbes cmo practice. an analysis of over 800 cmos showed that high performing marketing organizations see measurement as a real driver of short - and long - term financial success: 5 percent improvement in marketing investment performance and 7. 5 percent better business growth outcomes versus average performers .
“analytics need to be at the heart of every marketing organization. i established this in my first 100 days to set the expectation for the relationship for the leadership team and the tone of every conversation going forward, ” said denise karkos, cmo, td ameritrade. “to make this happen, my first priority was to build a world class analytics team. we brought in marketing mix model and a range of partners to build an analytics foundation that demonstrates where marketing is contributing incremental growth. ”
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as marketers find more innovative ways to attract audiences, video has become a meaningful part of the strategic conversation .
video marketing is long past the status of an
up - and - coming
tactic. it' s here, and it' s an increasingly powerful way to communicate your brand story, explain your value proposition, and build relationships with your customers and prospects .
the most recent statistics show that video content isn' t just effective - - the demand for it is growing at an impressively rapid pace. did you know, for example, that
to learn more about how video marketing can help convert customers and increase engagement with your brand, check out the infographic below from vidyard (and for even more information, check out its video in business benchmark report). it breaks down 16 compelling video marketing statistics in the context of viewing platforms, distribution channels, business video consumption habits, and more .
want more tips for creating videos? check out these promotional product video examples .
editor' s note: this post was originally published in august 2015 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness .
how cambridge analytica used your facebook data to help the donald trump campaign in the 2016 election .
according to facebook, aleksandr kogan lied about deleting data that he obtained from a facebook personality test and improperly passed it to third parties. as we and others have reported, cambridge analytica ultimately partnered with the donald trump campaign to leverage the data of millions of facebook users to target them with advertisements and campaign material. the original investigation into cambridge analytica, published on motherboard in january 2017 and in german in das magazin in december 2016, follows below .
for a long time, kosinski watched the trump victory celebrations and the results coming in from each state. he had a hunch that the outcome of the election might have something to do with his research. finally, he took a deep breath and turned off the tv .
of these three players—reflective kosinski, carefully groomed nix and grinning trump—one of them enabled the digital revolution, one of them executed it and one of them benefited from it .
anyone who has not spent the last five years living on another planet will be familiar with the term big data. big data means, in essence, that everything we do, both on and offline, leaves digital traces. every purchase we make with our cards, every search we type into google, every movement we make when our mobile phone is in our pocket, every
like
is stored. especially every
like .
for a long time, it was not entirely clear what use this data could have—except, perhaps, that we might find ads for high blood pressure remedies just after we' ve googled
reduce blood pressure .
on november 9, it became clear that maybe much more is possible. the company behind trump' s online campaign—the same company that had worked for leave. eu in the very early stages of its
brexit
campaign—was a big data company: cambridge analytica .
to understand the outcome of the election—and how political communication might work in the future—we need to begin with a strange incident at cambridge university in 2014, at kosinski' s psychometrics center .
psychometrics, sometimes also called psychographics, focuses on measuring psychological traits, such as personality. in the 1980s, two teams of psychologists developed a model that sought to assess human beings based on five personality traits, known as the
big five .
these are: openness (how open you are to new experiences ?), conscientiousness (how much of a perfectionist are you ?), extroversion (how sociable are you ?), agreeableness (how considerate and cooperative you are ?) and neuroticism (are you easily upset ?). based on these dimensions—they are also known as ocean, an acronym for openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism—we can make a relatively accurate assessment of the kind of person in front of us. this includes their needs and fears, and how they are likely to behave. the
big five
has become the standard technique of psychometrics. but for a long time, the problem with this approach was data collection, because it involved filling out a complicated, highly personal questionnaire. then came the internet. and facebook. and kosinski .
michal kosinski was a student in warsaw when his life took a new direction in 2008. he was accepted by cambridge university to do his phd at the psychometrics centre, one of the oldest institutions of this kind worldwide. kosinski joined fellow student david stillwell (now a lecturer at judge business school at the university of cambridge) about a year after stillwell had launched a little facebook application in the days when the platform had not yet become the behemoth it is today. their mypersonality app enabled users to fill out different psychometric questionnaires, including a handful of psychological questions from the big five personality questionnaire (
i panic easily ,
i contradict others
). based on the evaluation, users received a
personality profile
—individual big five values—and could opt - in to share their facebook profile data with the researchers .
followers of lady gaga were most probably extroverts, while those who
liked
philosophy tended to be introverts .
kosinski had expected a few dozen college friends to fill in the questionnaire, but before long, hundreds, thousands, then millions of people had revealed their innermost convictions. suddenly, the two doctoral candidates owned the largest dataset combining psychometric scores with facebook profiles ever to be collected .
the approach that kosinski and his colleagues developed over the next few years was actually quite simple. first, they provided test subjects with a questionnaire in the form of an online quiz. from their responses, the psychologists calculated the personal big five values of respondents. kosinski' s team then compared the results with all sorts of other online data from the subjects: what they
liked ,
shared or posted on facebook, or what gender, age, place of residence they specified, for example. this enabled the researchers to connect the dots and make correlations .
remarkably reliable deductions could be drawn from simple online actions. for example, men who
liked
the cosmetics brand mac were slightly more likely to be gay; one of the best indicators for heterosexuality was
liking
wu - tang clan. followers of lady gaga were most probably extroverts, while those who
liked
philosophy tended to be introverts. while each piece of such information is too weak to produce a reliable prediction, when tens, hundreds, or thousands of individual data points are combined, the resulting predictions become really accurate .
kosinski and his team tirelessly refined their models. in 2012, kosinski proved that on the basis of an average of 68 facebook
likes
by a user, it was possible to predict their skin color (with 95 percent accuracy), their sexual orientation (88 percent accuracy), and their affiliation to the democratic or republican party (85 percent). but it didn' t stop there. intelligence, religious affiliation, as well as alcohol, cigarette and drug use, could all be determined. from the data it was even possible to deduce whether someone' s parents were divorced .
the strength of their modeling was illustrated by how well it could predict a subject' s answers. kosinski continued to work on the models incessantly: before long, he was able to evaluate a person better than the average work colleague, merely on the basis of ten facebook
likes .
seventy
likes
were enough to outdo what a person' s friends knew, 150 what their parents knew, and 300
likes
what their partner knew. more
likes
could even surpass what a person thought they knew about themselves. on the day that kosinski published these findings, he received two phone calls. the threat of a lawsuit and a job offer. both from facebook .
only weeks later facebook
likes
became private by default. before that, the default setting was that anyone on the internet could see your
likes .
but this was no obstacle to data collectors: while kosinski always asked for the consent of facebook users, many apps and online quizzes today require access to private data as a precondition for taking personality tests. (anybody who wants to evaluate themselves based on their facebook
likes
can do so on kosinski' s website, and then compare their results to those of a classic ocean questionnaire, like that of the cambridge psychometrics center. )
our smartphone, kosinski concluded, is a vast psychological questionnaire that we are constantly filling out, both consciously and unconsciously .
but it was not just about
likes
or even facebook: kosinski and his team could now ascribe big five values based purely on how many profile pictures a person has on facebook, or how many contacts they have (a good indicator of extraversion). but we also reveal something about ourselves even when we' re not online. for example, the motion sensor on our phone reveals how quickly we move and how far we travel (this correlates with emotional instability). our smartphone, kosinski concluded, is a vast psychological questionnaire that we are constantly filling out, both consciously and unconsciously .
above all, however—and this is key—it also works in reverse: not only can psychological profiles be created from your data, but your data can also be used the other way round to search for specific profiles: all anxious fathers, all angry introverts, for example—or maybe even all undecided democrats? essentially, what kosinski had invented was sort of a people search engine. he started to recognize the potential—but also the inherent danger—of his work .
to him, the internet had always seemed like a gift from heaven. what he really wanted was to give something back, to share. data can be copied, so why shouldn' t everyone benefit from it? it was the spirit of a whole generation, the beginning of a new era that transcended the limitations of the physical world. but what would happen, wondered kosinski, if someone abused his people search engine to manipulate people? he began to add warnings to most of his scientific work. his approach, he warned ,
could pose a threat to an individual' s well - being, freedom, or even life .
but no one seemed to grasp what he meant .
around this time, in early 2014, kosinski was approached by a young assistant professor in the psychology department called aleksandr kogan. he said he was inquiring on behalf of a company that was interested in kosinski' s method, and wanted to access the mypersonality database. kogan wasn' t at liberty to reveal for what purpose; he was bound to secrecy .
at first, kosinski and his team considered this offer, as it would mean a great deal of money for the institute, but then he hesitated. finally, kosinski remembers, kogan revealed the name of the company: scl, or strategic communication laboratories. kosinski googled the company :
[ we are ] the premier election management agency ,
says the company' s website. scl provides marketing based on psychological modeling. one of its core focuses: influencing elections. influencing elections? perturbed, kosinski clicked through the pages. what kind of company was this? and what were these people planning ?
what kosinski did not know at the time: scl is the parent of a group of companies. who exactly owns scl and its diverse branches is unclear, thanks to a convoluted corporate structure, the type seen in the uk companies house, the panama papers, and the delaware company registry. some of the scl offshoots have been involved in elections from ukraine to nigeria, helped the nepalese monarch against the rebels, whereas others have developed methods to influence eastern european and afghan citizens for nato. and, in 2013, scl spun off a new company to participate in us elections: cambridge analytica .
kosinski knew nothing about all this, but he had a bad feeling .
the whole thing started to stink ,
he recalls. on further investigation, he discovered that aleksandr kogan had secretly registered a company doing business with scl. according to a december 2015 report in the guardian and to internal company documents given to das magazin, it emerges that scl learned about kosinski' s method from kogan .
kosinski came to suspect that kogan' s company might have reproduced the facebook
likes
- based big five measurement tool in order to sell it to this election - influencing firm. he immediately broke off contact with kogan and informed the director of the institute, sparking a complicated conflict within the university. the institute was worried about its reputation. aleksandr kogan then moved to singapore, married, and changed his name to dr. spectre. michal kosinski finished his phd, got a job offer from stanford and moved to the us .
all was quiet for about a year. then, in november 2015, the more radical of the two brexit campaigns ,
leave. eu ,
supported by nigel farage, announced that it had commissioned a big data company to support its online campaign: cambridge analytica. the company' s core strength: innovative political marketing—microtargeting—by measuring people' s personality from their digital footprints, based on the ocean model .
after the brexit result, friends and acquaintances wrote to him: just look at what you' ve done .
now kosinski received emails asking what he had to do with it—the words cambridge, personality, and analytics immediately made many people think of kosinski. it was the first time he had heard of the company, which borrowed its name, it said, from its first employees, researchers from the university. horrified, he looked at the website. was his methodology being used on a grand scale for political purposes ?
after the brexit result, friends and acquaintances wrote to him: just look at what you' ve done. everywhere he went, kosinski had to explain that he had nothing to do with this company. (it remains unclear how deeply cambridge analytica was involved in the brexit campaign. cambridge analytica would not discuss such questions. )
for a few months, things are relatively quiet. then, on september 19, 2016, just over a month before the us elections, the guitar riffs of creedence clearwater revival' s
bad moon rising
fill the dark - blue hall of new york' s grand hyatt hotel. the concordia summit is a kind of world economic forum in miniature. decision - makers from all over the world have been invited, among them swiss president johann schneider - ammann .
please welcome to the stage alexander nix, chief executive officer of cambridge analytica ,
a smooth female voice announces. a slim man in a dark suit walks onto the stage. a hush falls. many in attendance know that this is trump' s new digital strategy man. (a video of the presentation was posted on youtube. )
a few weeks earlier, trump had tweeted, somewhat cryptically ,
soon you' ll be calling me mr. brexit .
political observers had indeed noticed some striking similarities between trump' s agenda and that of the right - wing brexit movement. but few had noticed the connection with trump' s recent hiring of a marketing company named cambridge analytica .
up to this point, trump' s digital campaign had consisted of more or less one person: brad parscale, a marketing entrepreneur and failed start - up founder who created a rudimentary website for trump for $ 1, 500. the 70 - year - old trump is not digitally savvy—there isn' t even a computer on his office desk. trump doesn' t do emails, his personal assistant once revealed. she herself talked him into having a smartphone, from which he now tweets incessantly .
it is my privilege to speak to you today about the power of big data and psychographics in the electoral process .
the logo of cambridge analytica— a brain composed of network nodes, like a map, appears behind alexander nix .
only 18 months ago, senator cruz was one of the less popular candidates ,
explains the blonde man in a cut - glass british accent, which puts americans on edge the same way that a standard german accent can unsettle swiss people .
less than 40 percent of the population had heard of him ,
another slide says. cambridge analytica had become involved in the us election campaign almost two years earlier, initially as a consultant for republicans ben carson and ted cruz. cruz—and later trump —was funded primarily by the secretive us software billionaire robert mercer who, along with his daughter rebekah, is reported to be the largest investor in cambridge analytica .
so how did he do this ?
up to now, explains nix, election campaigns have been organized based on demographic concepts .
a really ridiculous idea. the idea that all women should receive the same message because of their gender—or all african americans because of their race .
what nix meant is that while other campaigners so far have relied on demographics, cambridge analytica was using psychometrics .
though this might be true, cambridge analytica' s role within cruz' s campaign isn' t undisputed. in december 2015 the cruz team credited their rising success to psychological use of data and analytics. in advertising age, a political client said the embedded cambridge staff was
like an extra wheel ,
but found their core product, cambridge' s voter data modeling, still
excellent .
the campaign would pay the company at least $ 5. 8 million to help identify voters in the iowa caucuses, which cruz won, before dropping out of the race in may .
nix clicks to the next slide: five different faces, each face corresponding to a personality profile. it is the big five or ocean model .
at cambridge ,
he said ,
we were able to form a model to predict the personality of every single adult in the united states of america .
the hall is captivated. according to nix, the success of cambridge analytica' s marketing is based on a combination of three elements: behavioral science using the ocean model, big data analysis, and ad targeting. ad targeting is personalized advertising, aligned as accurately as possible to the personality of an individual consumer .
nix candidly explains how his company does this. first, cambridge analytica buys personal data from a range of different sources, like land registries, automotive data, shopping data, bonus cards, club memberships, what magazines you read, what churches you attend. nix displays the logos of globally active data brokers like acxiom and experian—in the us, almost all personal data is for sale. for example, if you want to know where jewish women live, you can simply buy this information, phone numbers included. now cambridge analytica aggregates this data with the electoral rolls of the republican party and online data and calculates a big five personality profile. digital footprints suddenly become real people with fears, needs, interests, and residential addresses .
he opens the screenshot .
this is a data dashboard that we prepared for the cruz campaign .
a digital control center appears. on the left are diagrams; on the right, a map of iowa, where cruz won a surprisingly large number of votes in the primary. and on the map, there are hundreds of thousands of small red and blue dots. nix narrows down the criteria :
republicans
—the blue dots disappear ;
not yet convinced
—more dots disappear ;
male
, and so on. finally, only one name remains, including age, address, interests, personality and political inclination. how does cambridge analytica now target this person with an appropriate political message ?
alexander nix at the 2016 concordia summit in new york. image: concordia summit
nix shows how psychographically categorized voters can be differently addressed, based on the example of gun rights, the 2nd amendment :
for a highly neurotic and conscientious audience the threat of a burglary—and the insurance policy of a gun .
an image on the left shows the hand of an intruder smashing a window. the right side shows a man and a child standing in a field at sunset, both holding guns, clearly shooting ducks :
conversely, for a closed and agreeable audience. people who care about tradition, and habits, and family.
driven media ( or a branded vehicle ) is the practice of covering or wrapping any vehicle in vibrant , custom-designed vinyl sheets , turning a vehicle into a mobile billboard . it can also be defined in general terms as a medium that is stimulated by some type of driver , as in a debt economy , where the medium is all markets and its driver is what a participant owes to another participant , or fear propaganda , where the medium is the message and its driver is a disinformed emotion . the purpose of this is to provide advertising impressions . popular vehicle choices are the mini cooper , smart fortwo , nissan s-cargo , and myers motors nmg . in the uk , driven media can most commonly be seen on taxis and buses . 
driven media (or a branded vehicle) is the practice of covering or wrapping any vehicle in vibrant, custom-designed vinyl sheets, turning a vehicle into a mobile billboard. it can also be defined in general terms as a medium that is stimulated by some type of driver, as in a debt economy, where the medium is all markets and its driver is what a participant owes to another participant, or fear propaganda, where the medium is the message and its driver is a disinformed emotion. the purpose of this is to provide advertising impressions. popular vehicle choices are the mini cooper, smart fortwo, nissan s-cargo, and myers motors nmg. in the uk, driven media can most commonly be seen on taxis and buses.
driven media (or a branded vehicle) is the practice of covering or wrapping any vehicle in vibrant, custom-designed vinyl sheets, turning a vehicle into a mobile billboard. it can also be defined in general terms as a medium that is stimulated by some type of driver, as in a debt economy, where the medium is all markets and its driver is what a participant owes to another participant, or fear propaganda, where the medium is the message and its driver is a disinformed emotion. the purpose of this is to provide advertising impressions. popular vehicle choices are the mini cooper, smart fortwo, nissan s-cargo, and myers motors nmg. in the uk, driven media can most commonly be seen on taxis and buses.