Koliko često ste čuli / pročitali rečenicu: ’Naša kampanja će biti pozitivna.’    I svaki put je to bila laž. Nema teme u politici oko koje postoji više licemerja nego što je negativna kampanja. Svi je osuđuju, svi je se gnušaju i svi je koriste. Problem je što  gotovo niko ne razume kada zapravo ona radi, a kada pucate u sopstvenu nogu. Rafalno. Počnimo od jedne praktične istine koju sam prvo čuo u USA od ozbiljnih savetnika: odnos pozitivne i negativne kampanje treba da bude otprilike  80 prema 20 . Osam delova u kampanji: vaše priče, vaše vizije, vaši rezultati. Dva dela kampanje su napadi: precizni, utemeljeni na činjenicama, vremenski savršeno planirani. Čim taj odnos počne da preteže na negativnu stranu, kampanja ulazi u opasnu zonu. Zašto? Negativna kampanja ima jednu osobinu koju mnogi neiskusni stratezi ne vide dok im ne svane na noć pred izbore: ona podiže odbojnost prema SVIMA. Ne samo prema meti napada već prema svima na biračkom listiću. Gotovo je p...

  Često mi se dešavao ovakav scenario u kampanjama. ’Po meni su i vizual i poruka odlični.’ Rečenicu izgovara kreativni direktor, čovek koji je tu poruku smislio, pokazujući je ljudima koji rade za njega, pitajući ih da li je dobra. Svi naravno kažu da jeste pa materijali idu u štampu ’jer je hitno’. Tri nedelje kasnije, kad to rešenje svi ispljuju, a     rejting ne krene na gore već u suprotnu stranu, isti taj čovek objašnjava da ’narod prosto nije razumeo poruku’. Problem je u tome što je narod savršeno razumeo poruku samo mu se ona nije svidela. To su dve potpuno različite stvari, i razlika među njima košta daleko više nego što ste platili bilborde i štampu ostalih materijala. Pre 12 godina kreativni direktor je poslao na mail sve materijale. Telefon mi se usijao od poziva mojih ljudi iz štaba. Svi do jednog – čak i kafe kuvarica – su bili protiv tog rešenja. Na drugoj strani medalje je bio kreativni direktor i kandidat. Oluja, ona sa crnim oblacima koja donosi grad, s...

Twelve years ago, a single billboard in Bosnia and Hercegovina put my whole campaign team on its feet. Everyone was against it, even the woman who made the coffee. I broke the deadlock by letting the focus groups decide. Eight of them sided with the creative director. The billboard became legendary.  And then there’s what that episode taught me, the thing most campaigns still refuse to do, and it costs them elections. Here’s a scene that played out again and again in campaigns I worked on. “If you ask me, both the visual and the message are excellent.” The line comes from the creative director—the man who dreamed up the message, showing it to people who work for him and asking whether it’s any good. Everyone says yes, of course, so the materials go to print “because it’s urgent.” Three weeks later, when everybody is spitting that solution out, and the rating doesn’t climb but heads the other way, the same man explains that “the people simply didn’t understand the message.” Trouble ...

Najveća pretnja koja dolazi od veštačke inteligencije možda nije lakoća kojom ljudi pomoću nje kreiraju dezinformacije. Pre bih rekao da je glavni problem naša sve manja sposobnost da razlikujemo stvarni politički pokret od onog koji je sklepan uz pomoć AI i veštački proizvedene pažnje. Ceo vikend proveo sam van kuće. Budimpešta, seminar za mlade političare. Jedna od neočekivanih koristi od putovanja jeste što ti razbije svakodnevni ritam i na par dana te izvuče iz politike. Više vremena sam provodio razgovarajući sa ljudima, šetajući i jedući dobro, nego buljeći u reklame, izborne analize i fidove na mrežama. A onda sam se vratio kući. Za nekoliko minuta već sam gledao političke reklame koje je proizvela veštačka inteligencija, fotografije koje kruže kao da su stvarne, kampanjske snimke koji nikada nisu nastali — ni u studiju, ni na terenu — i sadržaj proizveden u količini za koju bi pre samo nekoliko godina bilo potrebno čitavo odeljenje za komunikacije. Tad mi je nešto sinulo. Možda...

Field research is not a photograph. Precise, useful, indispensable, and silent. It won't tell you why the man in the frame looks sad. There's a second instrument for that explanation, and campaigns skip it like clockwork. This installment of  How It Actually Works  is about polling and focus groups and about why a campaign that runs only one of the two knows it's bleeding but can't find the wound. “Like any serious party, we do research, and it says…” A sentence that in politics means roughly everything and nothing. So worn out that nobody believes it anymore. Not even the people on the ballot. Picture a campaign team that has just received the latest poll. The slides are up. Party rating, candidate rating, the opponent's numbers, and three questions on the big issues. The researchers open the deck, everyone nods along, pretending to study it closely, and somebody says, “Well, it's not that bad.” The party leader holds up to the slide with his own rating, then d...

Terensko istraživanje je fotografija. Precizna, korisna, neophodna ali bez tona. Neće vam objasniti zašto je čovek na njoj namršten. Za to objađnjenje postoji drugi instrument, i kampanje ga redovno preskaču.  U novom nastavku serije Kako se to zapravo radi: istraživanje i fokus grupe, i zašto kampanja koji ima samo jedno od to dvoje zna da krvari, ali ne zna gde je rana.   ’Kao svaka ozbiljna stranka i mi radimo istraživanje a ona kažu...“ Rečenica koja u politici znači otprilike sve i ništa. Toliko je izlizana da niko ne veruje više u njih. Čak ni sami učesnici u izborima. Zamislite izborni štab koji je upravo dobio najnovija istraživanja. Slajdovi su tu. Rejting partije i kandidata, rejting protivnika, tri pitanja o glavnim temama. Istraživači otvaraju prezentaciju, svi bajagi pažljivo gledaju i klimaju glavama, neko kaže ’pa i nije tako loše’. Predsednik kao deda u Radovanu III izdrži do slova e, tj. do slajda sa njegovim rejtingom. Ne izgovarajući nastavak replike iz pred...

    How It Really Works: Fast Response After years in this business, I've learned that one thing leads to defeat faster than anything else: your team deciding to wait. Fast response isn't a skill. It's a duty. This scene plays out in every campaign I've ever run. Bad news breaks. The opponent drops something: an attack, a piece of disinformation, footage, a quote ripped out of context. Journalists start calling. Social media catches fire. You call an emergency war room meeting. People talk, people analyze. And almost without fail, the first suggestion I'd hear was:  "Let's wait and see how this develops."  Right behind it comes someone who wants to loop in the lawyers. A third person thinks you should reach the candidate, but everyone knows he's unreachable until the afternoon, he's in a meeting, no phone. So the worst possible decision gets made: you push everything to tomorrow morning, once things settle down. Two days later, your response fi...

  I think the public, analysts, journalists, and political commentators are almost always asking the wrong question when they talk about kamikaze candidates. Instead of  “Can he win?”  the right question is:  “What is his candidacy actually supposed to achieve?” In nearly three decades of watching campaigns, the kamikaze candidate — or kamikaze party, movement, civic group, take your pick — keeps showing up, and keeps getting misread. They’re not just attention-seekers with no path to victory. Far more often, they’re a precisely calculated piece of a winning electoral strategy. In imperfect electoral systems — which the Balkans has in abundance, but hardly has a monopoly on — this model works like a Swiss watch. My interest in kamikaze candidates started with the documentary  The Great Hack , still available on Netflix. It briefly mentions the Trinidad and Tobago elections and the ‘Do So’ movement, which flipped the script back in 2010. Here’s what actually happ...

  10 Foods to Avoid on the Campaign Trail I've spent decades in the field alongside presidential and prime ministerial candidates. I've learned that campaigns are won and lost on the smallest details — including what the candidate eats on camera. A campaign isn't just messaging, strategy, and organization. Sometimes you're just one bite away from disaster. May 2005. Pre-election campaign in Britain. Tony Blair buys Gordon Brown an ice cream cone in front of a large gang of media following them around. Two men who could hardly stand each other trying to look like a team for the voters. The snapshot traveled across the world. Everyone observed the contrived normalcy. Maybe a lot of people thought of that photo on Election Day. Whether ice cream is a good idea — see below Over two decades ago, I was working as campaign manager for my first presidential candidate. He refused to eat most things while we were on the road. His only request: enough chocolate and Coca-Cola in th...

Proveo sam decenije na terenu uz predsedničke i premijerske kandidate. Naučio sam da kampanja gubi i dobija na najsitnijim detaljima — uključujući i ono što kandidat jede pred kamerama. Kampanja nije samo poruka, strategija i organizacija. Ponekad vas samo jedan zalogaj deli od katastrofe.     Maj 2005. Predizborna kampanje u Britaniji. Tony Blair kupuje Gordonu Brownu sladoled u kornetu pred velikim brojem novinara koji ih prate. Njih dvojica koji se jedva trpe poku š avaju da izgledaju kao tim zbog glasača. Fotografija je obi š la svet. Svi su videli insceniranu normalnost. Možda su se mnogi upravo te fotografije setili na izborni dan. Da li je sladoled dobro jesti pogledajte dole u tekstu.   Pre vi š e od dve decenije radio sam kao menad ž er kampanje mog prvog predsedničkog kandidata. Odbijao je da jede većinu stvari dok smo na putu. Tra ž io je samo da u autu ima dovoljno  č okolade i Coca-Cole. U to vreme nisam razumeo za š to ali sam kasnije naučio.  ...