The future of political campaigning

This article was originally published by PR Week.

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica recently made the headlines after the personal data of the social media platform’s users were used to target voters in the 2016 US presidential election.

Head of Public Affairs Stuart Thomson comments in PR Week about what this means for the future of political campaigning:

‘We will start to see the re-emergence of “slow politics” based on relationships, dialogue and engagement. Campaigns will steer away from potentially reputation threatening techniques, however effective they might be. In political campaigning, the mantra will once again be “all politics is local”, not just because of the fears over data, but because Labour has shown it can be effective in winning seats. Constituency-based, hard work on local issues over time will be used alongside media engagement, of all types. Personal engagement will engender the trust which could start to fade online.’