Boris Johnson has hired a trio of Antipodean social media experts to drive the Tories’ online election campaign amid fears that dire winter weather could scupper traditional methods of targeting voters.
Kiwis Sean Topham, 28, and Ben Guerin, 24, have been brought in by director of politics and campaigning Isaac Levido to toughen up the Conservatives’ social media efforts after a dire performance in 2017.
The twenty-something pair, who run agency TG in London, formerly worked for the Tories’ Australian counterpart the Liberal Party, whose leader Scott Morrison surprisingly won an election earlier this year.
While there they were known for making ‘boomer memes’ – content deliberately crafted to look simplistic and basic. They targeted groups like older people online.
They also used content from popular television programmes like Game of Thrones to grab attention.
The intentionally clunky design of the memes meant they were shared widely on Facebook, which because of the way the platform works helped their harder political messages reach bigger audiences.
Some reports have suggested this approach has been used by the Tories in recent days, including a Twitter post which was shared and mocked for using a comic book font.
Kiwis Sean Topham (right) and Ben Guerin (left)have been brought in by director of politics and campaigning Isaac Levido to toughen up the Conservatives’ social media efforts after a dire performance in 2017.
The Conservatives have made their online campaigns far more overt and energetic in recent weeks since Boris Johnson and his new social media team took over
A Liberal party source told the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘TG have a way of telling compelling stories through video that really engages people online.
‘They are excellent at cutting through with a clear and calm message in line with … everyday voters which was the key to our success in South Australia, New South Wales and federally – where TG did great work.’
The pair have reportedly been brought in to set up a 24-hour ‘meme machine’ operation to make the Tories the party of social media.
Mr Levido was hired by Mr Johnson after he entered No 10 in July.
He was a former deputy to controversial Australian election guru Lynton Crosby, who masterminded David Cameron’s coalition-busting win four years ago.
But he also went on to work on Zac Goldsmith’s failed London mayoral campaign in 2016 and Theresa May’s disastrous general election campaign the following year.
More recently Mr Levido worked for the Liberal party alongside the other men.
He has told ministers he wants to secure a ‘functional’ majority. Privately, he has described Mr Johnson’s ‘fundamentals’ as ‘very positive’. ‘The numbers are moving in the right direction,’ he said.
Armies of volunteers are required to bang on doors to beg and plead with weary voters to turn out and support their party and cause during traditional election campaigns
It’s a gruelling and often frustrating process even when elections are held, as is usual, in May.
But the decision to head to the polls just 12 days before Christmas means that online and social media advertising and propaganda is likely to play a larger role than ever before.
Political parties spent millions on Facebook advertising alone in 2017, according to figures from the Electoral Commission. The Tories were by far the biggest spenders.
And that platform, along with Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, are set to be targeted even more intensively as the foibles of the British winter and the festive period throw up obstacles.
Some Tory MPs spoke out against the election timing, prompting party chairman James Cleverly last week to say: ‘
However, party chairman James Cleverly this morning said: ‘I don’t want to be the Grinch.
Isaac Levido is in charge of the social media operation at Tory HQ
‘But the point is democracy is incredibly important and we have been prevented on discharging the duty imposed upon us.’
Boris Johnson brought in Chloe Westley from the Taxpayers’ Alliance to lead his social media team, and she has made it a more visible, aggressive operation than that deployed under Theresa May.
One Conservative campaigner said highly effective social media campaigning used in the 2016 referendum was also being deployed – resulting in one MP being contacted by 200 voters he did not have in his database.
Several members of the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, most noticeably chief aide Dominic Cummings, are now part of the No 10 machine. They ran an effective, if divisive campaign to win three years ago.
To win the election, rather than uniting the people, one source said, Mr Johnson’s Conservative Party wants to tap into divisions over the EU, hoping to fire up voters who backed leaving by offering them an early taste of the so-called ‘Brexit dividend’ – for example, funding promised for healthcare from savings generated by quitting the EU.
The Liberal Party used content from popular television programmes like Star Wars to grab attention
The memes were designed to be deliberately simplistic in a ploy to spark debate – and reinforce their message
It is a narrative that pits those who back Brexit against the ‘establishment’ – parliament, the courts and big business – which Johnson says is trying to frustrate the ‘will of the people’.
‘It’s the outsiders versus the insiders,’ said one veteran party member.
The Conservatives have made a raft of changes ahead of the coming campaign.
This is as true for online as it is for the street.
But Downing Street will hope not to emulate the Vote Leave campaign too closely after a court case involving Facebook was settled today.
Mark Zuckerberg’s online colossus has agreed to pay a fine of £500,000 following an investigation into the misuse of personal data in political campaigns.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced on Wednesday that the tech giant had withdrawn its appeal against the ‘monetary penalty notice’ and would accept the fine without admitting any liability.
In 2017 the ICO opened a wide-ranging investigation into the use of data analytics for political purposes and issued the penalty to the tech giant in October 2018.
The investigation found that between 2007 and 2014 Facebook processed user data by letting third-party app developers access personal information without the user’s informed consent.
Vote Leave created controversy in 2016 during the referendum with adverts like this one, which wrongly claimed that Turkey was on the verge of joining the EU
Jeremy Corbyn gave a pre-Christmas election the thumbs up yesterday in a cringeworthy social media video to supporters yesterday
The most high-profile aspect of this was political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica after it was found to have harvested data, which resulted in multiple investigations and fines.
Cambridge Analytica, which closed in 2018, is said to have worked with Donald Trump on his US presidential campaign run by whistleblower Christopher Wylie.
In the UK, the firm was accused of using the data to target potential leave voters in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Facebook’s settings at the time allowed app developers to access the personal data of not just the people who used their app, but of all of their friends as well.
The ICO also said in its 2018 complaint that the social media company did not take action quickly enough after the misuse of data was discovered in 2015.
The breach was thought to affect 87 million worldwide users with at least one million people based in the UK. The ICO later found no evidence that any UK user’s data was shared with Cambridge Analytica.
Within minutes of last night’s vote to go to the polls on December 12 Labour had already rolled out its first video across social media.
The ICO’s wider investigation into the use of data analytics for political campaigning is ongoing.
Labour has not been shy, with Jeremy Corbyn as you might expect taking an increasingly front and centre role in its online presence.
Within minutes of last night’s vote to go to the polls on December 12 it had already rolled out its first video across social media.
It will be hoping to build on its successes in 2017 when its online campaign was far in advance of Theresa may’s, which did not help her stuttering, disastrous performance that lost the Tory majority.