Brexit was the beginning of a new era of campaigning in UK elections, and we're about to see the sequel.
Up until June three years ago, political campaigns in the UK were comparatively simple affairs. Messaging gurus would test campaign slogans with focus groups, canvassers took to the streets, adverts were bought and issues debated by candidates. But the Brexit vote saw a new tool in the campaign manager's arsenal: data science. This wasn't employed by Theresa May's team in the last election to anywhere near the extent seen in June 2017, but there's no doubt it will be in December. And there's one reason why: Dominic Cummings.
Cummings, often portrayed as the villain in the Brexit saga, has been open about the role data science played in the Leave campaign's strategy. His speech at the Ogilvy Nudgestock 2017 Conference is definitely worth watching if you can stomach another 30 minutes of Brexit content. I particularly appreciated his jibe – at an Ogilvy conference – about the 'advertising charlatans' in the room who graduated with gender studies and will soon be out of the job:
"In the long run all the parties are trying to learn from some of the things we did [...] The future will be about experimental psychology, and data science. The reality is that most communications companies are populated by bullshitting charlatans, and most of them should be fired. Silicon Valley will take over this industry in the same way they've taken over other industries. And if you've got a not-very-good degree in English or Gender Studies, you're going to get fired."
That soundbite is 25 minutes into that talk, in case you don't want to watch it all. Aside from his insight into the future of advertising, Cummings outlined what will be the key weapon in future elections. Data.
He had explained that the Leave team's strategy involved taking every scrap of data they could from the campaign – emails, phone calls, social media posts – whatever they could get their hands on, and giving it all to data scientists. In partnership with behavioural psychologists, they then 'crunched the numbers' to analyse what was working and resonating with their target voters. The team then responded by A/B(/C/D etc) testing huge vast quantities of ads on social until they saw results, ruthlessly targeting areas they thought they could swing.
A similar approach was taken in the last US election, and Cambridge Analytica's involvement in psychometrically profiling the electorate with Facebook's data has been well documented.
Given that Cummings is central to Johnson's inner circle, you'd be mad to think his team isn't employing those same tactics in this election. Even now, if you hang about Tory HQ and are quiet enough, I'm sure you can hear the frenetic typing of dozens of data scientists, determining who to target, with which ads, on what platforms. In other words, you are being watched.