Lessons for UK from US digital campaign experts

Members of the team behind Obama's successful 2012 re-election bid joined other technology experts at King's College London this week to share insights into the US Presidential campaign that revolutionised political campaigning in a digital age. They assessed the power of social media and its impact not only on electoral politics, but also on civil society, commerce and government. Pictured from right-to-left: Jen O'Malley Dillon, Vincent Feltesse and Mark Pack during Plenary 1 At the event 'Contested Spaces: The Third Quadrennial Global Internet and Politics Conference', hosted by the King's Policy Institute and supported by ebay, the minds behind Obama's electoral victory said digital was at the forefront of the Democrat bid, not an afterthought, and influenced every aspect of the campaign. Jen O'Malley Dillon, Obama's former Deputy Campaign Manager, said: 'We set out to ensure that digital was a top priority of the campaign. We built the structure and ensured we had the resources to enable it sit at the senior table with all the other strategic decisions we were making as a campaign. We looked at digital not just in terms of rapid response or social media networking, but as a tool for organising and engaging people with the campaign. We sought to incorporate digital into all the programmes, projects and efforts the campaign was prioritising.' In lively debate, key figures from the worlds of political campaigning, business, technology policymaking and academia reflected on the strategies behind the latest US election campaign and looked to what the UK might be able to take from their success.