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For Pinoy politicians: Some lessons from the AlDub phenomenon
Political campaigns can pick up strategies from the phenomenal tandem of “AlDub” to gain electoral leverage, said digital specialist Carlo Ople.
“If there’s one thing AlDub has done beautifully, it’s that they can connect to the Filipino heart,” he told GMA News Online at the sidelights of “Campaigns 2016: The Challenge of Convergence” seminar on Wednesday.
According to Ople, Managing Director of DM9-Digit and a consultant of the team behind AlDub, said the strategies include: using a campaign that sells to the heart and not to the head; linking traditional and social media, and being authentic.
AlDub refers to the the love team screen name of Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza a.k.a. “Yaya Dub” for Tape Inc.’s Kalyeserye, a segment in the afternoon show Eat Bulaga.
In October, 41 million tweets were posted using the official hashtag #ALDubEBTamangPanahon for Eat Bulaga’s benefit concert entitled “Sa Tamang Panahon.”
Apart from the love team’s success on social media, Ople said there are other lessons to be learned from the AlDub phenomenon.
“It’s not just because of Facebook or Twitter; its also being able to understand what the Filipino wants, to understand kung anong nagpapakiliti sa puso, to understand what makes Filipinos respond in a positive way,” said Ople during the seminar.
The people behind AlDub rely heavily on teasing the viewers and giving them “not what they want but what they don’t expect.”
The strategies are not really unique but what sets AlDub apart? “It’s the authenticity, the honesty of the acting, especially by Alden and Maine,” Ople said.
Ople encouraged political candidates to be authentic as this is a virtue that is highly valued by netizens.
He cited Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, dubbed by Time Magazine as "The Punisher, as someone whom people perceive to be honest and authentic because of his candid remarks.
Duterte's thuggish humor is marked by his signature words: "I will kill you."
Ople noted that Duterte gained social media leverage by “teasing” the public. He initially mulled running for the country’s top position but disappointed supporters when he filed a Certificate of Candidacy for Mayor of Davao City despite clamor for a presidential bid.
However, after the Senate Electoral Tribunal decided in favor of Senator Grace Poe in the disqualification case against her based on the issue of citizenship, Duterte finally announced his presidential bid.
Duterte said he wants to run for president because he doesn't want the presidency to be ''cheapened'' if Poe wins in 2016 despite not being a natural-born Filipino citizen due to her status as a foundling.
“Duterte has the best story so far. And the drama, how it played off—masterpiece!” he said.
Ople said campaign materials "shouldn’t be just telling the people they should vote for you. It is contextualizing the reasons why they should vote for you in the form of a narrative."
“Bad, sucky” ads
Meanwhile, on the issue of political advertisements, Ople said the ones he has been seeing on TV were "not good," "bad," "sucky," and "crap. "
“They are not shareable, likeable. They are never made to elicit responses. They’re never made to elicit emotions,” he said, explaining that these were created for traditional mediums such as television and radio but not for digital.
According to him, he likes one ad so far, that of Duterte who recently announced his intention to run for president. “It was a story. It was something that would elicit emotions. It was a narrative. It wasn’t an ad—It was a story.”
Political ads have been appearing on TV since October after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said in June that these types of ads by unofficial candidates cannot be categorized as “premature campaining."
Art of persuasion
Meanwhile, during the seminar, ABS-CBN audience management head Mon Lizardo, highlighted the need for an integrated political campaign that combines traditional and digital mediums.
He said television and radio are the best mediums for awareness and for reaching the grassroots but these are not interactive and are one-way means of communication.
“The strength of digital is on being able to target specific groups,” he said. “Social media is only a fraction of the campaign. It should take a lot of strategies.”
He added that it should boil down to the priorities of a candidate and how to market his or her best and most relatable attribute. -- VVP, GMA News
