Vincent Harris Quoted Traditional political campaigns dead, it’s a digital world now

Traditional political campaigns that don’t have a digital first focus are dead, say experts.

“Where traditional campaigns spend weeks putting together high production value TV ads, a well run campaign of today and of the future is focused on short, snackable, mobile content. It’s focused on livestreaming video, it’s focused on digital rapid response, it’s focused on authenticity, it’s focused on being entertaining,” Vincent Harris, CEO of Harris Media and chief digital strategist for U.S. Senator Rand Paul, told the Manning Centre conference in Ottawa on Saturday.

“Whose campaign right now in America sounds like those? I’ll tell you it’s the man who’s winning our Republican nomination. His campaign is the most entertaining. I laugh everytime I watch what’s going on in his campaign. It’s incredibly entertaining. It’s genius in so many ways and fits with what’s going on with the digital side of things. … Traditional campaigns in the sense that George W. Bush ran in 2000 and 2004, those are dying or dead in the United States. They’re dying or dead across a bunch of different countries too.”

Mr. Harris spoke on a panel called “Technology and politics in the 21st century” along with Katie Harbath, global lead for politics and government engagement at Facebook, and Ottawa Citizen reporter Kady O’Malley at the Shaw Centre.