The first afternoon of the Labour Party conference has been themed Operation Fightback. A succession of senior figures have been delivering their rallying calls, including Douglas Alexandar, outlining the party’s election campaign strategy. His pep talk climaxed with the (re)announcement of a national phonebank and an online network for party members. I’m sure news of these developments will have re-energised Labour campaigners up and down the country and will result in some sleepless nights over at CCHQ.
Despite the recent appointment of Kerry McCarthy MP as Labour’s so called Twitter Tsar, the accepted wisdom is that Labour will be unable to catch-up with the Tories without some hard-hitting external expertise. Especially if Labour really believe their own spin, that they’re doing better than the opposition online.
Blue State Digital, the firm which led Obama’s online campaigning was widely believed to be the agency that Labour would turn to. However, in a recent interview with PR Week Thomas Gensemer, founder of BSD criticised Labour’s online operation to date – leading many to assume that BSD would not be working with Labour after all. That said, this rather tetchy and fawning blog post from Gensemer responding to PR Week’s coverage perhaps indicates that discussions with Labour may still be ongoing?
It appears to be an issue not so much of Labour being unwilling to work with BSD, but being unable to afford them – for the moment at least. With so many ex-Labour HQ staffers now working at BSD’s UK operation, it seems unlikely that some at least will not be seconded back to help with the party’s election effort.
All this contrasts heavily with some big investments by the Tories in the past seven days. Firstly we had the announcement that an external agency has been retained to handle online advertising and web development for the party in the run up to the election. The deal includes building a series of online fundraising tools set be unveiled at the Conservative Party conference next week.
Secondly, the major seven-figure investment by Conservative Party deputy chair Lord Ashcroft in ConservativeHome has opened up a major second front in the Tories online election campaign. The announcement that the site is looking to recruit a team to develop video ads and virals is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.
Ray Collins, Labour’s general secretary claimed in his conference speech today that, “We may be outspent by the Tories, but we will never be outgunned” – based on what we’ve see so far, this seems like wishful thinking.
[...] the same principles to their advantage! This Month’s Mission is to De-stress your Desktop! Operation Fightback – Can Labour do it alone? – understrictembargo.com 09/27/2009 The first afternoon of the Labour Party conference has [...]