James Surowiecki Quotes

Microtargeting, as its name implies, is a way to identify small but crucial groups of voters who might be won over to a given side, and which messages would do the trick.

There is a calculus, it turns out, for mastering our subconscious urges. For companies like Target, the exhaustive rendering of our conscious and unconscious patterns into data sets and algorithms has revolutionized what they know about us and, therefore, how precisely they can sell.

To win [elections] in this country these days you've got to campaign down to a 13-year-old's level of mental development.

To political technocrats, 2008 marks the maturation of 'microtargeting' - a technique that, if things are as close in November as expected, may well affect who takes the White House.

Companies are accumulating vast amounts of information about your likes and dislikes. But they are doing this not only because you're interesting. The more they know, the more money they can make.

Lists that segment people into clearly-defined categories are particularly valuable to direct marketers, which can tailor their sales pitch to a particular demographic and, therefore, increase the likelihood of making a sale.

To win a successful campaign against an opponent that has a lot more name recognition and a lot more money, I have to be edgy.

Using science to tell us what customers are looking for is second nature for us here.

We use nearly 5 thousand different data points about you to craft and target a message. The data points are not just a representative model of you. The data points are about you, specifically.

Micro-targeting is the ability for a campaign to profile you, to know much more about you than you know about it, and then to choose exactly what to show you.

We will not lose this election for lack of money.

You're really earning the support of New Hampshire voters, and you've got to do that one-on-one grassroots campaigning here, even if you have the most money.

The world is now awash in data and we can see consumers in a lot clearer ways.

No one is confused about what a Democrat is in a presidential election. In every election other than a presidential election, our voters are confused. We've given out too many different messages.

Social media has given companies access to unprecedented amounts of information on client behavior and preferences - so-called Big Data. But making sense of it all and turning it into actionable policy has been elusive.

The Obama campaign was smarter, quicker on their feet than the Clinton camp.

What is the primary purpose of a political leader? To build a majority. If voters care about parking lots, then talk about parking lots.

Voters are looking for credibility and are wary of polish. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter which candidate can more deftly read a teleprompter.

There is ample evidence that participation in an electoral process forces any party, regardless of ideology, to moderate its position if it wants to attract voters in large numbers.

Campaigns are not for educating. They're for linking up with the public mood.

You win elections with coalitions. You don't win elections by ideologically cleansing your party.

We target people who are genuinely undecided. It's not a good use of money to target senators who are flat opposed or who are already with you.

People don't vote parties. They vote individuals.

Anybody who says negative commercials are wrong and shouldn't be used doesn't know anything about politics. The fact is people respond to those commercials.

You sell your candidates and your programs the way a business sells its products.