Big data is watching you

From the outside it all looked haphazard and frenzied. A campaign that was skidding from scandal to crisis on its way to total defeat. That’s not how it felt inside the ‘Project Alamo’ offices in San Antonio, Texas where Trump’s digital division — led by Brad Parscale, who’d worked previously with Trump’s estate division setting up websites — was running one of the most sophisticated data-led election campaigns ever. Once Trump’s nomination was secured, the Republican Party heavyweights moved in, and so did seconded staff from Facebook and Google, there to help their well-paying clients best use their platforms to reach voters. Joining them were 13 employees from the UK-based data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica, who were led by chief product officer Matt ‘Oz’ Oczkowski, who had enormous biceps and walked around the office carrying a golf club.

Brad, and his boss Jared Kushner, had bet the house on running a data-led campaign, figuring that was their best chance against the formidable Clinton machine. Cambridge were the data guys brought in to help him do it. Their main job was to build what they called ‘universes’ of voters, grouping people into categories, like American moms worried about childcare who hadn’t voted before.

Cambridge had a database of around 5,000 data points on 200 million Americans and combined it with the Republican Party’s own voter data to build dozens of these highly focused universes and model how ‘persuadable’ its members were. (For example, analysts discovered during the race that a preference for cars made in the US was a solid indication of a potential Trump voter). Creative types then designed specialised ads for these universes, based on the specific things they were thought to care about. Every-thing was tested, retested, redesigned. They sent out thousands of versions of fund-raising emails or Facebook ads, working out what performed best.