London Mayoral Elections '08: Opinion Analysis

Analysis for the 25th April to 1st May 2008

Buzz picks up

After a slowdown in activity last week, this week the buzz for all candidates has really picked up. The real winners in the last 7 days have been Brian whose buzz has risen 470% to 34.4, and Boris whose buzz is now at 140 points (up 227%). Ken's campaign has also performed relatively well rising 169% to 52.1. Sian significantly lumbers behind with a small increase of 3% to 10.4 points.

The reason for Brian's huge leap in buzz is largely down to his performance on YouTube, where his various videos have leapt in viewers. Other significant moves include Ken's large increase in support on Facebook. Last week his support has been negligible, however this week we've seen an increase in support by 2500%, showing a concerted effort by his team in pushing Ken on social networks.

Mood swings towards Boris

The big mover this week in online public sentiment is Boris. Boris has consistently measured around the -20's during the course of our Opinion Tracking, however in the last 7 days he's up 17.87 points to -3.33. This means Boris is still measuring negative, however this mood swing is significant when compared against Ken, who's sentiment is down 2.1 points to -11.11, the lowest amongst all candidates.

Brian is measuring the most positive with 25 points, however this is down 1.7 points, and Sian is also down to 10.5 points with 18.18.

It must be noted however that both Brian and Sian record significantly less conversations, with a much higher proportion of positive comments compared with both Boris and Ken.

The debate gets serious

This week there's definitely been a change in the tone of conversation to one of seriousness, replacing the plethora of silly comments common to the last month of discussion. More considered criticism of candidates has become the norm, with an increase in scathing attacks on all the main candidates (dominated by Boris and Ken).

So who's going to win?

Much of the online chat has been about voting preferences, with many people outwardly declaring their support for the various candidates. As expected, the outward support seems to be closely split between Boris and Ken. There also seems to be clear support for both Brian and Sian Berry, although in much smaller numbers.

If I was to make a call about who was most likely to win purely based upon the online activity, then I'd have to go with Boris. Boris has shown consistently high levels of support amongst social networks, as well as high levels of interest in YouTube. In the final weeks Boris has also seen conversational sentiment towards him become a lot more positive, overtaking Ken in this last week. However, the difference in sentiment between Ken and Boris is now negligible indicating that it's going to be a close race.

Does buzz = votes?

As a final note, the Pew Institute in the US did some research recently around how levels of buzz effected music album sales, showing that the more online buzz an album got (whether positive of negative) the more albums were sold. It will be interesting to see if the same is the case in elections, and whether online buzz turns into votes.


Older analysis...


Analysis for 17th - 24th April 2008

Candidate buzz slows

Whether Londoners are getting bored of the elections or campaigners are running out of steam, all the main candidates' buzz levels have dropped dramatically in the last 7 days.

Ken has seen the biggest drop, moving from 60.1 to 19.3 this week (-67.72% change), Boris the second biggest drop moving from 84.4 to 43 (-49.05% change), and Brian has moved from 7.2 to 6 (-16.67% change).

The only candidate to have bucked the trend is Sian Berry whose buzz levels have rocketed 274.07% from 2.7 to 10.1. The main reason for Sian's shift seems to be that she is now being grouped into the general conversations about the candidates, with her name finally cropping up more regularly alongside all the Boris-Ken hubbub. Berry and Paddick count on their committed supporters to boost their campaign noise beyond these cursory name-drops and Berry's campaigners seem to have gone into overdrive this week, starting a lot of small, niche conversations, taking her score beyond Paddick's.

London mood swings

As the buzz drops, the sentiment towards the candidates has picked up. Of the big two, Ken's seen the biggest leap this week (up 42%) from -15 to -8.7. The sentiment towards Boris has also improved (up 27.89%) from -29.4 to -21.2.

Brian has seen his positive sentiment rise slightly (up 1.52%) from 26.3 to 26.7, whilst Sian Berry has again blasted the field, up 204.76% from -27.3 to 28.6.

The Berry factor

Although Sian Berry has seen massive rises this week, the main reason for this is that the amount of conversations actually involving Sian is pretty tiny and therefore any small movement can have a big effect on her numbers. Last week, she managed to creep somewhat on to the general public's radar only to prompt unanimous derision at her TV appearances. This week, this seems to have left a dim awareness in the public's mind, getting her name alongside the other candidates but with no great interest either way from most people -- this has left the way clear for her ardent supporters to be the only people voicing an opinion (all positive, obviously).

Seriously silly

Viral YouTube clips seem to have become an established way of members of the public to vent their spleen or support for political candidates. Our favorite of the week is this:

Kenbook

One of the most amusing trends we've picked up this week is the flood of anti-Ken groups on Facebook. For Ken, Facebook is a fairly hostile space with hundreds of groups dedicated to dissing him. Most of these are highly puerile, but nevertheless indicate a strong negative sentiment towards him. The top 5 we've picked out are:

Comments of the week

To get a full sense of the high levels of debate going on about the London elections, here are 3 of the most high-brow comments this week:



Analysis for 9th-16th April 2008

Boris buzzes on

Whether positive or negative, Boris's online buzz is undoubtedly drowning out his fellow candidates. This week, we see Boris with a buzz rating of 84.4, followed by Ken with 60.1, Brian with 7.2 and Sian with 2.7.

Given the amount of money being spent by Brian's internet campaign it's interesting to see that he's barely featuring on our online buzz radar.

But discontent is heard the loudest

Although Boris may be the most talked about candidate, the most consistent theme of conversation online is discontent with the entire field. The overall election sentiment seems to be negative, with people mostly being frustrated by the choice of candidate. A lot of those who have a clear choice are making the decision based on fervent dislike of an opponent rather than any particular affinity with their preferred candidate.

24/7 character counts

The political parties have been canny in choosing so called "big names" as their candidates. However, one thing that has become evident is that many of these candidates don't have the charisma and energy to come across as a sufficiently strong character 24/7 during their campaign. This means that, at smaller gatherings, we're seeing fairly unenergised (i.e. dull) speeches being given; the candidates may consider this inconsequential but it is in response to exactly this blasé attitude that people are broadcasting these sloppy efforts on the likes of YouTube for the rest of London to view.

There are some truly dull speeches online, with perhaps Brian Paddick being the biggest offender so far.

YouTube mud-slinging

As part of their campaign strategies, activists seem to be encouraged to flood YouTube with pro or anti videos relating to each candidate. Most of these videos generate very little interest - maybe 10 to 50 views. One trend here is the re-posting of old video clips - mainly those from old TV programmes featuring the candidates saying something controversial. For example, there is one of Boris Johnson admitting to snorting cocaine on HIGNFY.

The number of videos posted in the last week featuring each candidate is as follows: Ken 52, Boris 46, Brian 26 and Sian 8.

Some of these videos are user-gen campaign videos; for example this, one for Ken: .

Tube-stepping

Linked to the mass of user-generated videos, there are also some interesting examples cropping up where "members of the public" (I say this as they could be party activists) ask difficult questions to candidates and catch their stuttering responses on a video phone. This seems to be a logical progression of the old journalistic trick of door-stepping.

This is a great example of Boris being "tube-stepped" earlier in the week: .

Favorite comments of the week

Finally, here are a selection of my favorite comments left by people around the net:

"If Boris Johnson is the answer it was a bloody stupid question What a complete Tory prat. The only good Tory is a lavatory"

"go boris vote the newt lover out"

"He's great but he needs to get his bite on! Come on Brian, Londoners want to see what you're made of, they want to be convinced this time, they want fireworks!"