The Pyramid

Re: Bai, Matt, The Multilevel Marketing of the President. The New York Times Magazine (4/25/2004)

The Republicans finally used more grassroots actions in the 2004 elections. What is called a pyramid multi-marketing model, or viral marketing, has proven very successful. Every Bush supporter had to recruit 5 volunteers. This is a visionary philosophy because it spreads messages by word of mouth, door-to-door. Republicans made a good move to start this viral marketing because Democrats already have that citizen participation by its support from labor groups and the like.

As stated in the interview, this viral marketing may have elected Bush. Instead of profit, emails, names, voter preference are sent to the national campaign headquarters to garner massive supporter lists. The revolutionary ground level grassroots campaign was described in the interview and it worked. This multi-level marketing of the president looks to become a major, new staple for the Republican Party. It worked for Bush - it may also work for whomever in 2008.

I really like this viral marketing tool. I do believe all politics is local. It makes sense for campaigns to move to the local levels to gain support. The pyramid operation is perfect for creating phone trees, email networks, names, etc. This is a smart and cheap method to coordinating volunteers!