[00:07] Neil Hughes: Politics is often described as the ultimate high-pressure environment. It's an area where every decision matters, every message is scrutinized, and every second counts. But what if the lessons learned on the campaign trail could help every business make better marketing decisions too? Well, my guest today is Jordan Lieberman. He's the CEO of Powers Interactive, and he's going to join me today to explain how AI, data, and programmatic advertising are reshaping political campaigns. And we'll also talk about why trust matters more than technology and what every organization can learn from one of the fastest-moving industries in the world. But enough from me. Let me introduce you to my guest right now. [00:57] Jordan Lieberman: Thank you for joining me on our first episode of the podcast today. [01:01] Neil Hughes: Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? [01:06] Speaker C: Neil, thank you for having me. My name is Jordan Lieberman. I am the CEO of Powers Interactive, which is a programmatic digital shop focusing on politics and public affairs and commercial work. We have been doing this for a very long time, about 16, 17 years through a couple iterations of different companies, but essentially the same team has been working from the, essentially, the inception of voter-targeted digital advertising up till today. And we've seen incredible changes going on through different data regulations and AI, and the speed at which we can process data has changed dramatically in my career. [01:41] Jordan Lieberman: It has changed so much in recent years. I'm curious, what are the biggest changes that you've seen? [01:48] Speaker C: I'm always jumping into what's called Moore's Law, which is the speed that processing speed of a transistor. Long story short, the thing, the things that we can do today, we couldn't do a year ago or two years ago. And at one point, 15, 16 years ago, no big deal. But now the pace of innovation is such that the things I was hiring outside engineers for less than a year ago, Claude asked me this morning if I want to automate it. And those kinds of things are creeping into political and public affairs world at an interesting pace. Uh, because on one hand, it's really a person-to-person business, but on the other hand, it's small enough where you can track through disbursement reports, you can track kind of the progress of technology minute by minute, day by day. Where is this? Where are certain technologies creeping in faster? And I love seeing that, you know, you know, there's, for example, there's a lead time when you start seeing interesting innovations in the states. There's a lead time of about a year to a year and a half before they start appearing at the federal level. And being able to spot that early is so important. [02:45] Jordan Lieberman: And I'm glad you mentioned the political side of this because programmatic advertising has in recent years become standard in political campaigns. And from everything that you're seeing and hearing, you've probably seen a few things on your LinkedIn feed that you disagree with. What, what are the biggest misconceptions that candidates, consultants, and advocates, advocacy organizations still have about how it works? [03:09] Speaker C: Well, it's, you know, I think a lot of people just say put some money in the box and we'll have the ads appear on my living room. Yeah, how hard could that be? But it is hard. It is. There's a number of technological hurdles, of course. So I think deliverable or the promise of digital advertising while it is really meeting, you know, promise that I think some of the KPIs for did this work are tough. So what I mean by that is if you're, let's say, a mayor and you're running in a town of 5,000 people and you do a heavy digital buy, it's hard to know which households are gonna see what ads on what day, unlike direct mail or television. So it's a little trickier. But on the other hand, you're also eliminating all inefficiency in advertising for the first time in frankly human history. [03:50] Jordan Lieberman: And at the beginning of our conversation, we were talking about the speed of technological change, which has traditionally been measured by Moore's Law, But then AI came along and completely transformed that. So how have you seen AI changing the way that Powers Interactive plans, targets, and optimizes digital campaigns? And where do you think it's heading over the next few years? It feels like a really exciting time, but it's a lot to get to grips with, isn't it? [04:16] Speaker C: It's super exciting. It's, you know, what I tell my staff is, is replace yourself. What can you do that adds value to the AI tools already out there, and there's so much value to be added. And, you know, understanding that, for example, a person doesn't need to swivel chair a dataset from A to B. The person could focus on the analysis and adding that human layer, which is so important, especially in politics where it's really a trust-based business. So understanding the difference between the human layer and the future AI layer is really important for, you know, not just for political, but for your career path in general. If you know that the thing you're doing might not exist in 3 years, start upgrading yourself. And, you know, the most important thing you can do is understand the line where AI will never really own and be sure you're on the other side of it. [05:03] Jordan Lieberman: And there's a word you use there, trust, and I think it's a massive one, especially over the last few years. There's been a lot of people with very high-profile AI and tech projects. They've struggled to find ROI, measurable impact. So for organizations that are investing in digital advertising now, which they may see as a black box or a dark art. What separates campaigns that generate those real results from those that just end up simply spending more and more money? [05:29] Speaker C: Well, they win. But more seriously, Neil, I mean, there's a lot more there where, you know, the better campaign doesn't always win. The better campaign doesn't always raise the most money. But some of the lessons that you can see in digital and where AI is moving have to do with starting early and laying the groundwork early, even if there is not a— even if you don't have a fundraising advantage. So what we've seen are campaigns that start digital early win, I think, at 10 to 15 points higher on average than campaigns that don't. So thinking early is so important. And even if that's just some retargeting and search ads, but getting ahead of that curve is really essential. [06:07] Jordan Lieberman: Yeah, it really is. And you're someone that's become known for writing about the political consulting industry through Vendor Traps. I've got to ask, what is— what was it that inspired that work and what patterns have you uncovered that most people inside the industry don't notice out there? [06:22] Speaker C: It's been about a year, year and a half since I dove into this. And you know, in full disclosure, there's no way I got gentlemen's— I don't know if you have familiar gentlemen's Cs, but I got lots of them in the maths, economics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, stat, calc, C-, solid C-'s across the board in my, in college and grad school. I would've never been able to do this research without ChatGPT and Claude, of course. But what I was, what inspired me to do so was that there's, a real dearth of thought leadership on kind of the anthropological side of political consulting, meaning everyone knows about spend patterns and win-loss records, but nobody really looks at how do you become a campaign manager and what happens to campaign managers. And as a former campaign manager, that was important to me. My friends are in the business of running campaigns left and right and giving some historical context to what their career looks like. I think it's really is filling a niche that isn't otherwise filled. And, you know, listen, when I can't sleep at 3 in the morning, I got a few options and I'd rather be doing something productive, like learning about the industry I work in. And the findings are incredible. I write about them, as you mentioned, in Vendor Trap, and we use it for our own business intelligence and powers of travel. So for example, knowing which states have the most open markets for someone like our company would be really important. Knowing the average start date of a winning campaign's digital program is really important. Knowing that we need not apply in Mississippi for any government or political work, it does save us a lot of time. So I think in the name of efficiency and even in marketing, that's where I got— I was inspired. I found there's a lot more instructive things you can do at 3 in the morning, but I decided this is what I wanted to do. [08:04] Jordan Lieberman: And I think many people listening won't probably think about the fact that every political campaign will generate enormous amounts of data from social media, fundraising, and canvassing and voter outreach, et cetera. So how do you turn all that information into decisions that people can actually act on? [08:22] Speaker C: Well, that's the problem. It's not, it's almost too much information. I mean, I play regularly with several billion data points across the board. And like I said, there's no way it would've been possible without machines helping process vast troves of this data. So Moore's Law, thank you very much. This was never gonna happen 5 years ago. You know, we used to spend— we had a fantastic data analyst in my company and we were paid— pay that person very well. That job doesn't have a lot of— that job no longer exists. [08:49] Jordan Lieberman: Yeah. And during a campaign, obviously events can change a conversation in minutes. So how do you balance that long-term strategy of a campaign with that need to obviously react quickly without losing focus? Again, is technology a big part? [09:04] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a barbell strategy. So, so I think the historical context and working 24/7 are the two keys here. So I understand the historical context of what happens if you run an offensive ad on the wrong day, if you run ads in a culturally insensitive manner, that is the long view. All these crazy stories about, you know, something that I did in Lancaster in 1998 still helps me do better today. So that's one end of the marble strategy. And the other end of the marble strategy, from my point of view, running this kind of business is you need people that are willing to work their ass off. And I have the best team in the business. And if I need something done Friday at 9 o'clock, it's done Friday at 9 o'clock. And that is— those are the two most important things in our business. [09:51] Jordan Lieberman: And when we're talking about politics and technology, there will be a few people listening may have concerns around AI-generated content, deepfakes, misinformation, all those kind of things that again, we sometimes see in our headlines. [10:03] Neil Hughes: So how should a camp— [10:04] Jordan Lieberman: how should campaign teams prepare for those challenges without just adding more fuel to the fire and creating unnecessary fear? [10:11] Speaker C: It's a really good— let's start with the fact that photo manipulation is nothing new. I mean, Stalin did it. This is nothing that the world hasn't seen. But I think the challenge is now our senses are betraying us and we are seeing fake news as news and news as fake news. And we're having a really hard time understanding because of the quality of, you know, what used to be just a ugly Photoshop, that the quality of something is hard to believe. And I think developing our own sense of skepticism that Donald Trump and Joe Biden were not sitting in a hot tub last night, like that is important, is an important skill that I think people of a certain generation lack. And I think the skepticism that we see in Gen X, so everyone younger than me, right? I think there's a healthy skepticism of people that are in their 20s, 30s, 40s. I think people of a latter generation have a really hard time understanding that just because they read it doesn't mean it's true. So there's a real danger, but I think, you know, again, zoom out, historical context is this is nothing new. Zoom in all the way. And we do need to educate our older voters, frankly, on what misinformation looks like. And I think I've become friendly with a couple of different nonprofits that do that kind of thing. So it's, in my view, it's been a, it's been a a process, not— didn't just happen this week. [11:28] Jordan Lieberman: And as a fellow Gen Xer, we've both seen so many changes through our careers and lives there. But I mean, another thing we've got to mention is things that I've seen change certainly is privacy regulations and also the loss of third-party cookies that changed digital advertising. So how has that affected political campaigns? Do you notice any big changes there or anything needs to be done different? [11:49] Speaker C: Yeah, let's start about privacy regulations. This one, this one bothers me in many ways. So Start with privacy regulations and what we do. We always follow the law. We are so careful about things. We refuse to accept datasets that are emailed to us, for example, unlike the rest of, you know, a whole lot of other people in the industry. We are very sensitive to privacy regulations. That said, privacy regulations typically apply to the kind of things that I do, digital advertising and moving data from A to B. What they don't apply to, or at least they're not enforced, are things like emailing a voter file to a field operator who's going to go knock on doors. There's really a double standard with mail vendors and telemarketers where they are free— there's a free flow of sensitive data all across the board. Vendors are emailing files to each other all day long. But in this one programmatic digital space, it's heavily regulated. We're happy to follow those regulations. But if you're going to have these kinds of privacy regulations, they should really apply to everyone. [12:42] Jordan Lieberman: Yeah, 100% with you. And I think for many people listening, they will also think when you think about smaller campaigns, they often assume that sophisticated digital advertising, that's only for the well-funded candidates. Is that still true, or have AI tools lowered the bar and made them more accessible? What have you seen here? [12:59] Speaker C: Oh yeah, it's not just AI tools, just the price of technology wants to be zero, and it's not gonna be zero, but the price of, but because that price of technology is always inching towards zero, you know, smaller campaigns have access to the things that presidential campaigns did really recently. So what we do scales down really nicely. You know, we do plenty of 3-figure buys, but you know, a couple of things. One is the dataset needs to be large enough where you're still protecting privacy. And two, one of the things I think that we've done with our business and that I encourage everyone to do is if the client is wasting my money, you tell them and play the long game. There's no reason to go have a client light a few hundred dollars on fire when, you know, what's really more important is their long-term trust. [13:43] Jordan Lieberman: And of course, I'd love to ask here, are there any lessons from political campaigning that maybe people listening inside commercial brands could learn from? Just as importantly, are there practices businesses should avoid? Any big lessons there? [13:57] Speaker C: What I love about hiring political people is they all share a very similar DNA, and that DNA is urgency and detail orientation. And those two things you don't see in a whole lot of just standard PR shops. The idea that when I, when a PR shop comes to me and says, I need this fast, I need this by next week, it always makes us giggle because when someone in politics says I need it fast, that means within the hour. And the urgency that we see in politics really has not translated into most PR, public affairs, government affairs shops. I think that's a real disadvantage. And I think that is why so many political shops become broader and they start picking up nonpolitical clients like us. We have a whole bunch of clients that really love our speed to market, our, our, our responsiveness and our industry knowledge. And I don't think you see that. I think the bar, frankly, is lower with nonpolitical shops and a few really important KPIs. [14:52] Jordan Lieberman: And if I was to ask you to look back over your career, is there a campaign that maybe completely changed your thinking about what actually makes digital advertising effective and any lessons that have stayed with you throughout your career? [15:04] Speaker C: Well, Neil, and so lessons are different for me than for a whole lot of digital people that are younger. You know, lessons I learned working on campaigns, I carried them deeper. Like, so the lessons I'm learning are more when I'm working at Powers Interactive and other companies. And the lessons are, you have to watch the details when you're working on campaigns. There's sometimes there's no takebacks. If you make a mistake with data, with typos, you are costing someone's political career if you put an extra letter in a word. And there are all kinds of things that horror stories that you have to be careful of. And even more so in this immediate age, the faster that politics moves, the greater chance there is for mistakes and the more important it is to make sure you get everything right the first time. So that intensity and detail orientation is paramount importance. [15:49] Jordan Lieberman: And obviously I'm sat here in the UK. There's not a US election, I think, till 2028, the big presidential election, which right now feels like a lifetime away. But I'm curious, after more than two decades working with campaigns, causes, and public affairs organizations, what changes do you think will have the biggest impact on the industry over the next three years when we could be looking at another election? Any big changes you foresee on the horizon there? [16:14] Speaker C: Yeah, and it's a change that most political consultants don't talk about, and that is the polarization of our electorate. [16:21] Jordan Lieberman: Yeah. And you know, you can see that worldwide, but in America it's been measured for a long time, and the two centers of gravity from either party are moving apart from each other at unprecedented speed. We have not disliked each other as a country this much since the Civil War. Wow. So am I worried for our future? [16:39] Neil Hughes: Yes. [16:40] Jordan Lieberman: Is one side to blame? No, it's, it's everyone. And the polarization is a result of better microtargeting by people like me. It's a result of campaign finance. It's a result of just the increasing diversity in America. All, all those things together are leading to a lack of consensus where we're not all watching the same ABC, CBS, NBC News at 6 o'clock at night anymore. We're reading, we're only watching the news that we want to watch, and we start believing the truths that we want to believe. And those truths are not, are no longer, uh, universal. And that is a dangerous place to be. [17:12] Jordan Lieberman: It really is. And that polarization is something I see here in the UK as well. It's something that we both share. And for anybody listening would like to find out more information about anything we discussed today, how they might be able to work with you, find out more information, where should they go? [17:28] Jordan Lieberman: You can always go to Powers Interactive. We're on, on the internet, of course, LinkedIn, probably the easiest way to find me. And, uh, Jordan Lieberman, Powers Interactive. Neil, pleasure talking to you. [17:38] Neil Hughes: Today's conversation showed that while AI is changing how political campaigns analyze data and reach voters, the qualities that matter most remain remarkably human: trust, sound judgment, attention to detail, and the ability to act quickly still separate successful campaigns from unsuccessful ones. And I think Jordan also reminded us today that technology is at its best when it helps people make better decisions rather than making those decisions for them. And as AI becomes more influential in advertising and communication, find myself thinking, where should we draw the line between automation and human judgment. Something for us all to think about. I'll return next week with another episode, but thank you for listening today, and hopefully I'll speak with you all again very soon. Bye for now.