Change is an election buzzword, and ‘Vote for Change’ was part of a major advertising campaign. By monitoring how often this word is associated with each party or party leader we gain immediate insight regarding how much traction the relevant campaigns obtained.
The below graph shows the association analysis of David Cameron and Nick Clegg matched to the word ‘change’ in the UK election debate. If one of the party leaders was mentioned with the word ‘change’ more often than the other, their relative Share-of-Influence in relation to that word would increase. Our UK Election debate sample includes data from 77,000 sites between 29th March and 6th May. This association analysis shows:
- Nick Clegg had relatively low Share-of-Influence in the week of 29th March; this means that relatively little discussion included his name with the words ‘election’ and ‘change’ at that time compared to David Cameron.
- In the week of 5th April Nick Clegg made a gain, from 5% to 25%. This gain was disproportionate: his Share-of-Influence when ‘change’ was mentioned was twice that of his overall Share-of-Influence for that time: only 12 % (see dashed line below).
- In the weeks of 29th March and 19th April, Nick Clegg continued to make gains in his Share-of-Influence, overtaking David Cameron. This evidence supports the hypothesis that among the party leaders it was Nick Clegg who was gaining attention relative to the other leaders and the one who was most associated with change at that time.
- The growth trend in Nick Clegg’s Share-of-Influence did not continue past the week of April 19th; following that week, David Cameron regained his lead in Share-of-Influence from Nick Clegg and became the candidate most associated with the word change in the last few days preceding the election.
