How Cambridge Analytica’s parent company helped ‘man of action’ Rodrigo Duterte win the 2016 Philippines election
Strategic Communications Laboratories’ website said in the run up to the vote that its client was perceived as kind and honourable, but it rebranded the candidate as a strong, no-nonsense man of action to win
The parent company of Cambridge Analytica helped put Philippines’ leader Rodrigo Duterte into office after already influencing voters in dozens of campaigns across the globe, according to media reports and information pulled from the firm’s website.
Strategic Communications Laboratories, or SCL Group, which owns the political consultancy at the centre of a Facebook data harvesting scandal linked to the 2016 US presidential race, boasted on its website that it helped get Duterte elected in 2016 by rebranding him as a tough crime fighter.
The company removed the website content about the 2016 Philippine election, however, archived versions are still visible on the internet. Though SCL did not identify its Philippine client by name, the brief pointed clearly to former Davao City mayor Duterte, who was one of the six candidates in the 2016 race.
“In the run up to national elections the incumbent client was widely perceived as both kind and honourable, qualities his campaign team thought were potentially election-winning,” the SCL web content said. “But SCL’s research showed that many groups within the electorate were more likely to be swayed by qualities such as toughness and decisiveness. SCL used the cross-cutting issue of crime to rebrand the client as a strong, no-nonsense man of action, who would appeal to the true values of the voters.”
