Who is Pam of NB Proud?
A profile of Proudly New Brunswick and robotexting
On September 22nd 2018, thousands of New Brunswickers received automated phone calls and text messages identifying themselves as “Pam from New Brunswick Proud.” Social media lit up with common questions:
Who is NB Proud? Why did they text me? How did they get my number? Are they allowed to do this?
Who is NB Proud?
In short, they are a Facebook Page that produces memes for a conservative audience. The memes vary from politics to the mundane. For the most part, they focus on attacking Liberal leaders like Brian Gallant and Justin Trudeau. Much of their content is shared between sister organizations like Ontario Proud and BC Proud.
Their intent is more than just pumping out memes. They want to have an impact on elections in Canada. A key adviser for the NB Proud is Ontario Proud founder Jeff Ballingall. In an interview with the CBC, Ballingall summed up their interests:
“We’re about fiscally responsible government, lower taxes, pro jobs, and the ability for people to have affordable lives.” Jeff Ballingall, CBC News Oct 2018
Robotexting
NB Proud told a CBC reporter they sent over 5,000 text messages on September 22nd, two days before the provincial election.
Tools like CallFire or Twilio can be used to automate text blasts, including responses based on keywords. In fact, you could text Pam none-sense and still get a response so long as those keywords were included.
Why did they text me?
NB Proud said the purpose of the texts was to get a feel of what is important to New Brunswickers. Typically in phone surveys like this, responses are captured and stored in a database so they can be further analyzed and used in marketing decisions. In sales, this kind of software system is called Customer Relationship Management, or CRM. Some political organization use CRMs like Salesforce to help manage their campaigns, but as the name suggests, they are tailored to grow sales, not votes. Therefore, many political parties ended up making their own, which can be very costly.
But today there are new off-the-shelf CRMs that are specifically designed for politics and advocacy work. NationBuilder is one of the largest, used by Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and now NB Proud. NationBuilder advertises that it can be used to manage a campaign’s website, email, and text blasts.
How did they get my number?
NB Proud was asked this question in September. They responded that a vendor sends the text messages with their own list of phone numbers. They refused to identify the vendor. The Globe and Mail reported a similar response from Ontario Proud, though they added that the vendor “gathers contact information from the Canadian Numbering Plan, the system overseen by the Canadian Numbering Administrator (CNA), an agency under CRTC oversight that assigns phone numbers to carriers.”
As of writing, there are currently robotexts claiming to be Lisa of the Conservative Party of Canada. If you text “How did you get this number?” she will respond with the same explanation regarding the Canadian Numbering Plan.
This claim is partially true. The Canadian Numbering Authority publishes the first six digits: the area code and central office code or exchange (e.g 506–306-XXXX). The final four digits, called the line number, are not always available to the public. A CNA Manager told the Globe and Mail the vendor working for groups like Ontario Proud and NB Proud are most likely taking these first six digits and randomly dialing the rest.
“If you have a telephone in front of you, you technically do not need a list. You can just start dialing numbers if you want.” CNA Official, Globe and Mail, June 2018
Who is the vendor?
Although NB Proud initially declined to identify the vendor, they are required to report their election advertising expenses to Elections NB under the Political Process Financing Act. They reported “RMG” was responsible for “SMS voter contact.”
Who is RMG?
Responsive Marketing Group has a long history with running political campaigns. More notably, the company ran a telemarketing campaign for the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2011 federal election. Former employees stated they felt the intention of the campaign was to mislead potential voters. RMG denied any wrong-doing. In addition to telemarketing, RMG provides a wide variety of services, including systems integration of voter information databases and CRMs like NationBuilder.
How is NB Proud Funded?
2018 election advertising expenses for NB Proud were funded by two donors: the Modern Miracle Network and the Manning Foundation.
The Manning Foundation is a charity founded by Preston Manning. Their mission is “to improve Canadian public policy through ideas, research and education.” Filings with Canada Revenue for the past five years reported 0% of their +$1 million in annual expenses were political, so sponsoring NB Proud is quite a shift. The foundation is based in Alberta.
The Modern Miracle Network is an advocacy group that “celebrates the modern miracle of hydrocarbons.” The board of directors consists only of three employees of Questerre Energy, a petroleum company. Both the Modern Miracle Network and Questerre Energy are based in Alberta.
How are the Proud Groups related?
Modern Miracle Network, Ontario Proud, BC Proud, Alberta Proud, NB Proud and Quebec Proud all have websites built on the Nation Builder platform. In fact, when NB Proud’s website was first launched, the Mission Statement page was copy and pasted from the Quebec Proud website, referring to themselves as Quebec Proud, no mention of New Brunswick. NB Proud acknowledged the mistake and said they were trying to get it fixed.
This folly, the common platform, and similarities in messaging all suggest their activities could be coordinated together. It’s unclear if RMG has a role in this coordination beyond the New Brunswick hire for robotexting, but Ballingall makes no secret of cooperation between the various Proud groups.
Are Proud groups working directly with a political party?
The question gets asked a lot because in some cases that would be illegal. There is no evidence that Proud groups are working directly with a political party, but they certainly have a lot in common with the conservative parties, like working with current or former party staffers, volunteers and vendors.
Are political organizations allowed to robotext?
Yes. The CRTC has extensive rules for commercial telemarketers regarding auto-dialing and unsolicited calls. However, political campaigning is not a commercial activity, so for the most part, they are exempt from these rules. The CRTC’s definition of auto-dialing only includes voice recordings, so texting does not fall under their auto-dialing rules.
Elections NB is responsible for enforcing the Political Process Financing Act, which introduces other rules.
Here are a few things political organizations must do during an election campaign period in New Brunswick:
- Organizations spending more than $500 on political advertising must register as a Third Party Advertiser with Elections NB.
- Third Parties must report their campaign advertising expenses and their donors which funded theses activities.
- Advertisements must properly identify their organization. Initially, NB Proud ran into trouble with this requirement. Their registered name with Elections NB was Proudly New Brunswick, but publicly they often use the NB Proud brand. At the time, there was an unrelated Facebook page going by a similar name which caused a lot of confusion. Elections NB said they spoke with NB Proud about this issue and consider it resolved.
- Political organizations are exempt from the CRTC’s national do-not-call list, but they are required to maintain their own list. They must provide instructions on how to be added to their do-not-call list. In the robotexting world, the standard is responding STOP.
- If the call or text from the organization is fundraising in nature, it would be considered a commercial activity and would therefore have to abide by the CRTC’s commercial telemarketing rules.
Is Pam a real person?
There were reports that she is, but that is hard to believe. The behaviour of the text messages sent by NB Proud clearly indicate they were generated by a bot. Maybe the campaign manager was named Pam. Who knows. Later messages from NB Proud used the name Kate.
Who else is robotexting?
Olivia of Ontario Proud sent over one million text messages during the 2018 Ontario election. Over the past year, there have also been robotexts from Mary of the Alberta United Conservative Party, Lisa of Conservative Party of Canada, Sophie of the Ontario Conservative Party, and Adam of the Ontario NDP.
The Alberta NDP is doing something a bit different. They are using a peer-to-peer SMS platform. P2P is like a call centre for texting. The initial message is sent automatically. Once a recipient responds, a human steps in to provide any followup, producing interactions that are much more entertaining than Pam bot.
Why texting?
Three words: speed, reach & cost.
Knocking on doors may be personal and therefore very persuasive for campaigners, but it is also slow and resource intensive. It requires many boots on the ground and a lot of time. Radio, TV and newspaper ads are expensive, especially when compared to social media advertising. Facebook ads can reach an audience just as wide as traditional media at a fraction of the cost.
Text messaging seems to be the best of both worlds. Like Facebook ads, it’s cheap. Twilio pricing starts at $0.0075 per message. Unlike canvassing, that requires a whole team of people, a robotext campaign can theoretically be coordinated one person with minimal tech skills, but realistically these campaigns use those savings to employ a wide variety of marketing skills to have the greatest impact.
All of that aside, the main reason text messaging is gaining popularity with campaigns is the open rate. 98%! In fact, 83% will open a text within the first three minutes of receiving it. By comparison, political email campaigns can expect an open rate of 15–30%.
If we are giving our phones that much of our attention, you could argue that texting is just as personal as a knock on the door. It would explain why so many feel their privacy is being intruded when they receive unsolicited texts.
What to make of all this …
I have my own thoughts, which I will provide in a follow-up commentary. I am curious to hear yours. One thing is for sure: third party advertisers, social media, text messaging and data mining are changing the game. It’s a brave new world, 1984, Kardashians …
Update
iMarketing Solutions subsidiaries were also hired by the Alberta United Conservative Party during their provincial election for a robocalling campaign using sound board technology. The caller identified themselves as the Voter Outreach Centre, one of iMarketing Solutions’ subsidiaries. Kyle Hamilton captured one of these calls on tape.
https://soundcloud.com/kyle-hamilton-29/call-15-36-46-out-17804375046
On June 3rd, I personally received a sound board call from iMarketing Solutions on behalf of the Conservative Party of Canada. Despite the controversy in 2011, this shows CPC continues to use iMarketing Solutions. Here is what I was able to record.
On July 30th, I decided to call all known numbers which have been robotexting or robocalling Canadians to gather voter data. This video shows that NL Strong, NB Proud, Ontario Strong, Ontario PC Party, Alberta UCP and the Conservative Party of Canada are all using iMarketing Solutions Group to gather this info. I attempted to include numbers from BC Strong and Ontario Proud, but those numbers have been disconnected. However, the Vancouver Sun confirmed that BC Strong utilized iMarketing Solutions for their recent robocall campaign.
