1) The document discusses Colombia's 2010 presidential election between Juan Manuel Santos and Antanas Mockus, where Santos assembled an 80-person "Internet task force" to boost his digital campaign against Mockus' early online popularity. 2) Through tactics like an iPhone app, SMS messaging, online videos, and personalized local campaign websites, Santos was able to shift perceptions of his campaign and engage Colombian voters digitally. 3) On election day, Santos won in a landslide with nearly 9 million votes, the highest in Colombia's history, due in part to his campaign's innovative use of digital technologies and online engagement of voters.

1. Colombia Ups the Ante in Latin American E-
Democracy
by Luis G. Lopez, Ravi Singh, and Dr. Dennis Anderson / Sep 28 2010
By the end of April in Colombia, former Bogota mayor Antanas Mockus’ Green Wave had
become a serious challenge to Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian presidential candidate
who was synonymous to continuation of outgoing President Álvaro Uribe’s popular 8-year
term.
By the end of April in Colombia, former Bogota mayor Antanas Mockus’ Green Wave had
become a serious challenge to Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian presidential candidate who
was synonymous to continuation of outgoing President Álvaro Uribe’s popular 8-year term.
Appealing to a large mass of idealistic youngsters, who comprised a high percentage of the
estimated 15 million-plus Internet users in Colombia, Mockus was king of the digital world, with
more than 600,000 fans on Facebook, a strong following on Twitter, and banner ads running in
all leading publications in the country.
Enter an 80-person strong Internet task force assembled in just 72 hours in a war room in
Bogota, led by Election-Mall.com and local operatives. The challenges: neutralize the Green
Wave; appeal to a pool of young voters who were digital-savvy and thirsty for change; bring
innovative technology to Colombia’s political landscape. And of course, get Santos elected.
Fate & Setup
When Ravi Singh, founder and CEO of ElectionMall.com, a non-partisan technology company
powered by Microsoft, landed in Colombia for the first time, he was to speak in Medellin and
head straight back home to Washington D.C. Little did he know that Santiago Valencia, a young
Colombian politician, would lure him into a great e-democracy adventure: Recovering 6-12
months of lost time in digital initiatives, and catch up to Mockus’ leadership on the Web, in less
than 50 days. With a client list that has exceeded 1,000 campaigns under his belt, and an
ongoing negotiation to become Microsoft’s political software arm in the works, Singh went
straight to work. With a 24/7 work discipline, and a brutal drive that overcame culture,
nationality and race, Mr. Singh convinced the Santos campaign and Sistole – a direct marketing
agency that is part of Sancho’s, the candidate’s advertising agency - to build a digital War Room
in little less than three days. The War Room included a mesh of local staff that grew from 5 to
80 in aweek; fully-secure network servers; BlackBerrys for the entire team; iPhones for the
advanced task force; video streaming from live events; a walled-off conference room, balcony,
loft-style living room space, a metricswall, and an abundant supply of Red Bull, potato chips,
candy and anti-bacterial soap.
The tactics – 50 days to catch up

2. On day one, the candidate’s official website went pitch-black. It wasn’t a local hacker or
neighboring Venezuela launching a cyber attack. It was actually the beginning of a 50-day,
highly-orchestrated set of tactics that had one goal in mind: Getting Santos elected. With
individuals responding to names like Mr. Twitter, Ms. Delicious, Video-guy, or
Mr. SMS – the team’s operatives were rolling. Tactics were laid out across the War Room in
sequential order: A countdown from day 50 (roughly May 3rd), all the way to day zero (June
20th, second-round Election Day). The team would execute precise tactics, and the competition
would wake up to them and respond a week or so later.
Among the most innovative tactics were an iPhone app, where users received daily feeds from
The U Party (Santo’s political party) and general election and candidate news; an advanced
team feeding live streams via Ustream with iPhones from the towns or cities where Santos
campaigned; an SMS short code (677) that worked across all national carriers (Comcel,
Movistar, Tigo) for opt-in SMS strategies led by local company SigmaMovil; pop-corn debate
watch parties (including instructions for preparing pop-corn); targeted search engine
marketing; cascade-style online advertising, and a real-time Wall of Shame, where any citizen
could post offensive material related to any candidate, in order to combat the dirty war that
was happening across social media.
The Mockus started emulating the Santos tactics, almost one by one, but with a one-week
delay. And when the Mockus campaign began its rebuttal, the Santos campaign was already
launching a new tactic.
Colombians respond
Within 3 weeks of the Internet Task Force’s efforts, a shift in perception was achieved: Santos
went from “old-school” and “boring” to become a superhero with an exciting SUPER SANTOS
video game, where the candidate fought poverty, corruption, unemployment and drug
trafficking in a Super Mario Bros-like environment. The main Web site – SantosPresidente.com
– received more than 40,000 visits each day. More than 4 million opt-in e-mails were assembled
in 6 weeks. Individual tactics like the Baby-Santos video were receiving 11,000 views a single
day. Mockus also experiences a number of high profile gaffes – saying he “admired” unpopular
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and that he’d extradite current Colombian President Uribe
to Ecuador – which the Santo campaign aggressively highlighted in its online messaging.
In the first-round of balloting on May 30th, Santos totaled nearly 7 million votes, and doubled
the opposition by 47 to 22 percent with seven other candidates dividing the rest of the vote.
Far from considering “a job done,” the Internet Task Force, at that point being dubbed “The
Web 2.0 Victory Team,” went into high-gear.
Landslide victory

3. The most aggressive and innovative tactics were deployed after the run-off. For the first time,
Colombians were able to send their voter ID number (“cedula”) to the SMS short code, and
receive their exact voting location to their cell phones. With a cell-phone penetration nearing
100%, this was a huge hit with the Colombian voters. If this voter ID number was entered on
the Santos Web site, the user would receive his or her exact voting location on a digital map,
provided by national developer Servinformación, along with a suggested route.
A few days before second-round voting on June 20, the Virtual Headquarters was launched.
This initiative involved 1,076 individual web sites – one for every city, town and county in
Colombia. These pages included local information, contact data for the representatives in each
location, and personalized merchandising, including posters with the location name. These
were a first for Latin America. The initiatives helped Santo tally almost 9 million votes, the
highest recorded vote numbers in the country’s history. Santos ultimately won election in a 2-
to-1 blowout, racking up 69 percent of the vote.
The Future of E-Democracy in Colombia
It would be too ambitious to say that the Web 2.0 Victory Team got Santos elected. Or that –
like was the case in the United States with Barack Obama – the elections were defined online.
But, it is fair to say that, for a people who didn’t quite grasp the power of digital media before
the 2010 presidential elections, history was made.
Juan Manuel Santos, now a Blackberry-toting, tweeting citizen, is committed to continue using
technology, social media, and innovations on the web, to stay close to the citizens. With a
highly profiled database and an understanding of the power of the Web, Santos will continue to
use the technology in his government. Colombia, now one of the most solid democracies in
Latin America, was recently dubbed the “Star of the South” by U.S.-based Newsweek magazine.
The country showed the world a successful electoral process in 2010. The use of the Internet,
Social Media, Mobile Marketing, Online Videos, and Search technologies among others gave the
Santos campaign an edge that caught the competition – and the country – by surprise, and that
contributed to a victory that was well received by most Colombians and the international
community.