Think & Play

Thoughtplay is the creative team behind various popular websites and other projects. At this blog we give away bright ideas regularly, and comment on interesting trends both online and off. The thought channel is for more business-related trends, play looks at entertainment and leisure, and thoughtplay introduces our own creative ideas, as well as news about our projects.

Should politicans be getting shirty? | 070307

Thoughtplay is always interested finding new ways of predicting the results of elections - especially if the system involves looking at group behaviour - so were keen to see how successful our new method is. The Cafepress site allows users to design T-shirts, mugs and other items and share the revenue generated from the sales of these products. The early-starting US Presidential race has led to many designs being created - but can anything be learnt from this?

Our theory is a simple one - that the more popular a candidate is, the more designs relating them likely to be created. The rationale behind this is that the designers are commercially motivated - the greater demand they perceive, the more likely they are to create a design. So how do the candidates compare?

From the Republicans the three leading candidates break down as follows:John McCain has 700 designs, Rudy Giuliani has 870 and Mitt Romney 566. How does this compare to current polling? Well, a Fox poll at the end of February had Giuliani on 39%, McCain on 19% and Romney languishing on 6%. So far, the model works, but how about the Democrats?

Hillary Clinton has an astonishing 6,580 designs, John Edwards has 1,830 and Barack Obama 3,980. As for the polls, the most recent had Clinton on 34%, Obama on 23% and Edwards on 12%. So our Cafepress prediction model works? Well, perhaps.

Clearly there are factors other than popularity (or perceived popularity) that influence the number of designs on Cafepress. The fact that all of the Democratic candidates have far more designs than their Republication counterparts is probably more indicative of a liberal bias in Cafepress shoppers than a likely landslide in 2008. There is also the fact that there is a limit to the number of designs you can create about a candidate who is, well, perhaps a little dull. Finally, not all of the designs indicate popular support. A quick review of Hilary's designs suggests that approximately half, far from being supportive, are downright insulting about the Senator.

So are we writing off this shirt-based form of political prediction? No. We still have confidence in the wisdom of crowds and think that in this instance the shirts are ahead of the polls. Whilst Barack Obama had around 60% of the number of designs of Hillary, they were almost all - especially the best-selling items - positive. The official Thoughtplay prediction for the 2008 US Presidential candidates is therefore Rudy Giuliani for the Republicans and Barack Obama for the Democrats - let's see if history bears us out.

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