Mar Roxas’ “Daang Matuwid” ad campaign is failing him – the numbers show it

Part 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

supporters abandon Jejomar Binay in mass exodus

there is no other way to describe what has been happening to presidentiable Jejomar Binay and his presidential campaign – his supporters are abandoning him in what can only be called a mass exodus. this is the PDI headline from the most recent survey from Pulse Asia:

this is a survey from Pulse Asia on the performance and trust rating of Binay as vice-president. this survey asks the performance and trust ratings of the top officials in the government from the president to the speaker of the house and senate to the chief justice. this is different from the election surveys that Pulse Asia (and SWS) have been conducting.

this survey asks respondents of their sentiments in the way Binay is performing his job as vice-president. people will be responding to that question based on what they think a vice president should be doing. Binay’s run for the president is not mentioned in the question that is being asked here.

the results were devastating for Binay – he took a free fall on trust and performance to his lowest level in the process losing a whopping-15% points from 58% to 43% of his approval rating on his performance of his job.

equally devastating is his trust ratings also nose dived by losing-18% points from 57% to 39%.

source : Philippine Daily Inquirer http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/727269/pulse-asia-binay-ratings-dive

those are very dramatic losses that will make any candidate or even a pollster shudder in fear. this means that on this aspect of Binay’s political life, people are very disappointed with him and that he is being abandoned by his supporters. the vice-president position is a very easy position to fulfill – because of the nature of the job, there are very little things to do unlike say the president or even the cabinet secretaries. because of the ease, the vice president in most surveys typically gets a much higher performance and trust rating than the president.

for Jejomar Binay to get a lower rating than Aquino in this survey says a lot about the huge disappointment that people have on Binay.

in a newspaper report, Binay questions the credibility of this survey by saying he has already resigned his cabinet posts when the survey was conducted, wondering what it was the respondents were rating him for his performance and trust.

Binay is mistaken and raises an irrelevant issue – the survey had asked the respondents on his performance and trust as vice president of the country, not as any of the cabinet post he has occupied and resigned from. respondents are measuring him on the basis of what the respondents think is the job and function of the vice president. as vice-president of the country, the respondents have seen his performance and trust dramatically drop.

in recent surveys released previous to this, Binay’s ratings have shown his declining ratings continue to drop. not only that, his ranking has changed from a high 2nd to either being tied by Roxas at 2nd or falling to 3rd/4th position. the ratings of mar roxas, the LP and admin standard bearer has seen his ratings surge up both in terms of numbers and position where he used to be a far 4th to now a tie at 2nd (posted here in this blog).

the questions asked of the respondents here were point blank – who would they elect as president if the elections were held at the time of the survey and who they think is a good leader to replace Aquino as president.

Binay getting declining numbers on these different surveys says a large part of Binay’s supporters are abandoning Binay in a mass exodus. they are abandoning Binay based on different dimensions of the candidate as Binay – on trust and performance as VP, as a good leader to replace Aquino and as presidential candidate. Binay is being looked at from different dimensions by the voters and in all aspects they no longer see Binay as fit.

on their own these are already dramatic and impressive declines. put that further into context, Binay used to be the top on all the surveys just a few months ago. he was all alone on top with no one even close to challenge him. Binay’s standing started to erode when alleged charges of corruption and plunder were revealed at the senate hearings. at the height of the weekly hearings, when it became vey apparent that Binay was mired in multiple corruption charges, Grace Poe a neophyte senator surged up in the surveys .

the voters saw Binay as the evil one based on the alleged charges while they saw Poe as good in an election that quickly got into a question of an election of Good vs Evil.

we have said this before. Binay should recognize what is happening to his candidacy, these survey numbers are real and representing real sentiments. the sentiments are astoundingly consistent from many dimensions. for him to change his fortunes, he needs to wear big boy pants and face the charges that have been made against him. until he does that, the declining trend will not change and continue until the actual 2016 election.

does binay have big boy pants?

 

 

 

 

 

Mar Roxas is back, not dead & out – June 2015 Pulse Asia survey

just when things are heating up in the pre-2016 election campaign and new stars are emerging, Grace Poe and Duterte, based on the most recent Pulse Asia survey, Mar Roxas comes out as still alive and not yet down and out as others have been saying or as others are wishing.

 

Roxas in the last Pulse Asia survey shows a magnificent gain of +6% points, now at 10% from his previous 4%. he more than doubled his rating. Roxas is  now a strong 4th. he is back to his previous rating of low double digit numbers.

this rating shows he is definitely not out of the presidentiables race. what would be interesting for him is his rating in the next survey. if Roxas sustains the double digit rating and specially if he gains, then we can say he has recovered and reversed the trend to an uptrend.

so much attention has been given to Grace Poe’s rating while very little has been given to roxas. we’re not saying the attention given to Poe is undeserving because it is. Poe over taking the previous poll leader Binay is a great achievement and worth the praise and attention.

but looking at the numbers  – there are only two presidentiables who have gotten significant gains in this Pulse Asia survey – Poe is one of them, +16% points which is astronomical and the other is Roxas which is a +6% points. the increase in number for Roxas may not look much, a +6% points but it actually is considering where he was before just a 4% rating. Roxas more than doubled his rating in the latest survey. a number that is being doubled is very, very impressive even if it is a small base.

Duterte also gained, a +3% points to 15% from the previous 12% but that is not statistically different with the +/- 3 margin of error. statistically speaking, Duterte has not gained anything.

what is even more interesting is that both Poe and Roxas gained. one did not gain at the expense of the other. that is a good sign. it means each one has its own base support and they are gaining from non-admin candidates. this of course can change in the coming surveys but for now, the numbers are looking good for both of them.

the election is months away and except for Binay, the candidates have not officially declared themselves as candidates. time is on the side of Roxas. he has a lot of time to build his coalitions and support base. there are still a lot that he can do.

but what are these things that he can do? that is another topic on another time.

 

 

 

VP Jojo Binay ratings continue to fall, a dramatic exodus of supporters

presidentiable VP Jojo Binay’s survey ratings continue to fall for a second consecutive quarter. in this Pulse Asia survey to 26% in the November 2014 survey from 31% in the previous survey, a 5% point drop. this should worry Binay and his advisers as it makes the possibility of losing the 2016 election a bigger reality.

he is still number 1 in the survey but that is practically meaningless as for surveys like  these, the trend is much more important and meaningful than the actual rating for the period. the question being asked in this survey is something like “if elections were held today, who will you elect as president?”, thus the answer respondents are giving are relevant to the current time only when the survey was conducted.

the election is still in 2016, at least 5 quarters to go of surveys (surveys are conducted on a quarterly basis) and that means changes to the ratings and rankings will happen depending on developments in the country and the actions of the presidentiables. the changes will be dramatic with those initially ahead in the surveys early on dropping down, even to levels where they eventually lose the election. we saw this in the most recent presidential election in 2010 when at the start of the election period, senator Manny Villar was way ahead of everyone but eventually dropped to number 3 or 4 by election time when he was besieged with corruption charges and mismanaged its handling.

the drop in the most recent survey for Binay is an indication that the things he has been doing during the time from the previous survey to this one have not been working for Binay. Binay continued to be on a Binayfication strategy where he continue to ignore the corruption charges and allegations, refusing to directly answer them, to deny or confirm any of it and to offer evidence that prove they are false.

the table and chair set up at the senate for VP Binay

under the Binayfication strategy is his refusal to attend the senate hearing. the senate sub-committee that has been conducting the hearings on the over-pricing of the Makati parking building has repeatedly and in public told Binay there is an open invitation for him to attend the hearing. Binay on his part has also repeatedly refused to attend the hearings giving a lot of silly reasons. then at some point, for a reason only he and his advisers know, Binay said he will only attend the senate hearing  if the mother committee in the senate invites him.

well, the mother committee through the committee chair, senator Guingona, extended an invitation to the vice president. the senate even went to the extent of assigning a date and time. and on the appointed time and date, the senate set up a table, chair, a microphone, a name plate and even a glass of water in the middle of the place where the hearings are being conducted. it was a surreal scene as the media took pictures and showed live TV footage of the empty chair. Binay demanded the mother committee give him an invitation, it did but he did not show up.

there were new and additional corruption charges and allegations made during the period. but the other telling development under the Binayfication strategy was the debate with senator Trillanes. the same thing happened here – Binay challenged senator Trillanes to a debate on the corruption issues. after a bit of time, Trillanes agreed and accepted the debate challenge. staff from both sides started to meet to discuss the debate and like the one above, a date and time was set. then, all of a sudden and something that it appears none of his staff and advisers did not know about, Binay announced  he will not debate with Trillanes.

the drop in the most recent survey may be attributed to the Binayfication strategy – it is not working and it is not able to arrest the decline in the ratings of Binay. rather than helping him, Binay continue to lose supporters.

looking at the specifics of the survey results, to us the most telling and the one that should concern Binay the most are his ratings in Luzon, and among the upper class (ABC) and the lower class, D.

the drops in Binay’s ratings are across the board – all areas and all socio-eco classes. but the drop in the Luzon rating is dramatic and stands out – it is now exactly one half of what it was in march, 2014. it is a dramatic decline to 22% from 44% in march, a huge -22% point loss.

similar dramatic declines occurred among the ABC and D socio-eco class. the upper and middle class saw an even bigger degradation – dropping -30% points to now just 17% from 47%. the D saw a -16% point shrinkage to 26% from 42%. losing your base support from these groups is a nightmare for any election campaign. this is an exodus of supporters from the thinking class and the poor.

the election is still 5 quarters away, Binay can still recover with still a lot of things he can do during that time. what he wants is to do things that will reverse what may be the beginning of a declining trend. he and his advisers should realize Binayfication is not working, something else needs to be done.

question is – does Binay have the smarts, the will power and the good things in him to abandon the Binayfication strategy and pursue another strategy, like the Truth Strategy?

3 survey charts that tell VP Binay his 2016 presidential ambition may be over

read this here : http://wawam.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/3-survey-charts-that-tell-vp-binay-his-2016-presidential-ambition-may-be-over/

 

drop in Pulse Asia presidentiables survey – time to panic for VP Jojo Binay

not that we didn’t know it would happen, but the drop of -10% points in the presidentiables survey is significant both statistically and subjectively and time for presidentiable VP Jojo Binay to panic. this significant drop is exclusively because of the graft allegations and charges that are being made at the senate committee hearing on the overpricing of the Makati Parking Building.

this is not due to a competition making inroads or a change in the country’s situation and thus a change in voters sentiments, this all due to his making or his “not making”.

in marketing terms, the brand image of vp Jejomar Binay is getting hit badly. the word “corruption” has been attached to his name or at minimum a huge mistrust or suspicion is building up.

source : https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3b9qPFV1cRDTk16WXpXZmlVM0k/edit?pli=1

the drop in rating is across the board – all 4 regions and all socio-eco classes and each one is mostly like statistically significant. drops like these when seen in market research in marketing causes panic among the marketing and advertising teams. these are dramatic decreases. aside from the big deterioration in ratings, the bigger worry is that this might be the beginning of a declining trend. there are 6 more quarters until the 2016 election, a conservative and generous average drop of let us say 5% points every quarter will put the Binay’s rating by election time at 1%, certainly a rating that will not get him to win the election.

of course things can still change for Binay. this thing called “nothing is impossible” in marketing is also applicable for Binay, the 6 quarters to go also means there is still time for Binay to  recover in the presidentiables ratings. but to change that will mean Binay needs to panic and change strategies and tactics. the horrific data means people are believing the corruption charges and allegations that are being made at the senate hearing and more importantly whatever Binay has been employing to answer them are not working, they are not able to change the minds of the voters.

is Binay willing to change strategies and tactics in answering the charges? we do not think so and we do not see it. Binay has not changed his strategy of “Binayfication” – introduce new and unrelated issues and points to the allegations and charges in an attempt to divert the attention of the audience to something else and anything but the corruption charges and allegations. with Binayfication, Binay ignores the charges and allegations. this has not changed since the start of the revelation of the charges and allegations and to the most recent statements of Binay and his various spokespersons.

note that this presidentiables survey was conducted at the start of September when the charges and the senate hearing was just getting started and before his infamous speech that was meant to “answer the allegations point by point” but was nothing even close to it and instead he made a 2016 election campaign speech. we know that from listening to the speech and from the words of Governor Remulla, one of his spokespersons who characterized the speech as “very presidentiable”. you know the speech is not to answer the allegations when his own spokesperson described the speech as “presidentiable”.

these rating drop could have been much bigger had the survey been conducted towards the last part of September when the senate hearing have had more hearings and more allegations and charges were revealed. nevertheless, Binay has not really changed his Binayfication strategy.

we also note the spin that another spokesman of Binay made about the rating – congressman toby tiangco said they were “positively surprised” by the ratings as they expected them to be lower. he was right and wrong about that. the rating was not as bad because the survey was conducted at the start of september when the issue was still new and not a lot of issues have been revealed. tiangco’s statement was a lame spin to squeeze something good from something terribly shitty. no wonder tiangco was fired as spokesman and replaced by governor remulla.

we have this thing called “lessons learned” in marketing. when we do a new marketing plan, we get the data from the previous year and analyze them and pick out “lessons learned”. that essentially identifies the mistakes made in the previous year and apply lessons to address or correct the mistakes. doing a good job at “lessons learned” often makes the difference at succeeding in the new business year for many brands.

we do not know where binay and his team of advisers are at. but if they do not shape up and become honest to themselves and look at the lessons learned from the previous weeks, things might not change for binay and his 2016 election ambitions. we only have one data point, so we do not know yet if this is a trend, it is a huge single data point, what they need to worry about is if this is single data point is the beginning of a trend. if it is a trend, then the 2016 election is one for Binay to lose. he can reverse it, but is he honest enough to face the lesson learned and face the allegations and charges squarely and stop the Binayfication strategy.

in marketing as it is in politics – not changing and continuing on a strategy that has been giving bad results spells doom.

~~more to follow~~

source : http://pulseasia.ph/

 

 

 

 

 

Pulse Asia March 2014 presidentiables survey : don’t panic, it’s only 2014

one fine day at the end of april 2014, we were greeted with headlines on print and broadcast media similar to what rappler.com had – vp jejomar binay an announced candidate for the 2016 presidential election tops all of them with a whopping 40% of the survey answers as the candidate the respondents will vote if the election was held today.

that is like a just little less than 2 years till the may 2016 elections. a long way off till election time.

and that is the reason why the other presidentiables (ahem, mar roxas and alan peter cayetano) should not panic. the standings of the candidates will change dramatically as we approach may 2016. that is guaranteed – dramatic and drastic.

people’s sentiments change over time and so does the behavior of the presidentiables, not to mention the campaign programs and ads the candidates will be releasing before and during the campaign period.  more importantly, studies show that the farther from election time, the more fickle voters are. it says voters get to firm up their choices the nearer election time goes. many start firming up their choices just 1 to 2 weeks before the election. in fact for the swing votes, many firm up their choices just 1 or 2 days before election time.

these type of development can be seen in previous elections where we can see the dramatic changes in the survey standings of the presidentiables.

for posterity, we will be posting here the data tables of the this pulse asia march 2014 presidentiables survey and the other survey results for vice presidentiable and senatoriables. the charts have been picked up from rappler.com (read here : http://www.rappler.com/nation/56725-binay-runaway-winner-pulse-asia-poll)

we were surprised by the strong showing, on third, of senator miriam defensor santiago. her strong stance against the PDAF scam has put her on that spot.

grace poe has come out as second here mainly due to her strong showing in the senate hearings. she has come out as very intelligent and poised in these hearings.

vp jejomar binay coming out as top is no surprise. his position as VP has helped him a lot to be in that spot.

mar roxas although he has not declared he will run for president, but we all know he will run, came in very low at 5th with just 6% (versus binay’s 40%). perhaps his performance during the yolanda storm may have affected him here.

chiz escudero seem to be a perennial favorite for the vice presidential slot. maybe it is time for him to have a go at it.

we are shocked that senator tito sotto is among the top 3 specially when taking at look at where manny pacquaio is. sotto is among the top 3 while pacquaio is way below on the top 18. it is hard to reconcile how sotto a plagiarist can be on top and beat out pacquiao who is a national hero for many pinoys. makes us wonder that perhaps pacquaio is not as favored as we think or more importantly as what he thinks he is.

how should the candidates proceed from this?

• take the results with a mountain of salt
• need to monitor developments
• candidates and planners should draw some conclusions from the survey results
• common denominators should be pulled out
• from these conclusions, they should draw out a research plan
• conduct research based on these results

we think it is important for the candidates to draw learnings from thes results and draw up medium to long-term action plans.

Pulse Asia survey – the poor feel the economy is worse now than last year

the total country numbers are not very different in the june 2013 survey versus the previous survey, done in march 2013.  but the specifics of the numbers tell a different story in this latest Pulse Asia survey on how filipinos feel about the economy compared to last year.

just like previous survey held in march 2013, most of the respondents surveyed felt the economy is the same this year versus last year – 43% in june 2013 versus 42% in march 2013. there is a slight decrease in respondents, by -5% points who think the economy is better this year than previous year to 28% from 33%. consequently, a slight increase showed in respondents saying the economy is worse this year from previous – to 29% from 25%.

but the national picture is just half the story. going down to the details by area and socio-eco class is where the real story is.

in these numbers, the poor are saying the economy this year is worst than last year.

source : https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3b9qPFV1cRDUWlxQUxRN2E1Yzg/edit?pli=1

there is a drop in numbers for those who feel the economy is better than last year across all socio-eco classes – 37% to 30% for ABC; 35% to 30% for D and 28% to 20%.

that is consistent with an increase in numbers who feel the economy is worse than previous year  specifically among the poor – to 37% from 32% among the E and to 28% from 22% among the D. no change among the ABC at 22%.

looking at the areas, there is a very dramatic increase in the balance Luzon or provincial Luzon areas where it deteriorated to 24% from the previous 14%. areas outside metro manila or the NCR is where most of the poor reside.

there is not much to look at among those who think the economy has remained the same as the numbers are about the same in the latest survey versus the previous except for NCR where a huge jump occurred to 50% from 39%.

there were also dramatic drops in those who think the economy is better than previous year in NCR to 25% from 40%.

from a total country perspective, the number of those who think the economy is the same versus last year did not change but the number of those who think the economy is better dropped to 28% from 33% and consequently those who thought the economy is worse increased to 29% from 24%.

based on the numbers this more pessimistic view of the economy, those thinking it became worse that last year are coming from the poor, those who belong to the DE socio-eco classes who come from the provincial areas outside of NCR.

the rich and poor divide has always been the key issue in the philippines. these just underscores the fact that the country needs to do even much more to alleviate poverty with a specific target of getting the improving and impressive  GDP growth numbers benefiting much more the poor than the rich.

both SWS and Pulse Asia surveys hit 100% match with official senatoriables 2013 election Comelec results

there is no other way to describe it -both SWS and Pulse Asis senatoriables polls during the 2013 mid term election were impressive, both hit 100% in the list of senatoriables they had on their surveys compared to the top 12 on the final & official results from the Comelec.

SWS conducted their last survey for the senatoriables election May 2 to 3 and got these results compared to the actual and final Comelec results:

• 12 out of 12 in the poll came out as top 12 in the Comelec tally, 100% success rate
• 3 senatoriables, Escudero, K Pimentel and Honasan came in at exactly the ranking on the survey and the Comelec tally, a 25% match.
• 5 senatoriables, Legarda, AP Cayetano, N Binay, B Aquino and Trillanes came within 1 to 2 places off in the survey versus the final Comelec tally, a 42% match.
• adding the two numbers, 8 out of 12 or 67% came within a match to 2 places on the survey versus the Comelec tally
• only 4, Poe, S Angara, Ejercito and C Villar was off by more than 2 places from the final tally

Pulse Asia conducted its last survey for the senatoriables election on may 10 to 11. because of the nature of reporting and computation done by Pulse Asia on their poll results which were all expressed on a range, 11 out of 12 senatoriables matched the placements of the senatoriables to that of the Comelec tally. only 1 senatoriable, C. Villar was off.

the range means the Pulse Asia poll results were  showing a lot of ties or statistically insignificant differences from senatoriable to another.

what does this all mean?

it means SWS and Pulse Asia election polls are highly reliable and an excellent gauge of people’s sentiments on elections. there can be no better result than a 100% match rate and specially with a high number of matches coming in less than 2 places off.

that means the vetting of respondents done by the pollsters are excellent and are precisely representative of the voting population. it also means the random sampling done by these two polling agencies are to the point. most importantly, the sample size of 1,200 to 1,500 are good enough to be able to capture sentiments of voters on a national scale.

the above points, specially on the sample size have been the most questioned by non-believers of surveys, SWS and Pulse Asia in particular. not that the haters are able to present statistical arguments against the pollsters, but these have been incessantly raised by them. we have always said, those who raise them are those who are not winning in the polls thus having a skewed agenda. the excellent match up results proves the counter argument correct.

last point on what this means – it will be wise for election candidates in the future to subscribe and pay attention to the SWS and Pulse Asia election polls.

dramatic gains for aquino & poe, dramatic drops for trillanes, zubiri & enrile – pulse asia february 2013 senatoriables poll

not much has changed among the top 3 ranking senatoriables, legarda, escudero and cayetano alan peter from previous poll.

for this february 2013 pulse asia 2013 senatoriables survey, 15 senatoriables are competing for the top 12 position. in order of highest to lowest ranks as follows:

1. legarda (Team PNoy)
2. escudero (Team PNoy)
3. cayetano alan peter (Team PNoy)
4. villar, cynthia (Team PNoy) 
5. ejercito (UNA)
6. aquino, bam (Team PNoy)
7. binay (UNA)
8. poe (Team PNoy)
9. pimentel (Team PNoy)
10. honasan (UNA)
11. enrile, jack (UNA)
12. trillanes (Team PNoy)
13. angara (Team PNoy)
14. zubiri (UNA)
15. gordon (UNA)

6 senatoriables  are battling for the last 3 positions, the 10th to the 12th, senatoriables honasan, enrile, trillanes, angara, zubiri and gordon who are all tied.

at the bottom among the candidates of the two major coalition parties, UNA and Team PNoy, are mitos magsaysay and tingting cojuangco  both from UNA. their rankings have not changed from previous.

among the 15 candidates fighting for the top 12 spots, 9 are from Team PNoy and 6 are from UNA.

among the top 9, only 2 are from UNA (binay and ejercito) while the rest are from Team PNoy. among the 6 who are battling for the last 3 spots, 4 are from UNA and only 2 are from Team PNoy.

with those rankings, if elections were held today, Team PNoy has a chance of gaining 9 out of the 12 seats at best or 7 out of 12 at worst, a clear majority of the seats.

Team PNoy has generally done very well in this survey.

source : https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3b9qPFV1cRDNGJWVXpKN0ZhZU0/edit

dramatic increases in rank and rating were gained by aquino and poe, both by +9 places who are now tied at 4th place from previous survey at 13th place; and +11.8 percentage points and +11.2 percentage points, respectively.

3 senatoriables suffered dramatic losses in rank and rating, 1 from Team PNoy, trillanes and 2 from UNA, enrile and zubiri.  all three lost 5 places in the rankings although all three still came within the top 12.