Former Cambridge Analytica Executive Speaks About How Data Drove Candidate Trump's Travel Schedule

Matt Oczkowski, at the time the head of product at Cambridge Analytica, talked to an industry group in New York on February 22, 2017, about how data drove candidate Donald Trump’s campaign schedule.

Oczkowski spoke at GABBCONN, a conference about how data collected from audiences can be leveraged for advertising, about working on the electoral campaign for Trump in 2016.

He talked about how data helped inform Cambridge Analytica’s understanding of the kinds of voters that were likely to vote, and how those trends were very different in 2016 than they had been previously.

He also said, “Most of Mr Trump’s schedule was very data informed in terms of where he hosted events and rallies. What we tried to do was quantify the greatest density of persuadable voters in an area combined with enough core supporters to have a good rally. And that influenced where he would go.”

Cambridge Analytica was the subject of a journalistic investigation in March 2018, by the Guardian and the New York Times. It revealed that the company had profiled millions of Facebook users to target US voters. Credit: GABBCON via Storyful