Village Gamer

Purple Forge, an international development company with a location in Ottawa, and the Green Party of Canada, were awarded four Pollies™ at the annual American Association of Political Consultants awards held in Austin last month for their mobile application developed for the 2011 Canadian federal election campaign. The Pollies™, considered the Oscars of political consulting, are scored and awarded by a blind panel of industry judges chosen from inside the association.

The mobile application was developed to allow volunteers, supporters and donors to find out who their local Green Party candidate was based on their postal code and make donations to the party from their iPhone device. However, the most innovative aspect of the application was the gamification of political tasks. Users could earn points for volunteering, getting friends to pledge to vote or requesting a lawn sign. These points were run on a national scoreboard, allowing Green supporters to internally compete to be the parties’ greatest advocate.

“Mobile applications dovetailed directly into our party’s campaign strategy of engaging Canada’s youth and instilling in them a competitive spirit to help get the first Green Party MP elected to Parliament,” said Craig Cantin, former Deputy Campaign Manager. “In an era when young people are becoming even more disenchanted with politics, the Party wants to use every new technology to reach out to our youth voter.”

“We are extremely proud of the recognition the AAPC provided to this innovative campaign application,” said John Craig, VP Sales and Marketing. “This was the most innovative application that has ever been deployed in a federal election, and we look forward to providing this technology to campaigns in the US and around the world in 2012.”