For aron shaviv, global political strategist, politics was the clear career path. He had been engaged in political consulting since 2004. In 2009, he started his own consultancy company, called vantage influence, and it was only uphill from there. He started to engage in campaigns for countries in europe, africa and southeast asia. Shaviv states that today, his company has become the leading political consultancy in the world.
Due to the growth of the company, it also expanded into corporate consultancy although the company had still been better known for its election campaigns. One of his notable experiences was finding a solution for a big multinational port operator, regarding a commercial conflict, and working with a financial technology company to convince high-volume traders to shift to a competing company. Working with these companies gave Shaviv a revelation: His specialization truly has been in shifting public opinion, and his company had applied this method to election campaigns.
Luckily, Filipino strategists might now learn from Shaviv’s expertise himself, as he would share his experiences from across the globe.
First, Shaviv pointed out a stark difference between corporations and politics.
“Corporates sell; They’re trying to sell a product or a service to consumers,” he said. “I think politicians are never in a selling market. They’re always in the buying market.”
In a democratic government, the voter holds the power; therefore, the main goal should be how to win the favor of a voter.
“Sometimes, you see politicians who promote themselves like a product or like a service, and they forget that it should be about the voter and not about them,” Shaviv said.
One thing that he always advised his clients was to always think of the selfish voter. For him, this had to be the gold standard.
“I always tell them that we should think of the selfish voter who asks himself on election day, ‘What am I going to get out of it? Convince me that it’s worthwhile for me to get out of bed and come to vote for you.’,” he said.
Second, candidates have been broken into three categories: the personality candidates, voted because of their popularity; structural candidates, voted because of their political stance; and the issue candidate, voted because of their focus on issues. These different voter pools were won through effective strategies. One of these that he employed was incorporating information in entertainment creatively in a way where people wanted to consume the media.
“Today, voters and consumers control their media absolutely with their thumb. If you’re a politician and you’re just speaking directly to a camera, and you want to give a 20-minute speech, nearly no one’s going to give you [the] time of day; certainly not people who don’t like you or people who could be convinced,” Shaviv said.
Third, some candidates could be the best people for the job but have terrible campaigns.
“When you have a great narrative, someone has to tell that story for you. That’s what I’m here for,” he said.
Social media has been one of the strongest media platforms for reaching voters. Shaviv said Filipino politicians had a very advanced understanding of the effect of social media on shifting public opinion, compared to the rest of the world. Having the right balance between a strong political message and the entertaining factor had been the key.
“I think what [politicians were] lacking [was the understanding that they’re] not there to only do entertainment. It’s not enough to just do the dances on TikTok; you need to have a strong political message that’s tested to shift voters. You can then integrate that and deliver the message through social media,” he said.
Many were also resorting to artificial intelligence (AI), which Shaviv said could be a detriment or benefit. He cautioned candidates, who relied on AI to tell them how to win an election because voters were the determining factor of an election; AI did not vote. Candidates also had to do the hard work instead of relying on AI to write their policies and speeches. AI could still be used for heavy data research and analysis.
While he admitted his full cultural understanding of Philippine politics would not be fully realized, Shaviv aimed to work with the 2028 election campaign with his core strength: being an excellent public opinion researcher through focus groups and in-depth interviews among others.
“I’m very diligent,” Shaviv said. “I spend a lot of time in focus groups and surveys, understanding how to shift people from right to left and left to right.”
“You don’t need me for my knowledge of Filipino politics. You need me for the methodology and approach. You need someone who’s doing the strategy, messaging, earned media, social media, billboards, slogans — all that output,” he added. “Once we do that, we do research again. We do more focus groups and surveys to see what works and what doesn’t work, and then, fine-tune it all the time.”
He also described himself as a clean slate, basing his judgments purely on empirical evidence without bias.
“I’ll never start a sentence with ‘I think that’ because what I think really doesn’t matter. It has no value. My sentences will start with ‘The data shows that.’ The reason why they need me around the table is because I have no other interest other than running the campaign,” he said.
He had already made observations on the local political landscape. Currently, it had been very polarized, dominated by two big political families. According to Shaviv, this had not been unique to the Philippines. When two polarizing sides were entrenched against each other, they forgot about the voters.
“It becomes so much about ‘me against you’ and ‘you against me’. In that situation, it’s [often that fertile ground opens up] for a third candidate to rise. I think there are very high chances that such a candidate with full transparency and on a very strong anti-corruption and responsibility agenda will emerge for 2028 because all the environment and circumstances are there,” Shaviv said.
He added: “2028 is still quite far away, and I think it really depends on the current administration on how [it manages] this crisis. If [the administration] manages it well— meaning if [it takes] responsibility — then, by the time the elections come around, this issue could be well behind [the administration]. If [it fails] to take responsibility, then the issue will continue gaining more and more force and power and will be more relevant by the time we reach 2028. [The administration] will pay a price in the ballot box.”
While Shaviv worked with politicians, he said there have been some lines that could not be crossed. He was not a policy advisor; so, he would not tell a candidate what platforms to push and what things to say. What he would do was to carefully analyze the policy plans of candidates and focus on a central topic that would shift voters, maximizing the limited resources they had. He also worked only with candidates who saw the need to win the hearts and minds of voters.
“We’re not here to make believe,” he said. “We’re happy to do the real work and really see if you can win the election or help you win the elections in a legitimate way.”
Shaviv’s master class, titled “Campaign Playbook Live,” would unravel the untold stories of some of the world’s successful political campaigns. Through this, Shaviv would share insights on how local strategists could also shift alliances in the upcoming 2028 elections, which Shaviv said was the most important election yet for the Philippines. The master class would be held in Manila from Feb. 10 to 11, 2026. It would be open to campaign strategists, campaign managers, pollsters, creatives, advertisers and other people who were in the business of campaigns.
“I think 2028 is a really big and crucial election in the Philippines, partially because of the clash of [the two political family] dynasties, and partially because of everything that’s happened in the past couple of months with the floods and the corruption and the crisis. The master class [was] not for teaching; [it was] for sharing a lot of our experiences from around the world, and to bring the latest disruptive technology and the best practices,” Shaviv said.
“It’s also to learn,” he added. “I think there’s a lot of things in the Philippines that are very advanced in campaigning.”
The master class would also feature how to use AI in election campaigns, deliver messages in a creative manner that people wanted to consume, embed creativity with research, create entertaining materials with sharp political messages and to conduct public opinion research locally.
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QUICK QUESTIONS
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Heights
WHAT REALLY MAKES YOU REALLY ANGRY?
People cutting in lines
WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO WORK HARD?
My children
WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH THE MOST?
Dry British humor
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD?
Strategist working behind the scenes
WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?
“Cold Steel: Lakshmi Mittal and the Multi-Billion-Dollar Battle for a Global Empire” by Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS?
Exactly where we are right now — being the top company for election campaigns
IF YOU COULD SHARE A MEAL WITH ANY INDIVIDUAL — LIVING OR DEAD — WHO WOULD THAT PERSON BE?
Arthur Finkelstein
WHAT IS ONE THING YOU WILL NEVER DO AGAIN?
Take danger-level risks in business