Donald Trump’s unconventional presidential campaign victory shares a lot in common with Justin Trudeau’s 2015 win, says the Liberals’ chief digital strategist, Tom Pitfield.

“My general impression is that President-elect Donald Trump ran a very similar campaign to what we did with Trudeau for probably a lot of the same reasons. We did not have the pools of data that were available to the other parties at the time, so we had to go out on our own to find it,” he said late Wednesday afternoon.

“And in doing that, we had to have honest and engaged conversations with people to get consent, to interact with them, which meant our data was better, it was fresher — it was more current.”

Appearing on a panel about the media and elections at a conference put on by the Canadian chapter of the International Institute of Communications, Pitfield argued Hillary Clinton, in contrast to Trump and Trudeau, ran an “offline campaign” that probably relied too heavily on traditional media.

“I think it started more (for Trump) as a fluke than by deliberate intent. I would guess that Hillary’s camp had bought all the prime television spots,” he said.

“He had to respond … he went to social (media) and as a result discovered in that process all the advantages that come from running an online campaign. So, in fact, I’d argue that Hillary and her team won the offline campaign. The data coming in now is that, without question, Trump dominated the online campaign.”

In an interview this week with Fox News, Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital director, shed some light on their data operation, which he described as “running everything”.

“I had some great data scientists. We have teams of them putting that data in a way that could be consumed so we could understand where we need to target people,” he said.

Days before the election, Parscale added, he was 95 per cent sure they would win. His only real mistake, he said, was thinking they would win Colorado and lose Wisconsin.

It was the “exact same” for the Liberals, Pitfield said. They used their analytics program to identify 40 ridings they needed to win a majority government. “We got 39 of those 40 ridings.”

The Liberals’ “online campaign” — like Trump’s — was also reinforced by a messenger people found “authentic”, said Pitfield, who is married to Liberal Party President Anna Gainey.

“It allowed, from a data perspective, for people to do intervention testing, so — not that I want to get into the details — but when you run a campaign like Hillary, you have the same thing all the time. You don’t really learn anything about the people you’re appealing to because you’re cookie-cutter,” Pitfield said.

“When you have a candidate like Trudeau or Trump — who rocked the boat and who are brave enough to say what they think — it creates these moments where you can see how the baseline is measured against changes. And those changes are invaluable — you know when to deploy resources more efficiently, you know how to deliver a message, you know how this resonates with the people you’re talking about and how that insight is far more efficient.”

The Canadian campaign guru John Laschinger makes the argument that a campaign is essentially over for an incumbent if 60 per cent of the population wants change.

But stepping outside of his digital background, Pitfield argued the ‘change’ narrative only works coming from a credible candidate.

“You cannot sell a change narrative if you’re not seen as authentic,” he said. “Americans were ready for change. And then that played into all the benefits of social, right? Social is a tool that rewards you for being more engaging. And it doesn’t care whether you’re engaging if you’re spiteful or hateful. Or because you’re being positive.”