In today’s digital age, the new media environment has the potential to cause more harm than good to many brands today, with overwhelming amount of news coverage and user-generated content that creates constant exposure to crises and further magnifies issues. And yet, within this very environment, there is a specific brand, or a particular individual, that has exceeded all expectations and is using the digital space to his advantage. This man is named Donald Trump. You may disagree with his values or you may even loathe the man. But one thing that cannot be denied is that the businessman turned politician is the top candidate on the Republican polls today. While his tactics may not be traditional marketing methods that are taught in the books, he is successfully achieving his political objective by having a clear message, identifying and emotionally connecting with his core audience, and being sponteaneous.
With this in mind, it seems that there may be lessons to learn from the individual. Although his marketing may go against many conventional methods that are advised by experts, there are a couple of points that can be drawn from his tactics. First and foremost, regardless of his lack of knowledge in policies and most often falsely made inconsistent comments that has been called out by fact checkers, he has a clear and focused message – to “Make America Great Again” (Stein, 2016). People care less about policies and the steps that are necessary to achieve these goals; rather, they connect with his message and his overarching goal of his campaign.
Secondly, he knows who his core audience is and what they want. He is specifically targeting people who are disgruntled and fed up with a politically correct culture (Stein, 2016). These are people who wish to be citizens of “Trumpistan,” a country with big walls and no “M&Ms.” Not referring to the candy, but Mexicans and Muslims. Trump has connected with his audience by consistently reminding voters that they are living in dangerous and reiterating the separate times (Towery, 2016).
Most importantly, instead of complying with marketing paradigms, Trump intuitively knows when to break from the script. He has consistently controlled his narrative, and people cannot predict his next move (Yalamanchili, 2016). With this spontaneity, he has the ability to draw crowds and mesmerize them by his unfiltered speech and brutal honesty (Friederichsen, 2016). “Telling it like it is” is his trump card and perhaps thanks to all of these tactics, he has the most earned media out of all of the candidates.
In spite of all of this, it is important to note that while this marketing “genius” has been extremely successful throughout his campaign trail, this political gain comes at a price. His private “Trump” brand that he has been cultivating for decades – an image of a self-made, rich, and successful man – is actually in a real crisis (Irani, 2016). This political triumph that he is obtaining is actually causing self-inflicting damage to his own personal brand and monopoly and must be taken into consideration (Friederichsen, 2016). While Trump is gaining political traction by being proactive and unfiltered, these actions and political gain has the potential to negatively affect his private brand and empire over time.
This leaves me with the following questions:
- Do you think Trump is a master marketer?
- Are Trumps marketing “tactics” lessons to be learned, or simply unique to Trump and his situation?
- Is his political gain compromising his private brand?
Thank you so much for reading!
-Jane Yi
Sources:
Friederichsen, P. (2016, March 18). Trump is a brand in trouble, marketing expert says. Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/trump-brand-trouble-marketing-expert-article-1.2569517
Irani, D. (2016, March 16). Some marketing lessons from donald trump. The Economic Times. Retrieved from http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2016-03-16/news/71573618_1_donald-trump-marketing-lessons-scott-goodson
Stein, L. (2016, March 7). Love him or hate him, marketers can learn a thing or two from trump. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/love-hate-marketers-learn-trump/302959/
Towery, M. (2016, March 10). Trump is a master at marketing. Newsmax. Retrieved from http://www.newsmax.com/MattTowery/Bush-Establishment-Rubio/2016/03/10/id/718409/
Yalamanchili, S. (2016, March 2). An actual marketing lesson from donald trump’s success. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/actual-marketing-lesson-donald-trump-s-success/302913/
4 Responses to …and the Marketer of 2016 goes to: Donald Drumpf!!!