Blog 7: Advertising Strategy

Advertisements really persuade the audience in ways that are unexpected. Political advertisements hit the public with what should be focused on in a campaign and how they should feel about issues. Donald trump used many forms of political advertising. He had ads on the web, the radio, and most popularly on television. Obviously television ads are most popular because of the wide reach so I will analyze 3 separate advertisements that have very different meanings and make you view the Trump campaign in a different way. 

The first television ad was an attack ad on Hilary Clinton. This ad of course had domineering music with a theatrical narrator’s voice behind it to add more drama. This ad really focused on the comment Clinton made about how those who supported Trump were deplorable. This ad would instill anger in the audience, it was a grave error made by Clinton and Trump used that to his advantage. The ad called into question Clinton’s lack of compassion towards others and if she was a person that would be able to be a president of all people. This ad sparked a fire in those who supported Trump by really catapulting their passion to campaign for him and only him.

The next ad I saw was a very strategic move played by the Trump campaign, it was an ad narrated by Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump. This ad was about Ivanka being the womanly face of his campaign in order to het more of that demographics’ vote. This ad was an inviting and softer tone than most ads the trump campaign had put out. Ivanka spoke about her fathers plans on certain women’s issues such as paid maternity leave, tax credits for childcare, and dependent care saving accounts. This ad made the Trump campaign much more relatable for many woman because they were able to find similarities in Ivanka Trump being a mother and a wife.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2016/united

The last ad I looked at was what I would describe as an issue and an image ad. This ad really tried to help his image by promoting that he was anti establishment, and he would change the status quo of the complacency currently in DC. The add also touched on certain issues such as tax cuts, a more balanced and fair justice system, and being a stronger and having a more respected dominance in foreign affairs. The smart thing I also noticed about the commercial was the use of issues that are bipartisan. The issue he spoke on I’m assuming most people want change in, people always want to pay less in taxes people should want a justice system that is fair and we always want to be a nation that is respected internationally. This was a smart move strategically because it would draw in those people who are maybe on the fence as to who to cast their vote for. This ad was simple up beat and to the point.

All of these ads have an underlying desire, but they all achieve the same goal, which is to support Donald Trump’s campaign. Advertisements take a facet of the individual candidates and blow them up to receive pinpointed focus and attention on what the campaign wants to show the voters. Trump had many other advertisements that I looked at that overall just tried to undercut Clinton’s capability as the president. This campaign was widely viewed as ‘voting for the less sucky candidate’ so trump strategically used that fact to provide perspective to the voters on how he was the better choice and with the results ending how they did it seemed to have worked.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2016

Blog 6: Online Presence

Donald Trump’s use of social media was unlike anything the public was used to during a presidential campaign. He used social media as a soapbox to rile up his followers as well as give those who did not support him something to talk about.

During the election Donald Trump had a campaign website, a Facebook, and an extremely active Twitter account.  Donald did a really good job of making him and his platform easily accessible regardless of the content he decided to distribute. He had email lists, text messages sent out, and his website had tons of information on his mission as a candidate. In regards to his social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter it was extremely prevalent that these platforms were most likely regulated by him and only him. His Facebook and more so his Twitter account was off the cusp and lacking in formal tone.

Some things that were positively seen in Trump’s social media usage were his ability to get strong reactions from the public and his relatable and informal tone. His tweets were largely talked about during the election, he would post emotionally charged accusations that riled up the nation all within only 140 characters. The tweets that produced the most attention were outlandish and in most cases boldfaced accusations. The public, whether in support or against his candidacy, paid attention to what Trump tweeted. He tweets magnetized all party followers just because of the sheer entertainment, which helped him dominate the conversation during the political season. Trump lacked a formal tone especially for a candidate for the presidency, but I think this actually worked to his advantage. By producing tweets that used words and phrases that were more common he was able to attract a voting block of the population because they understood and comprehended the arguments he made

When researching Donald Trump’s media I stumbled across a page, citizensfortrump.com. This page was created entirely by concerned citizens as a grassroots movement to elect Trump as the 45^th president. They refer to the need to create a ‘volunteer army’, which personally caused some concern in the verbiage they used. There are also many other pages and Facebook groups showing support for Donald. The campaign did not put out the citizens for Trump page or any of the other pages for that matter, but it was somewhat effective in gaining and attracting support for Trump, some of the group pages had hundreds of thousands of followers.

Things that could have been more effective for Trump to do on social media were he could have been more formal and less accusatory. Doing these things did attract a certain type of voter, but it also took away from his legitimacy as a candidate. He was represented as a candidate that didn’t care for others and as someone who was aggressively rude. He tweeted about Meryl Streep being a terrible actress because she criticized and undermined him, this was not an appropriate action taken by the president. He should have also checked his sources and facts before posting, he expounds rhetoric of the media putting out fake news but in reality he does the same by jumping to conclusion and posting it for all of his followers to see. As a presidential candidate I held him to higher standards to accurately report happenings and that was not the case.

Social media is something that has been slowly making more of an appearance as a relied upon source for constituents during elections. Social media has been expanding and will continue to do so. The way candidates utilize social media will be an integral piece of their campaign. Social media presence catapulted the attention Trump received from the media and he used this platform to his advantage in the 2016 presidential election. He set the pace and molded what citizens expectations are for candidates on social media. Trump forever changed future political races and went against the normalized grain which caused his success.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

http://citizensfortrump.com/about/

http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/18/candidates-differ-in-their-use-of-social-media-to-connect-with-the-public/

Blog 5: Polling

Political polls takeover the media predicting, based on public opinion, which candidate will prevail and win whatever election. Political polls in the 2016 presidential race were heavily relied upon, and in doing so it downplayed the actual following President Donald Trump had. Polls are susceptible to error and that can be accounted for, however there were many glaring errors that caused Trump to completely blindside the Clinton campaign as well as stun the nation.

I remember that on Election Day all of the news sources showed that all of the polling data was in favor of Hilary Clinton’s success. I wasn’t going to even watch the coverage of the election results because of the certainty that was assumed from the data on which the next president would be. It was not until the realization that this race was unexpectedly far from over that I tuned in. I along with the assumption of many others was stunned, how could something that was seen as so definite be so wrong?

The polls in regards to Donald Trump were successful on some fronts. They were correct in the showing his lack of support compared to Clinton in the weeks leading up to the election, however it did not account for the large swing in support the days and even hours leading up to the election. Something that was also interesting in this year’s election was that the losing candidate won the popular vote. There were more swing states that Trump won instead of Clinton, which caused the results that ensued. The democrats had a major issue with attendance at the polls and a lot of that could have been because of the thought of having the presidential race in the bag so to speak.

In my opinion polling can not get much better especially in regards to the polling done on the 2016 presidential election. It is not completely the polls fault in the inaccurate prediction of the election outcome. It was recorded that in this election there were 12% of undecided and late-decided voters in the electoral compared to the 3% of voters in 2012. Those who were undecided swayed more toward Trump rather than in support of Clinton, which can cause a huge (*huge said in voice of Donald Trump) marginal and misleading gap in the polls. The presidential polls for 2016 did not ask the wrong questions, but rather it was misguided by the unknown factors of polling others such as sample size and dishonesty among polltakers. Clinton was also favored in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania but at the last second flipped in support of Trump and cost her some crucial Electoral College votes.

If I were to conduct a political poll to better understand Donald Trump’s chances and impressions on the public I would ask similar questions, but I would gage a larger portion of the population. Sample sizes matter in how much trust you can put into the results. The questions that are asked also matters, because the right kind of questions could reveal more to pollsters than just what the question is asking. I do not blame the polls for the shocking reality in the presidential results; I more so blame the public for buying into the polls as their inherent truth.

The polls had a large emphasis put on them in this election cycle, like I said Clinton was the assumed president. I know many people who avoided voting or went out of their way to vote depending on if their desired candidate was winning or losing in the polls. By placing such an emphasis on the polls we buy into its reality. Polls should not dictate as to whether or not you participate in the democratic process. Polls provide nothing on the candidate’s platform so I don’t see the need for them; it only perpetuates excuses to be a lemming by attaching to the popular candidate and making your decision based off of others.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gave-trump-a-better-chance-than-almost-anyone-else/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-missed-trump-we-asked-pollsters-why/