A presidential campaign is a vast exercise in
communications. Personal encounters are usually most telling in
shaping impressions of a candidate, but a candidate can only meet so
many people first-hand and must get his or her message out to a wider
audience through an infinite variety of free media opportunities and
paid advertising.
Presidential candidates and their campaigns,
political parties, groups supporting or opposing various candidates,
and groups seeking to inject their issues into the presidential
campaign dialogue are working hard to get their messages out.
Crafting an effective message is not an easy task; citizens are
bombarded with countless communications every day and are busy with
their day to day lives, so the intended target may not even receive or
pay attention to the message.
Among the possibilities for paid media, depending on its budget, a campaign can run ads on broadcast, cable or satellite television, on radio stations with varying formats, it can run print ads in national, local or community newspapers or in magazines, it can put ads on the Internet or on various social media, it can print up nice, glossy brochures or less expensive flyers, it can do direct mail or robocalls, or it can put up a billboard. Television continues to get the majority of campaign media spending, while direct mail and Internet also receive significant shares. An interesting article on Neilsen website describes how businesses can use "marketing mix modeling to support fact-based budget allocation decisions;" campaigns face the same kind of decision-making.1
In terms of free media, a candidate do all manner of interviews and media appearances, deliver a formal policy speech at a think tank in Washington or New York, hold a town hall meeting outside the Beltway, write a book and do a book tour (+), make a photo-friendly visit to a significant location such as the border or an energy plant, or even stop in for an impromptu visit to a local cafe. Some candidates are better communicators than others. Careful consideration of a candidate's use and misuse of language can provide insights into his or her outlook and world view.2 Because the candidate cannot go everywhere, the campaign will sometimes send surrogates, generally family members, elected officials or celebrities. A candidate's wife can be a particularly effective ambassador for the candidate. The campaign can generate free media as well, for example by rolling out a coalition, doing a canvass or posting an edgy video on YouTube. Campaigns continue to devote increasing attention and resources to social media; Donald Trump's use of Twitter in 2016 was a major factor in his success. Facebook remains a titan of social media, although it has come under considerable scrutiny.3
In determining the message he or she wishes to
convey, a candidate starts with his or her individual experience,
intelligence and values and has input from a team of trusted
advisors. Paid consultants may weigh in to determine how the
message should be presented, i.e. what medium, what approach (serious
and straightforward, humorous, dramatic...) and so forth.
Consultants at times seem to be ubiquitous and some argue that they
have changed campaign discourse for the worse.
The effectiveness of the message depends on such factors as timing (what other events are happening in the world), the medium used (how the message is delivered), and the receptivity of the audience. In modern campaigns there is a lot of testing, focus grouping and polling to shape the message.4 Sometimes a meticulously crafted message will flop, while a slapped together one will go viral. During the long campaign, candidates will inevitably stray from the talking points or make gaffes which completely overshadow the message. Meanwhile supporters are out spreading the word. A contact through social media, a call, note or visit from a neighbor, supporter or campaign staffer can be much more effective than an annoying robocall. Even small features such as the logo or typeface a campaign uses or the musical zing at the end of an ad can make a difference. With more and more Americans using the Internet and mobile devices to obtain news and information about politics, campaigns are devoting more resources to online communications and social media.
Of course, the candidate and the campaign are
not the only ones communicating; the message environment is crowded
with communications from competing campaigns, interest groups and the
political parties. Groups such as American Bridge 21 Century PAC
and America Rising PAC,
are
trying
to
tar
potential candidates of the other side with as many
negatives as possible. The media are sifting through
and reporting these messages or parts of them.
Notes
1. See: Josh
Kowal. "5 Important Questions To Ask Your Marketing Mix
Vendor." Neilsen, Jan. 10, 2019.
Also: According to Kantar Media, CMAG, an estimated
$5.25 billion was spent on political advertising in the 2018 midterms
comprising $3.1 billion on local broadcast TV, $1.2 billion on local
cable TV and $950 million on digital. (>)
And: Tom Edmonds, a Republican media strategist and former president of the American Association of Political Consultants, estimated in 2012 that 55-percent of campaign advertising dollars go to television, 15-percent to direct mail, 13-percent to Internet, 8-percent to radio, 8-percent to newspaper and 1-percent to outdoor advertising. (Presentation at Newspaper Association of America/American Society of Newspaper Editors Convention in Washington, DC, April 5, 2012).
2. Candidates have a variety of rhetorical approaches and abilities
ranging from stream of consciousness rambles (Trump) to blunt and plain
spoken (former candidate Richard Ojeda or former potential candidate
Michael Avenatti) to cautious (Sen. Kamala Harris) to garrulous (former
Vice President Joe Biden) and abstract (Marianne Williamson). Is a
candidate able to connect with his or her audience; can he or she
deliver a stirring speech or does he or she seem to take the air out of
a room; does he or she come across as direct and authentic or seem
overly scripted; can he or she think on his or her feet and respond to
questions?
One aspect of language which candidate and President
Donald Trump has put a spotlight on is the question of
truthfulness. The Washington
Post found that through Dec. 30, 2018, President Trump had made
7,645 false claims, including two days in early Nov. 2018 where he made
over 100 false claims on a single day. The Toronto Star has also been tracking
false claims by President Trump and tallied over 4,000 false claims by
him as of Jan. 2019; the project notes that "the sheer frequency of
Trump’s inaccuracy is a central story of his presidency."
Data: Washington
Post | Toronto
Star.
Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, and Meg Kelly. "President Trump
has made 7,645 false or misleading claims over 710 days." Washington
Post, Dec. 30, 2018
Daniel Dale. "Trump has said 1,340,330 words as president.
They’re getting more dishonest, a Star study shows." Toronto
Star, July 14, 2018. Trump provides an extreme example for
those studying the use and misuse of language.
3. Amid concerns about competitiveness (+), privacy, and
complaints by conservatives and others about bias (+),
there
are
arguments
that
big tech companies need to be broken up or at
least better regulated (+).
Political speech is at stake and these companies are
grappling to find the right approach, the right balance. In Oct.
2019 the Biden campaign asked Facebook and Twitter to stop running a
video ad from the Trump campaign that contained false claims about
Biden and the Ukraine; as reported by the New York Times, Facebook
refused. On
Oct.10, 2019 the
Warren for President campaign started running
intentionally false ads on Facebook that put a spotlight on the
platform's policy on political advertising. The ads, which met
Facebook's criteria, stated,
"Breaking
News: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for
re-election (+)." In
contrast to Facebook's hands-off approach, Twitter is trying a
different
route. On
Oct. 30, 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced Twitter would stop
political advertising on the platform. He stated, "Internet
political
ads present entirely new challenges to civic
discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and
micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All
at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale (+)." Google has also
announced a few changes to its political ads policy (+).
4. Sasha Issenberg. "The Death of the
Hunch" May 22, 2012. Slate. See
for example Nielsen link below.
"a nonpartisan, nonprofit 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding... FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania."
The
Computational Propaganda Project
Project at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University..."a team of researchers investigating the impact of automated computer scripts–computational propaganda–on public life. This work includes analysis of how tools like social media bots are used to manipulate public opinion by megaphoning or repressing political content in various forms: disinformation, hate speech, fake news, political harassment, etc."
this is very old but it'll make you think...
Marketing
Nielsen
"a global measurement and data analytics company that provides the most complete and trusted view available of consumers and markets worldwide."
Digital IQ Index® seeks to provide an actionable
metric for digital competence--"a robust tool to diagnose digital
strengths and weaknesses and help organizations prioritize incremental
investment in digital." The methodology considers an
organization's website, digital marketing, social media, and mobile.
"Founded in 1997, ClickZ has grown to be one of the largest digital marketing communities in the world today. Alongside the growth of Facebook, YouTube and more, ClickZ has been there, providing the latest news, insights and intelligence along the way."
TV Ads
and Other Communications
Stanford University: Political
Communication Lab
Museum of the Moving
Image: The Living Room Candidate
Internet Archive: Political TV
Ad Archive
Mike Dec's site on presidential campaigns and
candidates.
Brendan Brown has put together this archive of Trump tweets from May 4, 2009 to the present.
Television Bureau
of Advertising | Political
NCTA-The Internet & Television
Association
News Media Alliance
(formerlyNewspaper
Association
of
America)
