What a weekend! I couldn’t stop watching the real reality show that is the US Presidential Election. Over the several past days I have been multitasking with social media, reading the pundits and news reports online (thank you Google News), and watching the cable news political talk shows. And to cap off the excitement there was a town hall style debate last night. I didn’t get much sleep.
For my ongoing analysis of the marketing aspects of the election season, going all the way back to before the primaries even started, I’ve signed up for the various campaigns’ email lists, text message alert systems, and Twitter feeds. It’s fascinating to see how the campaigns communicate with supporters.
I found it particularly interesting to see how the Clinton and Trump campaigns chose to reach their core supporters by text message in the past few hours. The Clinton campaign opted for real-time with a message going out during the debate while the Trump campaign sent theirs in the early morning post-debate.
There are so many things to read into these two messages.
- Both use inclusive language (“we”, “us”, “our”).
- Clinton asked for a lot more money than Trump.
- The Clinton text was from the campaign while the Trump text was written in first person, implying Trump himself wrote it. And maybe he did since it uses the ALL CAPS that are frequently deployed for emphasis in his @realdonaldtrump tweets.
- Trump frequently hits on a few core messages, including a “make America great again”, “rigged system” and let’s “take our country back”. This short text includes two such campaign themes while the Clinton one does not reinforce any Clinton messages.
- Oh, and I wonder how many people Trump woke up with his 5:06 am text?!
Important note: This is a marketing blog, not a political blog. I am not commenting on any candidate’s views on the issues nor am I publicly supporting any candidate. I write about the US Presidential election because it is a massive marketing case study playing out for several years, not because I voice my support for any candidate over another.
For more of my posts about US Presidential election marketing going back three election cycles, go here.
