{"id":226256,"date":"2017-01-18T13:43:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T13:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/digitalagency\/?p=1519"},"modified":"2017-01-18T13:43:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T13:43:14","slug":"u-s-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/u-s-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons From America: What your business can learn from the U.S election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philip O\u2019Brien – Creation Media<\/strong><\/p>\n

18\/01\/17<\/strong><\/p>\n

I recently read two great articles on some of the reasons why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Simon Dumencos excellent post mortem of Hillary\u2019s doomed campaign in 9th Novembers Ad Age<\/a> entitled \u201cHow Did Hillary Clinton Screw This Up? For Starters, Her Advertising Was All Wrong\u201d \u201cand Nick Allens equally illuminating article in The Telegraph<\/a> on January 9th<\/sup> entitled \u201cHow Hillary Clinton\\’s digital strategy helped lead to her election defeat\u201d examined the Clinton teams use of social media vs traditional media.<\/p>\n

Dumenco focussed on the negative campaigning employed by the Clinton campaign<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed like every ad that Clinton and her allies released in the ensuing months was simply a variation on the theme that Donald Trump is a big jerk.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By abandoning the original campaign strategy the Clinton campaign deviated from some of the incontrovertible rules of marketing<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Know Your Audience<\/li>\n
  2. Concentrate on your message<\/li>\n
  3. Keep it Simple<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Dumenco refers to meeting the blue collar voter in a Dunkin Donuts and the condescension of the Clinton campaign who,<\/p>\n

    \u201cnot only misread white, working-class America, she misread American pop culture, how many real Americans think and talk \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n

    Instead of delivering a message which resonated with middle America and secured the meagre amount of votes which cost her the key counties, (110\u2019000 in total in case you\u2019re wondering), Clintons campaign focussed on negativity.<\/p>\n

    Where people wanted answers they got attack ads that further reinforced Donald Trumps credentials as the anti-establishment candidate which resonated with voters sick of the status quo.<\/p>\n

    Conversely Trumps campaign understood their audience and understood that simple messaging, (regardless of the facts), would reach these voters. They already distrusted Hillary Clinton and the messaging manged to secure these voters and put crucial doubts in the minds of those undecided voters who already saw Hillary\u2019s brand as damaged.<\/p>\n

    As a businessman Trump understood that Americans were scared and hurting and his messages were packaged to lay the blame firmly at the feet of the elite status quo of which Clinton was a member.<\/p>\n

    Nick Allen wrote about the Clinton campaigns focus on digital media as opposed to forms of media traditionally employed to reach voters such as press and radio.<\/p>\n

    Allen\u2019s article states that the focus on digital media was a misguided attempt to reach \u201cmillennials\u201d<\/p>\n

    This is a term I detest. For a start no one can quite agree on what the start point should be for classification as a \u201cmillennial\u201d. The median birth date most agree on is 1977 however there are numerous variations 1976, 78 and so on.<\/p>\n

    Tech Target<\/a> define a millennial as \u201cindividuals who reached adulthood around the turn of the 21st century\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

    However this is a very broad group generally defined as 1976 to 2004. Trying to create one message to effectively target this group, (never mind having to use very different marketing channels) is ridiculous.<\/p>\n

    The same message and channels wouldn\u2019t be employed to reach those born in 1940 and those born in 1968 because of the 28 year gap and the huge difference in socialisation norms, attitudes and outlook.<\/p>\n

    So why would it be effective in reaching a demographic who are apathetic when it comes to voting (over 50% of \u201cmillennials\u201d claim no political interest or affiliation).<\/p>\n

    The Clinton Campaign according to Allen poured money into clever, quirky methods of reaching the wrong demographic who were unlikely to vote anyways. Sure the campaign looked slick but by misunderstanding who their audience were and as a result losing the older vote Clinton lost the race for president.<\/p>\n

    The campaign also ignored the channels such as press which would connect with the older demographics, ultimately a fatal move.<\/p>\n

    So in a nutshell Hillary Clintons marketing strategy was flawed as it misidentified the \u201ccustomer\u201d or voter demographic and built messages and employed channels based on these assumptions. They didn\u2019t strengthen their brand and allowed the Trump campaign dictate the terms of the election. The Clinton campaign became followers rather than leaders, a crucial mistake in the race for the ultimate test for leadership.<\/p>\n

    Understanding your target audience is key. It doesn\u2019t matter if you are running for President or a small business owner.<\/p>\n

    By understanding your audience profile you can create effective messages which address your customers problems and win business.<\/p>\n

    Remember, customers also vote with their feet and with their spend. Make sure your business is listening to your customers.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Creation Media are Brand Development and Communications experts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    Contact us at <\/strong>info@creationmedia.ie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Philip O\u2019Brien – Creation Media 18\/01\/17 I recently read two great articles on some of the reasons why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. Simon Dumencos excellent post mortem of Hillary\u2019s doomed campaign in 9th Novembers Ad Age entitled \u201cHow Did Hillary Clinton Screw This Up? For Starters, Her Advertising Was All Wrong\u201d […]\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[14,9,17,16,15,19,18],"class_list":["post-226256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-branding","tag-brand","tag-branding","tag-channels","tag-communication","tag-customer","tag-message","tag-research"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testwebz.org\/creationmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}