USA Election 2016: The Power of Marketing

Trump has done the impossible. However the marketing team behind him has not. They only did what marketers are supposed to do. They sold an idea. We all know that the better products not always win the market and surely the better candidate doesn’t really win an election. But better marketing is something that always delivers.

Following are the things Trump got right in his marketing campaign:

MEDIA: We all know Trump doesn’t make sense and he contradicts his own words. What is confusing statement to most is actually disruption and noise in media. What that means basically is that he is never lost in the fast moving constantly scrolled news feeds and facebook pages. His digital presence is constant.

AUDIENCE: He had identified his target audience with bull’s eye accuracy. Like a pro marketer he didn’t go for demography but Psychographic profiling. Which for him was: The uneducated white American who feels left out politically and screwed economically and lives in constant fear to be killed by people from another race.

With huge higher education cost and student debt issue this target group makes up a huge percentage in today’s America. This same lack of education leads to unemployment and poverty. And poverty leads to paranoia and irrational behavior. Trump nailed it from the beginning.

CULTURE:He also understood culture or trend. Not just any trend but the trend of his own target audience. The audience lives in constant paranoia and hates anything that is not white which comes from his or her ignorance and inability to perform without education and proper skill set. The culture around him is thus a culture of fear. Trump got these culture right by addressing Islam, ISIS, economy, China, job drain etc. The otherness factors that evokes fear in the mind of the target audience were all covered and mentioned repeatedly in his campaign.

PURPOSE:Ultimately he crafted a brilliant purpose for the Trump brand. He was not aiming to be just the next president but the savior of great America who will “make America great again by taking it back.”

If not anything he demonstrated the power of marketing and branding in a spectacular way. Politicians like Hillary need to understand in USA people don’t vote for policy they vote for personality. Even if she does realize, sadly it’s too late.