Why Trump won - The Marketing Perspective

Deep dive by Ferdinand Goetzen

Last week, Donald Trump won the United States presidential elections. In addition to winning the popular vote, he and his party won the house, the senate and the electoral college. Most notably, they won in every swing state. 

Source - ⁦The Associated Press (AP)

Whoever you support, whatever your opinions or beliefs, it was an astonishingly successful campaign.

There have been and will continue to be countless analyses and opinion pieces on this election. And I don’t want to get overly political nor do I wish to share my opinion on the candidates, parties and policies involved.

Much like in Europe, the American political landscape is fragmented, polarized and in a state of flux. There are deeply rooted dynamics that influence the results of elections. 

But beyond those complex dynamics, as I reflected on the result in the days that followed the election, I couldn’t help but notice an important set of factors that in my view contributed to the Republicans’ victory: the way both parties approached their ‘marketing’.

Recently, some “marketing consultant types” who disagreed with a post of mine on LinkedIn made fun of the fact that I don’t have a degree in marketing. I may not have studied marketing but I did study politics – and I’d argue that politics and marketing go hand in hand.

Especially when it comes to election campaigning. 

You need to:

• Identify which groups you need to win over

• Nail your messaging – and tailor it to different audiences

• Make sure you reach voters far and wide

• Convince them that you can be trusted

• Get them to go out and vote for you

There’s a lot of parallels there to marketing a product. Except, the stakes are higher and 80% of your audience is in the market to buy (every marketer’s dream!). 

So let’s put our ideals, values and political opinions aside for a moment and apply a marketing lens to the election. 

Because I believe that if you apply this marketing lens, the result doesn’t come as much of a surprise

1. Choosing the right “ICP”

What’s the first step to any marketing campaign? Defining your target audience!

In any election, participating parties need to identify which voters they are going after. You cannot win over everyone, so strategically choosing where to focus is crucial. In other words, you might say that as a political party, you need to be strategic about your Ideal Customer Voter Profile (ICP).

Democrats, historically, have relied on urban voters, people under 30, students, African Americans, certain Latino groups and other minority groups to win elections.

Republicans on the other hand have relied on rural voters, evangelical christians, white working class men, traditional families, certain Latino groups and people over 65.

Meanwhile, educated white-collar workers and suburban families tended to be more split between democrats and republicans.

Winning a presidential election essentially comes down to 2(.5) things:

• Getting your target-demographics fired up enough to ensure they turn out to vote

• Convincing swing voters and independents to vote for you

• (Being palatable enough for opposition voters so they don’t feel compelled to turn out)

Statistics show that the influence of independents and swing voters is often overestimated, so it’s no surprise that both Harris and Trump spent a lot of time on firing up their bases and encouraging them to turn out to vote – in other words, they doubled down on their main ICP.

But if you look at the voter statistics, only one of them was successful in expanding beyond their main ICP, and that’s Donald Trump. 

Some will say you should focus on nailing just one ICP first. But this is a national election. You cannot win by just going after one target group. But you still need to be strategic about who you go after and you need to have a clear strategy for each ICP.

Trump’s campaign had a different strategy for his main and secondary ICPs. He used rallies, his own social media platform Truth Social and media outlets like Fox and The New York Post to reach his core ICP-voters. For his secondary ICPs he relied on campaign events, podcasts and heavily targeted advertising.

The result? Trump increased his vote share amongst Latino voters (by 13 points overall, 18 points amongst men), voters under 30 (by 6 points, 10 amongst men), young black men (doubled his vote share) and urban voters (notably in Detroit, Philadelphia and New York).

Meanwhile, Harris underperformed Biden in almost all demographics. She performed strongest with black women, women under 40 and college-educated black voters (all of which form part of her “base” or “main ICP”) but had limited success in reaching beyond her main ICP-voters.

So why are these secondary ICPs so important?

In the case of US elections, there’s the complexity of the electoral system, by which the winner of a state ‘takes all’, resulting in there being “safe states” and “swing states”. This means that in the past several elections, a path to victory has gone directly through winning just a handful of states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania).

This is where good ICP-targeting was crucial. 

If you look at the demographic makeup of these swing states, it’s clear that Trump’s campaign had the better ICP-focus. These states already have a large contingent of Trump-friendly demographics. Increasing his vote share among black men, urban voters and latino voters whilst winning over more educated white-collar workers was crucial in winning these states. 

Meanwhile, Kamala’s main ICP is less represented in these swing states than in Democrat “safe states” where her ICP-voters turning out had no impact on the election end-result. 

So why was Trump successful in firing up his base whilst also winning over some swing votes? 

2. Nailing your positioning and your messaging

What do you do once you’ve identified your ICPs? You nail down your positioning and messaging – based on that ICP. 

A lot of companies (and political parties) try to water down their message to appeal to a wider audience – which usually fails in both cases. Watered-down messages might work when alternatives are lacking and undesirable, but in today’s highly-polarized society, they are more likely to get drowned out by the noise than anything else.

Powerful messaging is key to winning elections. Be it FDR (”nothing to fear but fear itself”), JFK (“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country”), Reagan (“Morning in America”) or Obama (“Yes We Can”) – strong orators, brilliant communicators and crystal clear messaging were often at the core of some of the biggest electoral victories in US election history. 

Now I wouldn’t go so far as to attribute electoral victory to a slogan, but a great slogan is often the by-product (or at least a good indicator) of strong messaging that aligns with the target audience. 

So let’s do a simplified breakdown of both campaigns’ messaging.

Kamala’s campaign focused on a few messaging pillars:

• Kamala the prosecutor vs. Trump the criminal

• Protecting women’s rights (with focus on abortion rights)

• Saving America’s democracy

• Order vs. chaos

If you take the ICP-context into account (i.e. both candidates had to win over urban voters, young men, black voters and latino voters in the 6 swing states), it’s easy to see why this messaging didn’t perform as well as expected. 

Kamala’s slogans included “we are not going back” and “when we fight we win”. 

• The slogans weren't bad per se, but they tried to lean into a combative, rebellious tone, which felt at odds with her perceived status as (kind of) the incumbent. Many saw her as the “establishment” candidate, which was further reinforced by the prosecutor image she was cultivating.

• Democrats’ messaging on the economy often focused on statistics around economic growth and job creation, which are good statistics to quote in a debate on facts, but not ones that necessarily resonate with people who feel they are doing worse than before.

• Democrats went all-in on abortion (most Americans agree with them on the subject and they did well in the midterms thanks to it). But exit polls showed that the key groups in swing states did not see it as a priority. It’s worth noting that only 1 of the 6 swing states (Georgia) has passed strict abortion laws, so it’s debatable how much voters ‘felt the pain’ in the other 5.

• Democracy was a major topic, but both sides had their narrative on why the other side posed a risk to democracy. Same goes for order & chaos. Many doomsday scenarios predicted before Trump’s previous election did not become reality, taking some of the sting out of these arguments.

Overall, Kamala Harris’ campaign had some decent messaging, but a lot of it seemed to cater more to her “base”, which is strongest in states that were going to vote for her anyway. The messaging did not prove effective for capturing secondart ICP-voters in the 6 swing states.

Meanwhile Trumps’ messaging focused on:

• Trump the tough leader people respect

• Stopping immigration

• Boosting the economy 

• Fighting back against ‘repressive woke culture’

• Ending international conflicts

Trump’s main slogan is “Make America Great Again” with his ‘movement’ being dubbed “The MAGA Movement”. Other taglines included “save America” and “reclaim our country”.

→ Whether you agree with the message or not, “Make America Great Again” is a powerful tagline. It encompasses everything in Trump’s core message:

• America used to be great but isn’t anymore (because of the them)

• America should be great

• We can make America great (again)

Trump’s campaign also proved effective in delivering clear messages that cut through the noise.

• The line “Kamala’s agenda is they/them, not you” went viral after the Republicans invested over $20m in ads pushing it and appeared to resonate with right-leaning and independent-voters worried about “woke culture”. Generally, Trump’s campaign and the Super Pacs that supported it spent millions on ads aimed at painting a specific picture of Kamala Harris rather than promoting policies.

• Republicans adjusted their messages for different demographics. They had ads targeting Jewish voters in swing states questioning Kamala Harris’ support for Israel (emphasizing the internal divides within the Democratic party on the issue) whilst targeting Muslim voters with opposite ads implying Kamala Harris was a staunch supporter of Israel because her husband is Jewish.

• Their ads on the economy focused primarily on inflation, highlighting various price increases and the unmanageable cost of living – which was easier for people in swing states to relate to. 

(Again, I’m not commenting on the honesty, accuracy or ethics of any of these messages. I’m merely pointing out the effectiveness of the messaging.)

There’s a few principles we like to use when work on messaging:

• Develop a strong perspective with a clear umbrella opinion

• Be clear on your differentiated value

• 1 message / piece of content = one idea.

• Share a clear strategic narrative

The Republicans were successful in all the above. The Democrats less so. Over the past years, the Republican party has benefited from strong internal alignment. They have a set of talking points and effective attacks that they know work and they repeat the over, and over, and over, and over. The Democratic Party on the other hand has had a much harder time putting aside their differences and getting everyone to “tow the party line”.

The bottom line: whether they liked him or not, people knew what Trump was about. Meanwhile, many voters lamented that they couldn’t say the same of Kamala Harris.

3. Distribution & promotion

Once you have your ICP and messaging nailed down, you need to figure out how you’re going to reach your ICPs in the most effective way possible.

Both candidates relied on both traditional and digital outlets to bring their message across. 

Campaigns are not too different from business. They focus on a handful of channels:

• Paid ads (television, radio, social media)

• Events (rallies, fundraisers, campaign stops)

• Social media + content marketing

• Traditional PR & Media

• Online media (columns, podcasts, live streams, etc).

The big difference for presidential election campaigns is that they have the clout to leverage PR and media in a way most businesses cannot. 

Kamala Harris appeared on CBS’ 60 Minutes, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and ABC’s The View. Her campaign also set up an official Twitch Channel and invested a lot into her TikTok account. She also appeared on a handful of podcasts, including Call Her Daddy, All The Smoke and a town hall with Charlamagne tha God. Meanwhile top democrats were regularly featured on CNN.

Donald Trump avoided the mainstream media, mainly featuring on Fox News. He instead relied heavily on his own social media platform Truth Social where he has over 8 million followers, in addition to streaming his rallies on Twitch and sharing interviews on YouTube. 

Most notably though, the Trump campaign’s strategy involved featuring him on hugely popular podcasts with large listener bases, consisting mainly of young men, including:

• The Joe Rogan Experience

• This Past Weekend with Theo Von

• Flagrant with Andrew Schulz

• Lex Fridman’s podcast

• Six Feet Under with Mark Calaway (The Undertaker)

• Bussin' with the Boys with Will Compton and Taylor Lewan

• The Nelk Boys podcast

• Adin Ross's podcast

• Logan Paul's podcast

Trump appeared on more than 3x as many podcasts as Kamala Harris. He also did more long-form interviews. The podcast episodes Harris participated in were all 1 hour long or less. Trump’s interview with Joe Rogan lasted 3 hours and has more than 48 million views on YouTube alone. His interview with Theo Von has 14 million views on YouTube and his interviews with Lex Fridman and Logan Paul have over 6 million views each.

Other than hammering his message home to a specifically targeted group, his podcast interviews helped him in another significant way: it provided a form of social proof that helped normalize his policies. 

4. Social proof

US presidential campaigns are a lot like popularity contests and being endorsed and supported by prominent public figures (e.g. influencers, celebrities) has been seen as the ultimate form of social proof. 

Kamala Harris bagged some significant endorsements from Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, Billie Eilish, Mark Cuban, Beyonce and LeBron James. It was expected that Taylor Swift’s endorsement in particular would help engage young female voters. 

But the thing with social proof is that it is only really convincing when it isn’t expected. 

Companies like Salesforce, Apple or Microsoft don’t need to showcase logos, testimonials and case studies on their homepage to prove their legitimacy. They are well-established brands. They are “the establishment”. So when a big name comes out and says something good about them, it’s nice, but it isn’t exactly a game changer. 

But when a disruptive startup breaks on the scene and snags a major logo, it can turn heads – like when the first big companies started abandoning Jira for Linear. 

Major celebrity endorsements for Democratic candidates have become standard over the years, making their impact questionable (some even argue it made Kamala Harris look out of touch).

But what about Donald Trump? 

Donald Trump is a fundamentally different candidate from usual mainstream politicians. He was traditionally widely disliked in Hollywood and Silicon Valley and has been seen more as an outsider, an anti-establishment candidate. He is seen by many as the disruptive startup in this scenario.

When the Democrats get yet another celebrity endorsement, it is not necessarily seen as a huge trust signal. If anything, it might reinforce their status as being “the establishment". But when Trump is endorsed by a big name, much like the disruptive startup, it can be a significant boost in trust. 

Most of Trump’s endorsements traditionally come from celebrities with people like Hulk Hogan, Mel Gibson and Kid Rock – which aren’t exactly mainstream celebrities. 

But in this election, he got endorsements from more mainstream influencers, like Jake Paul, Dana White and Mike Tyson. Former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard also endorsed his campaign. And the most significant endorsement came from Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. 

As a candidate whose support for a long time seemed a taboo (Trump consistently polls below his election performance, suggesting many people don’t want to admit they support him), these endorsements went a long way toward building trust and making Donal Trump more palatable to the average voter.

This is only reinforced by the aforementioned podcasts he participated in – which despite not being formal endorsements, helped associate him with popular figures that have become part of the new online mainstream. They also helped him come across as less scripted than Kamala Harris, 

This may just be me living in my bubble, but I definitely felt like people were more openly supporting and defending Donald Trump, with supportive posts and comments appearing even on LinkedIn for seemingly the first time. This shift also is reflected in Trump winning the popular vote by several million votes – the first time a Republican won the popular vote since 1988. 

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I know that politics are complex. And there are many factors, from the socioeconomic to the geopolitical, that influenced the result of the election. But when you look at the campaigns through a marketing lens, it becomes clear that one party performed significantly better than the other, with better targeting, better messaging and a better distribution strategy. 

And that doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Donald Trump is many things, but above all, he is a brand builder. From Trump Tower, to The Apprentice, to The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump is somebody who has built his career on strong marketing. 

As politicians continue to embrace learnings from how businesses market themselves, it will be interesting to see how future campaigns shape themselves. 

By Ferdinand Goetzen