Announcements are in the air...
Doomscroll 4.16.23
If this was forwarded to you, then do the Lord’s work and smash that subscribe button.
One Question
It’s the year of Influencer Marketing. I don’t know about you, but my goal is to one day have 1 million followers on Instagram and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars shilling product for capitalist corporations. Ok fine, and telling people to vote GOP. Either way, the Dems love this tactic. Republicans? Eh, it remains to be seen. I want to know where you all stand, so this week’s One Question is this: Should Republican campaigns utilize influencer marketing? If not, are we basically ceding the youth vote to the left?
Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about the role digital strategists should play on campaigns. Responses ran the gamut, which I didn’t totally expect. Here’s a couple:
If you're doing it right, digital touches political, finance, and comms. The ideal digital role on a campaign isn't just a social media manager with a fancy title. You're hiring a person who can help advance all areas of your campaign
Stay in your lane. The worst digital advice comes from consultants who don’t stay in their lane. So we should stick to our digital strategy lane.
Who’s Doing What
--Son of SC makes it official (kind of)
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott announced his exploratory committee for president on Wednesday, April 12…the same day the first shots were fired in Civil War. Very poetic. I love the Faith in America theme and I love the overall sense of optimism. If I have ONE critique, it’s that I’m a bit underwhelmed by the logo. BUT fwiw I Iove the socks in his merch store. Something else that’s smart: His website offers FOUR chances for visitors to plug in their information. That’s right - 4 different forms. He has a “join the team” form, a “what issue matters most to you” form, an endorsement form, and a volunteer form.
Question: Has anyone else done an announcement this big about an exploratory committee? I get why you’d do it from a tactical perspective, and I guess it’s better than Asa Hutchinson’s “I’m running, but not officially announcing just yet” line. I expect big things from Team Scott on the digital side. As many of you probably know, he’s working with Targeted Victory so the bar is high.
P.S. Is it a coincidence that Team Haley tweeted this graphic ON THE DAY that Scott announced his exploratory committee?? #majorshade 👀👀👀
--Straight into my veins
Sheriff Mark Lamb just announced his run for Senate in Arizona and I would like America to accept an IV drip of everything this guy is offering: Law and Order. Family. Freedom. Faith. Compassion. Good, old-fashioned all-American patriotism. Please and THANK YOU. Push Digital is handling the campaign and I tip my hat. Website: excellent. Announcement video: Even more excellent. Campaign logo: Love it. Washington DOES need a new sheriff in town. His announcement email (I’m pretty sure I got it via a couple different list rental) is compelling, if long and wordy. No matter; people will eat it up.
--Bayou Boss
Louisiana State Rep. Richard Nelson is running for governor in Louisiana. He’s up against some formidable opponents (like Jeff Landry who’s got a ton of name id and a slew of endorsements - including from the state Republican Party). BUT Nelson is a good case study of how an underdog candidate in a statewide race can utilize social media. The other day I noticed Nelson for Governor was running a couple of Facebook ads that are direct-to-camera videos. One features just him; the other is him and his wife. They didn’t even look like ads; they looked like social media posts. So I took a gander at his Instagram and sure enough, Richard Nelson is a prolific Instagrammer. Beginning on January 18 of this year, @NelsonforLA has posted on Instagram at least every couple of days (his last post before that was May 2022). The posts that stand out - by far - are his direct-to-camera videos. Are they perfect? No. Are they all polished? Not really. But they’re authentic and interesting and this is politics so we are grading on a curve! Good job, Richard Nelson. He’s showing you don’t have to have slick design skills to communicate on social. Don’t overthink it; just do it.
-- Speaking of Louisiana…
Gubernatorial candidate Rep. Jeff Landry has a Substack. What the what?! Love it. His first post went up on April 10. Check it out. Looks like he simply imported his email list to get going. SMART.
--Committees Capitalize
Two of the national Republican committees, the RNC and the NRSC, are running fundraising ads on Trump’s indictment and arrest. The NRSC is going with “end the Trump witch hunt,” while the RNC is using more doomsday language like “they’re coming for all patriots next!” (I’m paraphrasing). On Facebook, the RNC is even doing a couple poll ads (“is it political vengeance?”) Personally, I don’t think it’s a big deal that the RNC is running ads on Trump while the 2024 presidential primary is getting underway. It just shows the committee is trying to capitalize on current events - as they should. Still, I wonder if the Trump campaign has issues with either committee using his image/likeness/name/etc to raise money?
--Lessons in Texting, Turning Point USA Edition
So young. So naive. Sigh. Our favorite youth organization, Turning Point USA, got sued for sending unsolicited texts. Apparently the plaintiff, one Brandon Callier, is known in the TCPA world as someone who likes to sue groups who don’t respect his privacy. Well, he recently turned his ire on Turning Point and unfortunately for the youths, their lawyer did them a grave disservice. Eric Troutman explains it best on the blog, TCPAWorld:
Now anyone familiar with the structure of the TCPA can size this claim up immediately. The fact that “Turning Point”–whatever that is–claims to be a non-profit is irrelevant. So too, the fact that the cellular phone might be residential is also irrelevant. The prohibitions of the TCPA respecting the use of an ATDS to contact a cell phone apply regardless of those factors.
But Turning Point’s counsel, apparently, didn’t know that. And thus began their rather humbling educational experience at the hands of Mr. Callier
… Callier demonstrates, yet again, why [sic] the TCPAWorld is so dangerous. If you do not have vast experience in this world you are going to get taken to school– even by a guy without a lawyer. And that’s just plain embarrassing. Sure Callier’s best day in court in this one will net him about $7,500.00. But he has already forced Turning Point to incur more than in fees and now he’s demonstrated to the Court (and others) that a class action might be possible here since Turning Point apparently thought its conduct was legal for reasons that really don’t pass muster. Eesh.
Bottom line: If you’re going to send P2P text messages, know the rules and follow them.
Merch Shoutouts
I may start making this a regular feature of Doomscroll. This week: Team Vivek and Josh Hawley.
Get your Vivek “Bud Right” koozie here.
Get your Hawley TikTok sticker here.
Who’s Spending Where
The top center-right spender of Facebook ads from April 5 -11 was PragerU. The org spent nearly $240,000 on ads pushing content and subscriptions. (Hey Prager - Can I have $5?). Second place goes to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) with almost $150,000 pushing sign-ups. Personally, I love this group and everything they do. Third and fourth place go to Newxmax and Students First NY respectively. Rounding out the top five is The Daily Wire.
The top spender from April 5-11 on Google was Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee with Search ads to a WinRed page. Vivek 2024 came in second place with, you guessed it, Search ads to a donation page. The Associated Industries of Florida PAC came in third place with a 30-second issue ad pushing a bill to crack down on trial lawyers. The RNC came in fourth place with Search/donation ads around the Trump indictment, while Judicial Watch came in fifth.
P2P
Industry Watch
I want to highlight this interview with Robert Aho in C&E about the “lost art of storytelling in political creative.” He makes some excellent points. Too often we lose sight of just how crucial good creative is. As Aho says:
If you look at any criticism of anything in the industry, whether it’s left or right, political or public affairs, or just advertising at large, everything has changed. Like, everything has changed. And we all know that. We all keep talking about how everything has changed, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that advertising, at its core, is about telling a compelling story. I think everybody can get a little too enthralled with the latest shiny object and forget that.
Also: Per WSJ, Parler is getting sold to Starboard (formerly Olympic Media), and will shut down “temporarily.” Ryan Coyne - if you’re reading this and want to share more deets, HMU!
The Grapevine
Some of you may recall that several weeks ago, I “reported” that Targeted Victory’s Zac Moffatt would be GC’ing Tim Scott’s presidential campaign. Now I’m hearing it’ll be TV’s Matt Gorman. I don’t know ya’ll…I don’t break news, just gossip!
Also, we knew it was only a matter of time before the infamous pudding rumor came back to haunt one Ron DeSantis. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just google “DeSantis pudding”).
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Fav Taylor Swift era? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Last But Not Least
From the other side of the aisle:
Axios reported this week that the Biden campaign-in-waiting in planning to make influencer marketing a key pillar of the re-election effort. Right off the bat that means two things. One- a TikTok ban is now DOA, and two - yeah, TikTok is going nowhere.
Here are some more of my takeaways, in particular order
Yes, I agree that Biden pinning re-election hopes on influencers is deeply cynical and hypocritical in an age where we’re literally all talking about how bad TikTok is from a national security perspective. And no, I don’t care what anyone else says. It’s bad and you should get it off your phone.
THAT SAID: can you blame him? It would be political malpractice for the Biden campaign to not do everything it possibly can to keep young voters happy and make sure they get to the polls. They need young people, period. Tactically, it would be dumb AF to not embrace a platform that so many of them spend so much time on.
ON THE OTHER HAND: I watched a few videos from these TikTok influencers and omfg they made me want to blow my brains out. I get I’m not the target audience for the harryjsisson’s of TikTok, but my brain cannot compute the fact that the President of the United States wants this kid to be a quasi-spokesperson for his campaign. Dear lord. I’m sure there are better, more serious influencers who will be tapped, but still…
AND IT’S GOTTA MAKE YOU WONDER: How much of the left’s advertising budget will be spent on influencer marketing - a medium with literally no transparency? Sure, the creator may have to say that what they’re posting is an ad, but last I checked there’s no transparency report or ad library for influencers. So yeah, it’s pretty hypocritical coming from a political party that scaremongers about misinformation and democracy supposedly dying in darkness.
From the other side of the tracks:
Since we’re on the subject of TikTok… Here’s the thing: Just because I think you should delete it from your phone, that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize valuable and interesting content when I see it! For instance, there’s something called the “WaterTok.” Per Fast Company:
Welcome to “WaterTok,” one of the latest trends taking over timelines. People are creating cocktails of flavored syrups, powder packets, ice, and, obviously, water (traditionally in their large Stanley cups) in an effort to boost their daily water intake.
Since last week, the hashtag “flavored water” has garnered hundreds of millions of views on TikTok; likewise, “water recipe” has seen been seen by tens of millions. People are sharing recipes for everything from “peach ring water” (Crush orange drink powder, two pumps of sugar-free Torani peach syrup) to “ocean water” (Sonic’s ocean water packet, a couple of splashes of sugar-free Torani coconut syrup), and “pink wedding cake water” (two pumps each of Skinny Syrups’s sugar-free vanilla almond and coconut flavors, and Starburst’s all pink strawberry drink mix powder).
Look, I’m not saying it’s the most genius thing out there, but you want to be relatable? Flavor some water, drink it, and post it. I don’t make the rules.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading! Did you like it? Consider forwarding to your friends!