Guess Who's Back...Back Again
Doomscroll 1.29.23
One Question
This week’s One Question is a simple poll: Was Meta right to reinstate Donald Trump?
Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s very open-ended question about the RNC’s lawsuit against Google. I didn’t get as many responses to that question (maybe it was TOO open-ended), but my basic takeaway is most people think that as an industry, we rely way too freaking much on gimmicky tactics. And regardless of what Google may or may not be doing…we need to be smarter. Agreed.
P.S. Major shout-out to the reader who responded to my quip last week about spoofing the Old Spice commercials by sending me this gem right here. I love a goofy political ad.
P.P.S. The below material is highly classified so I better not hear about any of you printing it out and hiding it in your sock drawer. Seriously though, are these guys just absent-minded or are we electing a bunch of kleptos?
Who’s Doing What
Guess Who’s Back…Back Again
It’s the return of the Wild Style ex-president.
Yes, that’s right. Earlier this week Meta’s Nick Clegg announced that the company will be reinstating the Facebook and Instagram accounts of one Mr. Donald J. Trump “in the coming weeks.” The gift doesn’t come without strings, though. Future violations will be met with harsh penalties, including the removal of content, the inability to run ads, and suspensions that will last between 1 month to 2 years.
FWIW: I get lots of people out there have varying opinions on how social media platforms should handle content moderation, etc etc etc. Reasonable people can disagree. I’m not here to rehash those debates per se; that’s not what this newsletter is for. I’m going to go ahead and give Meta the benefit of the doubt that they’re in a tough spot and are trying to do the best they can to make everyone happy. But this whole “we’re-going-to-take-action-if-he-posts-something-we-don’t-like” thing is one big ol’ ugly can of worms, if you ask me. And since you’ve subscribed to this newsletter, I’m assuming you kinda did.
Trump, in true Trumpy fashion, responded on Truth Social. Because we wouldn’t expect anything less!
Curiously though, the rest of the Republican lawmaker class was pretty silent on the whole thing. I searched for a while to find GOP politicians’ reactions to the news that I could share, and I only found one tweet from Rep. Jim Jordan. Maybe lawmakers on the right are less enthused about Trump’s megaphone being turned back on? ::insert shrug emoji::
Eyes on the Bluegrass State
Kentucky is one of three gubernatorial elections happening in 2023, and Republican Daniel Cameron released some internal polling last week showing him to be the clear frontrunner in the primary race so far. What I found most interesting, however, is his lack of online advertising. According to Facebook’s ad library, he’s spent less than $100 on ads in the last 90 days. On Google, he’s only run one ad - last September - that touted his early endorsement from Donald Trump. HOWEVER, the man does have an SMS short code, and if you text “Cameron” to 22999, you get an automatic welcome message directing you to his campaign website. Nice.
Mitch Morosity
Raise your hand if you’ve seen the 60-second ad Club for Growth Action ran in Indiana to attack Mitch Daniels. Interesting play from the conservative group to attack someone who hasn’t even announced yet that he’s running for Senate. Yes, they’re also putting some money behind a few pro-Jim Banks ads on Facebook -directing people to a WinRed page. But man those 60-second spots….woof.
Texting, Texting, Texting, 123…
Per a recent report in NBC News, Republicans sent the majority of political text messages last cycle: nearly 12 billion, compared to the Dems’ 3 billion. I wonder how many of those 12 billion were fundraising texts. And we were out raised by how much again? 😖
Who’s Spending Where
Between the dates of January 20-26, the group OurAmerica was the biggest center-right advertiser on Facebook, with more than $55,000 in ad spend. If you recall, I did a little bit of a deeper dive into this group last week. The Daily Wire came in second with around $53,000 in spending on ads driving subscriptions to its membership-based DailyWire+. Newsmax Media ($47,000), Judicial Watch ($43,000), and PragerU ($35,000) rounded out the top five.
Once again, Kelly Craft for Governor is the top Republican spending on Google, followed by Friends of Ron DeSantis. Judicial Watch, Stand for America PAC, and Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) round out the top five. FWIW, the top DeSantis ad, in terms of impressions, is an “official” DeSantis approval poll.
P2P
That “SWEET MOTHER MARY” text grabbed my attention (which I’m sure was the point). It has a certain “bless her heart” ring to it. But once again I had to scroll aaalllllllll the way past a mountain of text and a donation form to get to a disclaimer before I knew where the text came from. In case you didn’t know: the November Victory Fund is a joint fundraising committee comprised of Tim Scott for Senate and Tomorrow is Meaningful PAC and according to them, “the church will be dismantled and religious organizations across the country will be destroyed.”
Industry Watch
CNET: Google to End Pilot Program That Let Political Emails Avoid Spam Filters
A pilot program that let some political campaign emails bypass spam filters in Gmail is shutting down at the end of this month. Google confirmed the Jan. 31 end date in a legal filing Monday. … Google launched the pilot program last year after conservatives leveled charges of political bias against the company, claiming that Republican fundraising emails were more likely to be sent to spam than fundraising emails from Democrats were.
Takeaways + Context
What’s left to say? I don’t think anyone truly had high hopes for this program even when it began last fall. It was clearly a move to placate the right - nothing more. I don’t see many people complaining about it going away either, which kind of tells you everything you need to know.
The Grapevine
Congrats to Mike Hahn for starting as VP for Digital Strategy at National Public Affairs! to Mike: May your new job fill your heart with as much joy as this email filled ours.
Congrats are also in order for Lyman Munschauer, who just re-joined Targeted Victory as Executive Vice President!
Got a tip I can put in The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Tea that needs spilling? Email it to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Last But Not Least
From the other side of the aisle:
I’ve gotten about eleventy-billion emails from Adam Schiff this week either a) whining about being thrown off the Intel Committee or b) asking for money for his Senate race (don’t ask how I wound up on this list). I even got one from Eve Schiff - his wife. Eye rolls aside, I did see something in the Eve email that I liked: a separate button at the bottom that says “Donate Monthly” and takes you to an ActBlue page with a monthly donation box pre-checked. It’s a nice way of growing a recurring revenue file and being transparent about it. No tricks here.
From the other side of the tracks:
OK so I think it’s fair to say that maybe Mars is regretting trying to be “edgy” with its M&M’s spokescandies. I think there’s a lesson for us all to learn here: Don’t sacrifice what people already love about you/your brand/your message just to chase virality (as this Digiday piece rightly gets at). You just can’t force that stuff, so stop trying so hard. The only thing you should be worried about is missing the opportunity when the stars do align.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading? Did you like it? Consider forwarding to your friends!