HALEYMENTUM
Doomscroll 2.19.23
Hello, there. Have you been enjoying Doomscroll? Does it fill your heart with pre-baby Marie Kondo level joy when it hits your inbox each Sunday evening? If so, then will you share it with your digital friends?
One Question
Well folks, she’s officially in! And no, I’m not talking about the alien mother entering American airspace (too much?). I’m talking about Nikki Haley, of course! I’ve spent a few weeks talking about her digital wind-up to the big announcement, so I won’t go over much of what Team Haley did on the ad front or socials this week (hat tip to some great execution, though). However, the Haley Campaign was called out by FWIW News on Twitter for not running any search ads. Hhhhhmm….Not so fast.
On Thursday I looked for myself (ever the good investigator). Team Stand for America had spent a nice chunk of change on search ads directing people to her WinRed page. When I pointed that out on Twitter, FWIW’s Kyle Tharp acknowledged he had just seen the Google ad library update as well. (Hi, Kyle!) So, let the record be corrected. De Nada.
But it did raise a question for me: Is running search still a digital best practice for campaign launches?
Conventional wisdom and I have long held that search ads are a must on day one of any campaign launch. Candidates need to own their name. They need to capitalize on the spike in interest to drive people to their campaign website. They need to make it stupid easy for anyone to find the donation page - at a relatively low cost, too. Right? Is there any strategic reason not to run search ads? If there is, make the case by smashing that button below, and vote in the poll: Are search ads still a digital best practice?
Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s One Question with their stories about being censored by Big Tech! A number of you shared stories. Here’s one:
I was working at a digital agency for someone in House leadership. We consistently had issues with the client not receiving the number of emails they used to receive in their gmail account. After making adjustment after adjustment, we still could not remedy the situation. I had a feeling Google was doing something, but I could not verify this was a fact. It was just my intuition. The client's senior advisor reached out to google directly, since he owned the account, only to find they had put additional filters on the account. There were hundreds if not thousands of emails from constituents that were held back from the campaign's inbox. I felt vindicated because I knew it wasn't due to my teams efforts. This would have been back in 2019 or 2020.
I, for one, had some GOTV search ads mysteriously get turned off the week before Election Day last year. When I raised the issue, I was told Google’s tech team was seeing weird punctuation in my ads on their and had thus turned them off. Narrator: There was no weird punctuation in the search ad text.
Who’s Doing What
--Let’s talk about MERCH, BABY
Ok, we’re not doing talking about Nikki Haley. Let us discuss one of my favorite sub-topics: campaign merchandise! Head on over to NikkiHaley.com and click that “store” button in the top right (psst Team Haley: the store link at the bottom of the homepage doesn’t work). Right now, the store has basic items: signs, stickers, hats, t-shirts, mugs; pretty much everything you need to cover your merch bases. There’s nothing particularly amazing or creative in there at the moment, but then there doesn’t have to be. This is exactly what you want in your merch store at launch time. Some solid basics with the campaign logo and 1-2 candidate quotes or slogans. Nothing more, nothing less.
A note about the logo: I like the shade of red they used. The subtle orange-y tint makes it feels like a fresh, slightly happier version of the deep red we’re used to seeing in Republican campaign logos. The font is clean, and I appreciate the minimal kerning. It looks as good on a mug as it does on a baseball hat. Beyond that, the logo encapsulates what the country has come to expect from Nikki Haley. It’s fresh, but dignified; new, but not flashy. It’s safe. It’s not over the top. No one’s going to be unpacking the design choices for this logo, but that’s probably the point. Goodness knows we don’t need anymore Hillary “H” arrows, Elizabeth Warren sea greens, or Jeb exclamation points. Remember these?
--There’s a new CEO in town…
And he hails from Ohio! If you’re not a regular watcher of Fox News, you may be excused for not knowing who Vivek Ramaswamy is. He’s young. He’s a successful businessman. He’s of Indian descent. He’s a multi, multi-millionaire. He hates ESG and progressive woke-ness. He may not know who Terry Brandstad is, but hey - maybe you don’t, either. He’s basically AOC’s worst nightmare. AND! According to Politico, he’s considering a run for president (translation: he will be running for president).
The problem, of course, is that Fox hits aside, Vivek Ramaswamy is not a household name - not even in a political context. Obviously that would need to change, and there’s no better place to start than your social media presence. So how is Vivek’s? I decided to compare his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram followings to other potential presidential candidates. I also threw in the average view count for their last 6 reels - a completely arbitrary stat that basically tells us nothing but is interesting nonetheless. When stacked up against the rest of the presidential field, Vivek is…a little behind. But since that comparison is maybe a little too apples to oranges, I also compared him to other popular Fox New contributors who have some public profiles. In that regard, he does a little better.
What he has going for him is consistency. He posts a lot, and that’s not always easy to do. What he lacks may be…some focus and direction in his messaging. Right now the strategy seems to be sheer volume; quantity over quality. He may also want to consider posting a reel that’s not a horizontal video? Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how his social media presence evolves if (once) he announces for president.
--Roses are Red Violets are Blue, Politicians Love You?
Speaking of merch, did anyone download one of the Valentine’s Day iPhone backgrounds from the RNC?? Or buy a pair of whiskey glasses?
Who’s Spending Where
The top center-right spender on Facebook from February 8-14 was, you guessed it, Newsmax! The publication spent a whopping $316K on ads mainly to tell people to “fight censorship” at DirectTV. America Strong and Free PAC came in second place with a spend of $91,000. ASF is the PAC associated with former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is clearly gearing up for something. Third and fourth place were Judicial Watch ($47,000) and PragerU ($45,000), respectively. LiveAction came in fifth with about $30,000 in spending. The Daily Wire, which is usually in the top 5, cut their spending significantly this week.
The top Republican spender on Google from February 8-14 was Stand for America PAC (ahem), Judge Jennifer Dorow, and Friends of Ron DeSantis. Fourth and fifth places go to Federation for American Immigration Reform and….Perry Johnson for President Inc? Am I reading this right? The ad points people to PerryJohnsontwocents.com that features a 60-second ad that…well, you just have to see for yourself. CLICK HERE IF YOU DARE.
P2P
Industry Watch
Twitter has released updated guidelines around political content. TL:DR- political promoted ads and follower ads are allowed, but you have to fill out this application to become certified.
The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Amazon’s Andy Jassy to testify about censorship by Big Tech. Here’s more from The AP:
The committee asked the companies to produce documents and communications by March 23 that show any communication between them and the executive branch of the U.S. government relating to moderation, deletion, suppression or reduced circulation of content. … The hearing and subsequent subpoenas this month continue a yearslong trend of GOP leaders calling tech company leaders to testify about alleged political bias. Democrats, meanwhile, have pressed the companies on the spread of hate speech and misinformation on their platforms.
The Grapevine
Not so good news: Rumor has it the board at OneClick Politics has let Chazz Clevinger go. No details other than that as of this writing!
John Hall, formerly of Targeted Victory, made it official on Twitter: He’s serving as digital strategist for Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign. Congrats, John!
There was some grumbling in Texas this week about Gov. Abbott’s Sate of the State. This was after people weren’t too happy about the paired down inaugural celebration (compared to years past). That said, I was also told to take the complaints with a grain of salt. It was the company that wanted the cell phone ban - not team Abbott.
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Podcast recommendation? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Last But Not Least
From the other side of the aisle:
Even Democrat voters are tired of political fundraising tactics. A Nicholas Goldberg column in the LA Times literally asks: “Why won’t Nancy Pelosi stop emailing me?” A snippet:
Somehow I thought that when the midterm elections were over, when Nov. 8 came and went, the barrage of political fundraising emails would stop.
Who was I kidding?
They kept on coming because in the modern era of permanent campaigns, spam, digital fundraising and general shamelessness, that’s just the way it is. There’s no rest for the weary or the tapped out.
Not only did the emails not stop coming, they seemed to ratchet up from a previous level of frantic anxiety to a new plateau of panic and hysteria.
Honorable Mention:
The nice folks on the DNC “Mobilization Team” published a new Substack post about split fundraising. Anyone remember this email? I do.
From the other side of the tracks:
Insert media is BACK. Is there some application here for the political world? Maybe, in the right situation. I could see a local Congressional candidate partnering with a supportive small business to do some insert media. I once worked on an initiative at my previous job where we partnered with local restaurants and bars to distribute coasters that explained how the state Democrats’ COVID policies had decimated small businesses. The coasters included a QR code that linked to a website with more facts and figures, etc.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading? Did you like it? Consider forwarding to your friends!