ICE floods the zone
Doomscroll 1.18.2025
Welcome to another edition of Doomscroll - your favorite newsletter covering all things digital on the right! If you’re running a social media account for a candidate and you have YET to take advantage of this startlingly easy trend…well then I cannot help you. Let’s get to some scrolling!
Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about how you’re implementing AI in back of house. A lot of your answers still focused on using AI in the creative/content space - which I guess is not all that unsurprising. Here’s one comment that stood out:
We use AI for 90-95% of our client content - email/sms/ad copy, and even creative concepts. While we don’t use AI’s v1 every time, it streamlines so much time of the creative thinking process. Even for the actual designs, we use AI to spit out a couple iterations for us to use as a starting point; sophisticated background designs that would take a designer a substantial amount of time is reduced to a matter of minutes. You might ask yourself, “the AI slop must definitely be noticeable, right?” But to our surprise, a lot of the AI generated content is performing better than what real people have made. I suppose it comes from months (even years in some cases) of continuously training the same models on client’s voice.
Do I find it a little depressing that the AI-generated content is performing better? Maybe a little. I like to think we’re smarter than the machines, but who the heck knows anymore. Ok, let’s move on. For this week’s One Question, I want to do something a little different. If you keep scrolling, you’ll see I spent a little time talking about ICE this week (dun dun dunnnnn….). But it got me thinking about posing a little thought experiment for you all this week: Let’s say you run a digital consulting firm and the Department of Homeland Security has awarded you a $20 million contract to plan and execute some digital ad campaigns for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. What would you do? How would you spend it? Who would you target? Doesn’t need to be fully thought out obviously, but I’m curious how you all would handle that account - especially given current events.
This week’s One Quote comes from President of Push Digital, Corey Vale, and an op-ed he published in C&E this week about HOW DIGITAL IS GOING TO BE KEY IN 2026, GUYS. Ok, ok, that’s maybe oversimplifying it a bit. His main point is that the GOP doesn’t have a messaging problem, but a distribution problem. Maybe. But the cynic in my says his remedies aren’t going to fix much unless campaign culture on the right changes. Still, I do appreciate that amid his talk about audience targeting and CTV, he finds time to call out the need for good creative. I’m all for reminding people that good creative matters. In fact - let’s shout it from the rooftops! Most political ads DO tend to look and feel the same to the voters who are receiving them. Let’s figure out a way to make our ads feel alive this year, shall we? Just a thought!
—America Needs YOU
Alright, you guys, let’s talk about ICE, ICE, baby (Sorry, can’t help myself). Against the backdrop of raids and unrest and tragedy in Minnesota, there’s another angle the mainstream media is covering a lot these days: the agency’s massive ad budget. We’ve seen the Department of Homeland Security spend obscene amounts on digital ads over the last few months. But apart from that, is another massive (read: $100 million) spend on special “wartime” recruitment ads for ICE. The Washington Post did a pretty good deep dive on this a couple weeks ago, so I won’t rehash all the details here. But suffice to say, the campaign has embraced a “flood the zone” approach to recruitment, running ads on platforms like Spotify, LinkedIn, podcasts, YouTube, and everywhere in between., They’re even devoting a cool $8 million to influencer marketing.
This is a massive undertaking. Unclear to me if the firms running the recruitment campaign are the same ones running the other DHS blitzes (People Who Think and Safe American Media), but it wouldn’t surprise me. What’s also notable in the story is who the ads are targeting: people who attended NASCAR races and gun shows, who are near military bases, are interested in fitness, and listen to country music. Clearly, they’ve got their audience figured out (or think they do). Side note: worth mentioning that as of the time of this writing, there are 0 active ads on Meta! Hmmm…
From a performance standpoint, I get it. This is a campaign that must optimize for leads. The targeting is its own self-selection process. As an ad agency that’s looking to optimize spend (i.e. get leads as cheaply as possible), you’re going to naturally want to target only a specific swath of Americans with some over-the-top creative that leans slightly controversial.
But that’s where things break down a little for me a little. Pull up a chair…
Some of the creative I’ve seen is great. The campaign seems to hinge around a 30-second spot, which you can view here. It’s a good spot. Tugs on the heartstrings. Makes me want to step up and defend America. And then there’s this. What are we doing here, exactly, except making it look like the U.S. government wants to kidnap children?
And then there’s the banner ads that have some hard-to-read font on top of a background that feels like a design cry for help if I’ve ever seen one. I don’t mind the Uncle Sam / Americana imagery per se, but I don’t love “Defend the Homeland” as a tagline. Slightly tweaking it to “Defend Our Home” would be, IMHO, a better idea.
See, so much of the campaign (and the agency’s organic social, fwiw) seems geared toward provocation and meme-fied patriotism that - fairly or not - has dragged ICE into dumb, avoidable conversations about Nazi imagery and propaganda from the 1930s. Not all the criticism is warranted, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t absolutely predictable.
Hence the mixed feelings here (if you couldn’t sense them already!) The thing is…I’m a proud, flag-waving, America-loving conservative who stands with ICE (hi!). I support its mission. I want my fellow Americans to support its mission too, which is why it kinda chaps my behind when ads miss the mark and cater to the outrage culture. Are we here to deport criminals or are we here to instill fear and go viral? (Hey, I’m just asking questions - isn’t that what all the cool kids do these days?)
Public opinion on the agency is souring, and it’s *not* hard to see why. Does ICE need to back down or soften its mission? Nah. But maybe it could afford to borrow some tips and tricks from Crisis Management 101: implement some transparency and establish some credibility with the people it’s trying to protect. Tell the story of ICE. First-person testimonials would be great here, though maybe not feasible thanks to security/privacy concerns. Blah.
We all started 2025 broadly united around removing the “worst of the worst” (yes!). But when that mission conflicts with what some people are seeing with their own eyes, therein lies the problem - which is why I think the agency could use a little bit more love in its messaging. Call me a kook, but I believe it is possible. I guess where I’m landing with all this is that I wish these ICE ads did a little more to rehab the agency’s image. Optimizing these spots for leads/conversions is great - but how about we throw in some legitimacy in there as well? Maybe there are plans to do that. $100 million is a lot to work with, after all!
—Testing, testing…
Ya’ll…this is why it’s important to test your emails. I got an email the other day from Sen. Rand Paul. I clicked on it - as I am wont to do - just to see what other folks are up to these days! The SL was about Joe Rogan. The email was about Paul’s interview with Rogan in which they talked about Anthony Fauci. And yet…every…single…link in the email opened up a WinRed page about…Somali fraud in Minnesota and welfare programs? OOPS. (Unless this was on purpose? In which case can someone enlighten me on the rationale here?) There were so many buttons and hyperlinks in this email and every single one of them linked to a donate page that came totally out of left field (although fwiw I do appreciate the custom CSS). Anyway, there’s a lesson here for all of us: CHECK THOSE EMAIL TESTS.
A few stories caught my eye this week!
🛍️ Check out this list of 2026 e-commerce trends. We can use a lot of these tips…
🤖 Ads coming to ChatGPT?!
⏰ Here’s a new “data-backed guide” for how often you should be posting on social media
📺 Ampersand has rolled out TrueStream Political - “a streaming advertising platform designed for political campaigns seeking verified voter engagement across premium, multiscreen content.”
Businessman Keith Gross is running for Congress in Florida
And Lt. Gov. Jay Collins is running for governor in Florida. Things are getting spicy down there!
Megan Degenfelder is running for governor in Wyoming, and she’s already been endorsed by Pres. Trump.
Assemblyman James Gallagher is running for the late Doug LaMalfa’s seat in Congress
Tiffany Burress (who is married to a football player, I guess?) is running for Congress in New Jersey
Betsy McCaughey is officially running for governor in Connecticut
Harry Arora is considering a run for governor in Connecticut
ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan has resigned her post in order to run for Congress in Ohio
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy says he expects to spend a whopping $26 million on his primary fight
Launchpad is hiring a Digital Account Manager and a Digital Fundraising Strategist. Apply!
Push Digital is hiring a Digital Fundraising Account Executive
Powers Interactive is hiring an Account Coordinator
AdVictory is hiring a Senior Manager, Paid Media
Congrats to Hannah Allred Martinez for being promoted to Partner at Red Spark!
Word on the street is Resonate recently fired like 30 people. Yikes.
Congrats to Winning Strategy Group’s Joe Goetz on the arrival of his new baby girl!.
P.S. If YOU have a baby announcement, send it to me!
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
From the other side of the aisle:
I’ve shared before about my love of Kyle Tharp’s newsletter, Chaotic Era. It’s how I stay (mildly) plugged into the left and its digital landscape. This week though, I couldn’t help but chuckle over his deep dive into the new-ish club for lefties listening to right-wing podcasts. There’s even a Substack to go along with it called “Unfortunately Not A Sound Bath.” Gotta admit, I love the name. Anyway, the group is devoted to dissecting media personalities like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson. Not dissecting their politics or their arguments, mind you - dissecting the tactics they use to suck in their audiences and brainwash them into being MAGA supporters. They’re just, writes Tharp, “trying to make sense of the strange and often bewildering world of right-wing media.” As if Ben Shapiro is some exotic zoo animal who needs to be studied. LMAO.
Anyway, like I said: I chuckled. Perhaps if these lefties want to understand the rightwing media ecosystem and conservatives in general, they should do more of what their fearless leader - Gavin Newsom - does and just…talk to them. Face to face. Like normal people.
From the other side of the tracks:
Thanks to the loyal reader who flagged this article from the WSJ for me this week. They really DO know the way to my heart is through a good ol’ plain Hershey bar. Here’s the gist: the chocolate bar is getting its first advertising campaign in EIGHT YEARS. Here’s more:
It will use both traditional and streaming TV but also marketing channels where Hershey’s has less experience, such as influencer campaigns on TikTok, live events and activity around big cultural moments, like this year’s Winter Olympics and America250 celebrations. The advertising push is set to begin next week.
…
Still, the company is mindful of some backlash against the trend of sensory-overloading mashups of treats driven by social media.
“There’s a sense of ‘if I’m going to spend my hard-earned dollar on a piece of chocolate, I know that Hershey’s is going to deliver what I want,’” she said. “There’s power in that familiarity.”
Power in that familiarity. Yup.
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