If its true that elections are petri dishes for communications ideas then the 2024 US Presidential Election is the biggest laboratory of them all.
If its also true that the polls on November 5 will be decided by a few thousand voters in seven swing states then the work around the edges may well decide who runs the free world.
Now, this post is not an exhaustive analysis of both campaigns but more a distanced look at what headline strategies from Harris and Trump can teach us.
Analysts in the days before polling day say that Trump is all about firing up his base by making them angry while Harris is going after undecided voters.
“It’s all pieces of a very complex puzzle,” Harris senior campaign adviser David Plouffe told AP. “This would all be a simpler exercise if you can focus just on one voter cohort. You can’t. And you got to make sure you know you’re doing well enough with all of them so that when you put all that together it adds up to 50 per cent.”
This may seem extreme to a UK audience. Actually, this is just a 10-storey technicolour version of the UK landscape. We don’t consume the media in the same way. A 16-year-old glued to a mobile phone takes on information in a different way to a 66-year-old BBC News watcher.
But what about the comms in the Trump v Harris fight?
It’s not all about the corporate account
If it came down to a straight head to head battle of social media account followers then Donald Trump would be going straight back to The White House. He outguns Kamala Harris massively. It’s a 13 to 1 win on follower count across social media channels. It’s not even close.
His Twitter account’s 95.4 million followers is the jewel in his crown but he also is outfollowing his opponent over on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, too
That Harris is still even in the race is because they have tapped into other accounts and networks. For example, Taylor Swift’s endorsement to her 283 million Instagram followers or her 32 million supporters on TikTok.
It’s about going to where the eyeballs are in mainstream media
Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live, for example. That’s not changed. Kids, Google ‘Bill Clinton + sax.’
It’s about the supporter Facebook groups
Both Harris and Trump have their own supporter Facebook groups toi reinforce the message. For example, the Democratic Voices for Harris / Walz 2024 has 44,000 members while Trump Train MAGA fan club has 52,000. Both have some pretty extreme content.
It’s about the bait and switch supporter Facebook groups
Intriguing, there’s evidence of Facebook groups being set-up posing as pro-Harris but then feed followers attack content.
It’s about supporters posting in Facebook groups
A strategy that Labour and the Conservatives in the UK have developed.
It’s about the memes
Just as in the UK General Election, images with text rule. They capture a moment and can be forwarded within seconds to supporters’ networks. For each micro-campaign moment there are memes with many originating from the centre. This leads to…
It’s about speeding up the approvals process
In 2016, Hilary Clinton’s team took up to 12 staffers and 10 drafts to write a tweet. In 2024, Kamala Harris’ team of five for TikTok can go from idea to execution to approval within half an hour. That’s a deliberate strategy and can put them ahead of the curve.
It’s about using people who know the platform
Harris has a team of five on TikTok who know the platform backwards, know what works and know what will fly. They are given the keys, minimal sign-off and get on with it. The lime green colours and Arial typeface inspired by Charlie XCX came from this. So did the range of content.
It’s about bespoke content for the platform
It works on TikTok? Great. Let it work there. It won’t work on X, formerly Twitter. So don’t try.
It’s about using translations on niche platforms
Harris has also used Spanish language content to target the Latino electorate with content on WhatsApp because it is a key channel. It is not about the one piece of content to rule them all approach. It is about splintered and bespoke.
It’s about stunts v campaigning
Trump’s campaign, analysts have detected, has been about stunts to skew the debate rather than detailed policy discussion. For example, the stunt of Trump working in McDonalds for the day dominated the content for days overshadowing Harris. But the Trump rally which saw a speaker abuse Peurto Ricans was a stunt in reverse. It backfired leading to community leaders distancing themselves from Trump.
It’s about AI misinformation
Responsible reporting on the election records alarming stories of Twitter users paid to spread fake content, Iranian and Russian influence, fake audio of Joe Biden and fake images. With a few days to go there has not been a single defining piece of fake content. But maybe that’s the danger. There are not enough eyeballs to monitor everything posted. Or maybe Time magazine is right in calling the risk of AI something of a fake alarm.
It’s the language of the fan account
The language of the corporate account reflects the platform not the politician on Kamala Harris’ account. Commentator Rachel Karten likens this to a fan account. “It’s not like it’s coming from a campaign,” she writes. “It’s like: We talk like you. Even the caption is like: ‘You have to watch this.’”
It’s ANGER-tainment
One particularly prescient piece of commentary was that it’s a mistake to compare Harris and Trump as two politicians. They are not. One is a politician while the other, Donald Trump, is a consummate exponent of angertainment. This is the blended mix of anger and entertainment that Trump has been brilliant at. His content is about getting a REACTION rather than a reasoned response. So, in that context it makes sense that he talks about pointing guns pointing at Liz Cheney’s face. While Harris is telling people how terrible Trump is she’s not talking about her own message.
It’s not just about polling day
I’m writing this before election day. Last time there was an election in the US there was an insurrection because someone couldn’t accept the fact they lost. I don’t think that the story of the election ends when the results are announced.
Reporters are talking about the Democrats having a strong ground operation with people knocking on doors and turning the vote out. Republicans have instead invested in lawyers to challenge the vote.
That’s not something I hope the UK takes on board.