Trump the Bad Product

What if I told you that Donald Trump – or at least his campaign managers – are advertising geniuses?

Well, these facts might get you thinking:

  • Garnered over 70 million votes, the most votes ever in the history of presidential elections for a candidate that lost – that’s still a huge chunk of the market share
  • Appeals to his fanbase with constant, mostly consistent messaging – on-brand, all the time
  • Fervent supporters that will subscribe to virtually anything he says – that’s religion-like brand affinity
  • Managed to build lasting top-of-mind awareness, be it from supporters or detractors – a win in terms of marketing-street-cred
  • Seems to be omnipresent in the media, albeit for the wrong reasons, depending on who you talk to – all publicity is good publicity

Now, with all these ‘achievements’ to date – he still lost.

Yeah you can say that Biden was better, and the Americans wanted change bla bla bla… but there is a more insightful reason why Trump got trumped.

And it comes in the form of an old quote by advertising legend Bill Bernbach:

Bad Product Trumped

You see, Trump was flawed right from the start. Curiosity got the better of most Americans during his first run, perhaps they wanted to see what would happen if a non-political candidate was elected.

And elected he was, which gifted American late-night talk show hosts abundance of material. They really have their work cut out for them now onward though.

Anyway, Trump’s presidency was wrought with missteps, misquotes, misdeeds, mistakes, and even a certain miss stormy. Yeah, sue me!  

And with more misses than hits, he had to run for re-election amidst a ravaging pandemic. His no-holds-barred campaigns inundated the media, and his rallies were as Trump-ian as ever.

While the campaign efforts hit home with his eager base; it also laid bare all his shortcomings, failures and incompetence for the rest of the population. Ultimately accelerating his downfall.

So here’s the takeaway:

Although promoting a bad product can get you initial results; disregarding ethics, competence and good service will eat into your market share and gift it to the competition.

Heck, even Coke, McDonald’s and Microsoft – some of the world’s biggest and instantly recognisable brands – tried to aggressively market bad products and failed miserably.

The key here is to make sure your product or service can live up to expectations – and even better if you manage to exceed them.

A very fundamental marketing premise – but goes to show that even election campaign managers and household brands sometime tend to ignore the basics.

But if you still insist on taking a bad or flawed product to market – I know someone who will be out of a job soon. You guys can meet over a Trump Steak lunch.

Can Advertising Salvage a Bad Product?

Not surprisingly, politics and advertising are considered to be the two least trusted professions in the world.

Every 4 years or so, these two groups of professionals often team up to create misleading… errr… I mean awe-inspiring ads about how everything is hunky dory in the country.

You may have seen these politically-driven ads recently, which I assume are supposed to instill nationalistic pride and encourage us to support the status quo.

Shouting Man
Advertising a bad product can be a real pain

But more and more people now realise that what these ads are ‘selling’ aren’t that good, sometimes just plain bad.

That’s because the boom in alternative views from independent news sites and blogs often discredit efforts by the mainstream players. And of course social media helps spread alternative news very effectively.

William Bernbach – one of the pioneers of modern advertising – once said:

“A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad”.

It’s like watching an awesome movie trailer, where a combination of fast-paced editing, a stirring soundtrack and teasing dialogues is delivered in two minutes. And then you go watch the movie and realise you might as well been watching paint dry for the last two hours.

Sure enough, when any of your friends wants to watch the same movie, you’d probably not recommend it. This ripple of ‘thumbs-down’ will almost certainly make this movie a flop.

There are many ‘trailers’ on TV these days illustrating a progressive, modern and united Malaysia, provided our votes are cast to oppose change. While I’m not writing the creators of these ads off, I just hope I’m not forced to watch the actual drama for the next four years either.

Let the mud-slinging begin!

Advertising & Politics

Somehow, advertising and politics are interconnected. They are both worlds apart, yet uncannily alike. They both have campaigns, ambassadors and a public persona. Appealing to the collective power or the people via mass communication is integral to the success of these two opposing fields. Political parties are like brands: both have logos, taglines, positioning and promise a more fulfilling life.

Here are a few more observations:

1. All images used are for illustration purposes only.

2. Terms & conditions apply, especially when there is a promise of a reward.

3. Campaigns come thick and fast, hit hard… then conveniently disappear.

4. Scams are a tradition, and sometimes earn applause.

5. The people who actually do the work hardly get the credit.

6. When gentle persuasion comes to naught, time for some hard-sell tactics.

7. Strategies are meant to outsmart the competition, and not to offer better products or service to the people.

8. Slogans, catchphrases and tag lines seem credible, yet hardly mean a thing when analysed.

9. Advertisers and politicians make headlines.

10. Misleading is an accepted business practice.

11. It’s all about telling the people what they want to hear.

12. The biggest market share is the holy grail.

13. Politics always use advertising.

14. There is always politics in advertising.

15. It’s a dog-eat-dog world.

Last but not least, advertising and politics are all about vested interests, which is essentially to take money out of the people pockets. Hmmm… maybe there a career for me in politics.

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