Stuart Elliott: Six Things Madison Avenue (May Have) Learned From the Election

The political and policy implications of the Trumpquake that has hit America are outside the purview of this column What I39d like to offer here instead are some thoughts on what it may mean for the advertising marketing and media industries in the form of lessons to be learned from his astonishing victory1 Advertising may be dead but marketing rulesHillary Clinton39s inability to win the presidency despite her huge advantage in the ad war is suggesting to many that paid advertising especially when it interrupts what people actually want to see read or listen to is on its way out On the other hand Donald Trump marketed his way into the White House with a deft combination of branding and selfpromotion Of course it helped that he already was a media figure with a defined image but he outmarketed Clinton among key demographic groups such as white workingclass votersIt reminds me of the moment in The Hucksters the classic movie about Madison Avenue when Sydney Greenstreet as a soap tycoon lecturing his agency39s executives spits on his own conference table quotYou have just seen me do a disgusting thingquot he says quotBut you will always remember itquot From the moment in Trump39s presidential announcement speech when he accused Mexico of sending quotdrugs crime and rapistsquot to this country he spent the next 17 months saying one disgusting thing after another But now he will be remembered as the 45th President2 Don39t tell people what you want to tell them or tell them in a condescending way how to think Instead figure out what they want to hear and say it over and over again It doesn39t matter whether you believe it or notTrump stuck to a handful of uplifting patriotic messages and reiterated them incessantly quotMake America great againquot quotBuild the wallquot quotAmerica firstquot quotMake America strong againquot quotDrain the swampquot Again I39m reminded of The Hucksters when Greenstreet tells his new adman played by Clark Gable his philosophy of what makes a great radio commercial quotBeautee soap Beautee soap Beautee soap Repeat it until it comes out of their ears Repeat it until they say it in their sleepquot3 Big data small data who cares The hell with it Go with your gutTrump excelled at playing his hunches such as his targeting of Clinton39s rustbelt and upper Midwest quotblue wallquot states like Michigan Minnesota and Wisconsin The experts and pundits scratched their heads but as of this writing he39s been declared the winner in Wisconsin is leading in Michigan and barely lost MinnesotaRelying on intuition also is part of Trump39s disdain of expertise quotI know ISIS better than our generals reallyquot which perhaps points to trouble ahead for anyone who sells his or her intellectual or analytical skills to an agency client or media outlet Attentionamp160consultants who might need to look for another line of work As for pollsters and others who survey consumers good luck The experts were wondering why the polls after the FBI letters about Clinton39s emails turned out to be wrong who39s to say they were right before the letters4 Be authentic even if you have to fake itEveryone laughed when Trump Mr Tell It Like It Is mocked Clinton for her preparation for the debates But who39s got the last laugh now If preparation is overrated so too are polish measured efforts nuance studying and studies Maybe ads from now on will be more direct and less clever or arty And maybe they39ll look less professional and more as if they were created by consumers which could mean a comeback for usergenerated contentAlso on tap I bet will be more ads in the quotReal people Not actorsquot genre as exemplified by the longrunning series of spots for Chevrolet And given the beating meted out on social media to stars who endorsed and worked for Clinton I imagine there could be fewer ad campaigns next year with celebrity endorsers5 Try not to forget what the forgotten likeTrump39s focus on those he deemed left out of Obama39s and Clinton39s America is likely to be emulated in ads that celebrate those consumers Don39t be surprised if there39s an outpouring of campaigns devoted to nononsense everyday people a throwback to the quotMiller timequot commercials for Miller High Life that offered paeans to the working classFrom a creative perspective it wouldn39t be shocking to see a wave of ads with broad direct appeals and frathouse humor reminiscent of a style that was popular in the early 2000s when commercials featured characters such as a dog trained to bite crotches a flatulent horse and a man tormented by a bikini waxing And much as it pains me to say it I wouldn39t be surprised if casting directors were asked to find for commercials more quotbroquot types and fewer Trevor Noah types6 Media owners need to find some wartime consiglieresIt39s a good bet that Trump will preside over the most pressunfriendly administration since Richard Nixon39s given the success of his diatribes against the media during the campaign Those attacks may have inoculated him from fallout from the scandalous scoops that emanated from mainstream media such as The New York Times Trump39s taxes and The Washington Post his foundation and the quotAccess Hollywoodquot tape If Trump39s supporters already believed the media were out to get him why would they pay attention to anything that was said about himIn the movieamp160A Face in the Crowd in which Andy Griffith plays a Trumplike demagogue he has a quothot micquot moment which wrecked his career Trump was luckier his quothot micquot moment wrecked Billy Bush39s careerThere39s plenty to be said about the media39s early misjudgment of Trump when they used him as clickbait or to generate ratings and overlooked the potential detrimental effects of all that free exposure But I39ll leave that to those with more experience with journalism or postmortems CSI Pulitzer CommitteeOf course as the Vichy French would tell you there39s always accommodation For instance People magazine sent out a series of cheery tweets about the Trumps the day after the election including one that promised quot22 photos of Ivanka Trump and her family that are way too cutequotAs someone I follow on Twitter David Ehrlich pointed out to the magazine quotHer father sexually assaulted one of your writersquot amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160Click the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Stuart Elliott: Six Things Madison Avenue (May Have) Learned From the Election

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Stuart Elliott

Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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