How US Presidential Campaign Can Teach Us About PR

 


With the rest of the World, like other times, I followed the recent US Presidential campaign. To me the only difference between the 2020 election campaign and previous all other elections was that this time I am looking at the campaign through my PR student glass. This year I got the opportunity to analyze the election campaign armed with the newly gained PR knowledge that I was learning in class.

Every presidential election is a platform for showcasing public relations through the political strategies that the candidates undertake. However, 2020 election campaign took PR to a completely new level because of the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic. The pandemic significantly changed campaign strategies of the candidates like it changed everyday life of the population.   

While watching the campaign I gathered that a PR campaign for a political candidate is not that different from a campaign to sell a product or brand. Here is what the US Presidential campaign taught me about the PR studies that I was learning in class: 

                                            


Key messages and slogans: This is the message that you (the PR practitioner) want your target audience to hear and remember. This message allows you to communicate the aspect of your product and business that you want your consumer to remember. We were taught in class that this message is used repeatedly throughout the communication campaign. Both candidates used these key messages in their speeches, and interviews to let the voters know about their main points of the campaigns. 


Donald Trump: 
  • Make America Great Again. 
  • Promises made, promises kept. 
Joe Biden: 
  • Battle For The Soul of The Nation. 
  • Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead. 
  • Build Back Better Than Ever. 
  • America Is An Idea. 


Media training – avoiding ‘No comment’: Media interview is an effective PR tool. Communicating with the media and voters through the interviews give the candidates opportunities to send the key messages to the target audiences. Political candidates take media training by veteran journalists. Through these trainings candidates learn how to do media interviews effectively. One significant aspect of these trainings is to learn how to respond honestly to difficult questions from the media yet avoiding replying ‘no comment’.  


Media relations: Media relations is one of the core activities that public relations professionals do daily. In order to educate the public on how to choose, buy or use products and services, and motivating them to take the preferred action PR professionals work continuously to establish a good image of their clients. Establishing a good image also helps to lessen the damage when crisis hits. In the US election campaign, we also saw the candidates’ communication teams working with the media to get publicity (good or bad) that benefits their presidential candidate. While Joe Biden’s team maintained a strong relation with liberal media to portray a positive image bad publicity often defined Donald Trump’s attention-grabbing campaign.



Online presence through social media and digital communication: We have learned in our course that the effective use of social media is an important PR strategy. PR practitioners use the social media platforms to get the message out in an appealing manner that in return drives immediate sales. Since the 2008 US election social media has been playing a big role in US presidential election as well. In 2020 election Joe Biden’s campaign used social media efficiently throughout the campaign. They often used humour in tweets and other social media posts to help it going viral. One good example is efficient use of the incident where a fly landed on Mike Pence’s head during the vice-presidential campaign. Within minutes after the event Biden campaign posted a photo of a fly swatter with the slogan “Truth Over Flies” to raise fund for the campaign and 35,000 swatters was sold out within minutes. 



On the other hand, Trump social media ads were targeted to attack Biden personally. Often the ads were misleading and were written with inaccurate claims about Covid 19 and immigration. Facebook as a result removed dozens of the Donald Trump campaign ads.

Political campaigning, like businesses, in many cases is about communicating its messages with its target audiences. 

















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