Political Marketing in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

The introduction to this edited collection breaks down the focus of this book and considers the distinctive political marketing and branding strategies utilized by the candidates and their parties in one of the most gripping elections in US history. The book will focus on why this election is so unusual from a political marketing perspective, calling for new explanations and discussions about its implications for mainstream political marketing theory and practice. At a time of national economic and cultural crisis, candidates from both parties—Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in particular—have appeared to overturn the conventional wisdom that has hitherto dominated US politics: That candidates should appear ‘presidential,’ be politically experienced and qualified to run for office, and avoid controversial and politically incorrect positions. This book presents scholarly perspectives and research with practitioner-relatable content on practices and discourses that look specifically at the Trump, Clinton, and Sanders campaigns and how they took current understandings of political marketing and branding in new directions.

Despite the 2016 US Republican presidential contest being considered by many as “one unlike no others”, this chapter posits that its outcome can be attributed, at least partly, to dynamics that had affected the unfolding of previous American electoral contests. In their chapter, Raynauld and Turcotte explore contemporary political messaging and marketing tactics deployed by candidates running for the presidential nomination. As the Republican electorate was fragmented due to different factors, candidates engaged in hyper narrowcasting in order to reach out and mobilize specific groups of voters. Through the statistical analysis of polling data from key primary states, Raynauld and Turcotte conclude that by occupying narrow political “lanes”, Republican contenders collectively weakened their chances of winning, thus allowing Donald Trump to secure the nomination.

Much has been made of the unconventional nature of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. From his willingness to indulge in the politics of defamation and personal attack, to his near total reliance on earned media and massive rallies, Trump has defied everything a presidential candidate is supposed to do. But there is one thing that Trump has done that all viable presidential candidates in the USA now try to do: He based his message and market positioning on a detailed, research-driven understanding of the thinking and political instincts of the voter segments targeted by his campaign. It is the object of this chapter to analyze the systematic market research done by Trump to identify, target and position himself with specific voter segments.

The chapter will introduce the concept, introduce the history of the GOP brand since 2000 and then outline how Trump: (A) presented himself using Reagan’s branding, (B) developed a product that was more populist and harkened back to the kind of anger that Nixon and George Wallace had in the GOP back in the early 1970s, (C) branded as the restoration to a past, glorious America in which the rules were followed, the borders were secure, the values of the majority were valued most (both in racial and in cultural terms), there was no threat of terrorist violence, the economy worked for all and it didn’t require a grad degree to get a job that paid decent money, (D) the wall will get its own section because it shows how Trump followed the law of the visual in his marketing, (E) the legacy of the Obama campaigns on Trump will be briefly explored. Then, the piece will close with the extent to which the Trump brand refresh can or cannot refresh the GOP brand.

This year, 2016, saw changes in political campaigning including increasing use of social media. Our research considers what such changes, including the increased availability of data, mean for our understanding of political marketing and primary elections. We suggest and discuss the implications that these changes may wrench control of brands away from parties toward candidates with identities independent of their party. We note that there are specific decision-making challenges for voters in primaries, and problems for candidates in being market oriented in a world of sequential elections. We ask whether voters forecast their own choices effectively, and, despite the strong feelings generated in primaries, our analysis shows that primaries may poorly predict general election performance.

By looking at Hillary Clinton’s verbal communication during the 2016 presidential election, this chapter offers much-needed insight into the communication aspect of campaign targeting. Using analysis of speeches and debate performances, the chapter looks closely at prominent and important themes and issues Clinton highlighted during the campaign that could have appealed to moderate swing voters who did not have a positive opinion of her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. The chapter also examines Clinton’s verbal communication from a broader perspective to better understand how her overall message may have been received by this less politically engaged demographic. The chapter concludes by highlighting what impact Clinton’s communication may have had on her evidential election defeat, and what lessons this teaches us about contemporary thinking around targeted communication.

While many argue that Bernie Sanders’s feisty challenge to Hillary Clinton was as much about Clinton’s weakness as a candidate, this chapter considers how the Sanders campaign was able to take an avuncular, unpresidential curmudgeon and market and brand democratic socialism both to a deeply committed left-of-centre base and to many voters who were not ideologically committed but who wanted change. It underscores how Sanders’s messaging became more important than the candidate himself and why so many people supported Sanders instead of the presumptive Democratic nominee. Sanders, like Trump, used populist themes and simple messaging that were outside the Democratic Party establishment. Far from being a one-trick pony, Sanders tapped into a strain of populism that Clinton’s campaign either missed or did not fully consider. This chapter also draws upon marketing and branding research to show that Sanders is perhaps far closer in spirit to Trump than what many commentators might have expected or, indeed, noticed: They both blame the media and the party for the perceived unfairness and rigging of the entire system.

The concluding chapter reflects on why the 2016 election was so important in terms of marketing in politics. The key points tackled in the book are summarized and integrated to provide a clear set of examples and insights for both academic audiences and practitioners. It also includes a set of lessons for practitioners that draws on the lessons from the individual chapters and concisely outlines what practitioners can take in terms of advice from the book.