Trump Beat Harris With 1/3 of The Cash
Written by Chriss W. Street
Trump is President Elect after raising just $388 million and has $38 million in the bank; versus Harris losing the popular vote, Senate, and House after raising over $1 billion and is at least $20 million in debt. Harris failed by spending “bigly” on traditional media advertising, versus Trump ran the tables spending “small” on earned media attainment.
Metrics for the nine major marketing strategy measure how companies attain sales of product or consumption of services. Traditional media advertising is paid content, usually 20 second ads, which are owned and controlled by the customer.
Earned media is the opposite of paid media because it is it's not created, paid for or owned by the company. It is owned by consumers and attained as a result of a company's content or services being relevant and high quality, which leads to organic exposure through word of mouth, reviews, social media, and media coverage.
The annual Team Lewis Marketing Engagement Tracker (MET)measures the effectiveness of each of those nine differentmarketing strategies as employed across 300 of the largestUnited States corporations. The MET data for the last 6 years has shown continuous investment in digital properties, such as brand websites.
The 2024 Team Lewis report published in January found the effectiveness of media attainment as a strategy had jumped 34.6% in 2022 and compounded by 70.1% in 2023. Team Lewis reported the other eight marketing strategies were flat to down.
Companies for over 5 years had listed earned media references in the ‘news’ section of their websites. But companies in 2023 began directly leveraging earned media for broader marketing purposes. The focus included highlighting relevant high-value mentions on their homepage to build awareness and add authenticity to their brand and increasing the chance of converting prospects to visit the company’s website.
MET Tracker reported the earned media strategy was successful because it “cultivates trust, but also propels a brand beyond traditional marketing tactics, establishing a lasting connection with media and their readers.”
Cash-rich Kamala Harris for President handlers launched atraditional campaign in July that included ads, 48 logos, print collateral signs, merch, and an artistic website.
Harris for President Creative Director Kate Conway told Silicon Valley’s Fast Company: “There’s really no overselling how difficult a task that is—the brand exists everywhere from yard signs and rally placards to the website, our social channels, and our ads.”
From mid-July to election day, Democrats spent $460 million more on traditional advertising promoting Vice President Kamala Harris than Republicans spent bolstering former President Donald J. Trump.
AdWeek complimented the Republican’s effectiveness: “Rather than relying on standard paid media, the strategy behind Trump’s campaign was a decisive shift toward alternative media—platforms like podcasts, Twitch, and influencer networks—that let him tap into an electorate disillusioned by traditional media outlets.”
AdWeek highlighted its recent survey of top marketing executives that found “most U.S. adults think there are too many political ads on TV during presidential campaigns.” Ad-Week suggests Harris’ massive paid media campaign was actually counter-productive.
Trump appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast that has 32 million global followers on YouTube and Spotify in October. The three hours of unscripted “bro” conversation racked up 26 million U.S. views in 24 hours and over 40 million by election day.
Harris refusal to sit for three hours with Rogan at his studio in Austin, opened the door for J.D. Vance to take her place on October 31. Vance skillfully steered the chat to focus for 30 minutes on the murder of P’Nut, the Instagram-famous squirrel and racoon buddy Fred, that were seized and euthanized by jackbooted New York bureaucrats.
The Trump campaign hammered Democrats in the final days of the election for letting 16,000 rapists, 13,000 murderers, and 6,00,000 criminals illegally cross our border, but they’ll kill a 1.3 lbs. squirrel without a permit.