Biden Campaign Marketing

Nov 4, Michael Elias

link to video: https://adage.com/creativity/work/ballot-bubbles-silence-trump-humorous-ads-biden-campaign/2291556 I am writing this week’s blog post after the events of the first day of the election for the next president of the United States on November 3rd, 2020. It felt only appropriate to do my topic on the campaign ad agency revolving Joe Biden’s campaign. In addition, I will also be discussing the contrast between his campaign with Donald Trump’s own campaign approach. My actual article I am analyzing is related to an ad released for Joe Biden’s campaign, but I will equally take a look at Donald Trump’s strategy as well. As seen tonight, there is no clear winner — neither Trump or Joe Biden are winning by a lot at the moment. Right now, Biden is winning by a very small amount, but everything depends on what happens to the swing states. However, Donald Trump is trying to have the election ended early because he feels that his early lead was taken away from him as more votes got accounted for. Regardless of your political standing, every individual’s vote in America matters and should count. For our own president to say that he is going to take matters to court if he doesn’t win is a childish accusation, and by asking for the election to end early, not only is he asking for Democratic votes to not count towards helping Biden, but he is also then asking for the Republican votes to not count towards himself. The fact that he would disrespect his own supporters and not have them count for the sake of him winning shows his overall distrust in the election system. Also, many of his supporters have gotten sick with COVID-19 at his rallies after he has insisted that they were safe to attend. Back to Biden, we can see that most millennials and Generation Z are voting for Biden, at least to my knowledge. This can be attributed to our generation being much more “woke” than other generations, and overall more sensitive and considerate to minority groups to allow for generally more inclusivity. Biden appeals to this younger demographic as well as minority groups encouraging people to vote who normally would not utilize their power to vote. In addition, he encourages people to make change themselves so that Covid-19 will no longer continue to get worse in America. He is telling the people of America what needs to be heard to get through these tough times, even if it means not telling the people things that will necessarily want to vote for him. Trump, on the other hand, appeals to the older generation of America who want America to not change and keep the power limited to straight, white men. Because America was built on the principles of the Founding Fathers, America’s core values, even though not intentional, are those of straight, white men. As the Constitution was written in the 1700s, it is no doubt that many parts of America as well as the government needs to be changed. Even more so, the values of Americans within the country need to change as well. Those that do not want America to change fight against democratic movements for minorities, and these are the people who are usually Trump supporters. Trump tells lies to his supporters regarding America’s economic “success” and how America is “winning” against Covid-19 because he tells them what they want to hear. Because of this, they want to vote for him even though he is not telling the truth. With this given context for the 2020 election, I can now continue to talk about the marketing done by the Biden campaign for this week’s blog post. In this advertisement, a simple stick-figure type of mouth is speaking lies, Trump’s own words, to the audience. All of a sudden, the mouth begins to be filled in with black pencil, and it has a harder time speaking more lies. Eventually, the bubble is fully filled in, and the lies stop. The camera pans outward to reveal that it was the ballet option for Joe Biden. This is a smart ad campaign because it is so simple, but also so effective. In a time where media is the new form of persuasion (compared to pure text), doing a simple animation is an innovative and attractive way to appeal to an audience, especially considering how Biden’s demographic is mostly the younger generation of voters. This ad itself was aired on Comedy Central as well as Adult Swim, which further targets people within this demographic. The only downside to this ad is that it could have drawn a lot more attention. It was launched around October 30, but if it launched right after the first presidential debate, then it could have been a major success. For example, the fly swatter meme was a huge success for the second debate, but the first presidential debate ended in pure chaos. If this was released after the debate the next day, then it could have been seen as a renewal of hope and inspiration for young democratic voters.