Trump’s penchant for labeling his opponents—from “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz to “Low-Energy Jeb” Bush—has been like a boxer’s left hook to the liver. It doesn’t look like much until the other guy drops.
Now Trump is trying to do the same to his Democratic foes, calling them “crooked” and “crazy.”
After The New York Times Magazine explored the issue (“Donald Trump Shares His Opponent-Branding Secrets”), I wondered: Do the same labeling techniques work in PR and marketing? Whether it’s throwing mud or branding oneself positively, does Trump offer lessons to PR pros?
The consensus is that such tactics can work, but mudslinging is “risky,” a word Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton uses in an effort to brand Trump.
“Trump has a knack for coining just the right moniker, the perfectly dismissive and catchy thing,” The Times writer stated. “‘It works, it flows,’ Trump said, admiring his latest work.”
Insults look easy until you try to find one that “doesn’t hose off,” in the words of Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who has been blogging about Trump’s persuasion tactics. Clinton’s attempt to label Trump as “Dangerous Donald” backfired when it was embraced on Twitter by Trump fans, who produced memes of their mouthy hero as Agent 007, Captain America and the Incredible Hulk.
“Perhaps it is to Clinton’s credit that belittling schoolyard epithets don’t come easily to her,” Vanity Fair offered by way of consolation.
I don’t want to hit Crazy Bernie Sanders too hard yet because I love watching what he is doing to Crooked Hillary. His time will come!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2016
This election isn’t a reality show.https://t.co/48MePw25Sz
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 12, 2016
Clear takeaways.
There are obvious lessons for PR practitioners in persuading audiences, according to Scott Sobel, senior strategy and communications executive with kglobal. Successful descriptive labels—positive or negative—tap into emotions, create memories and leave impressions that can influence perceptions and actions.
“Trump is a master,” he says.
When he labels a foe as lazy, lying or little, “our primal brain recognizes the meaning and synthesizes that label through our cognitive brain and creates an image and memory,” says Sobel, who has a master’s degree in media psychology. “It is really, really hard for us to get rid of those initial memories, those first impressions.”
Going negative tends to backfire, however, says Adam James, president of Springup PR. He warns PR pros that “any tactic of degrading or insulting a competitor is rare and should be pursued with caution.”
Attacking competitors is associated more often with advertising rather than with PR and is generally lighthearted, he says. Consider the ad wars between Jaguar and Mercedes Benz, or Microsoft and Google Chrome.
“Publicizing and promoting the ‘positives’ of a firm is the bread and butter of the work of a PR pro,” James says.
‘It’s toasted.’
Much of public relations and marketing campaigns are about providing context, says Brian Massie, communication consultant with Taylor Business Solutions. Political consultant Frank Luntz successfully relabeled the “estate tax” as the “death tax,” winning widespread adoption of the term. Labeling the labeling, Luntz called this an ethical change of term because it “clarifies rather than obfuscates,” Massie says.
In a fictional example, he cites the “It’s Toasted” slogan from “Mad Men.” It shows cigarette ad execs using the anodyne phrase—which happened to describe competitors’ tobacco as well—to redirect the conversation away from their product’s link to cancer.
“If you get stuck trying to come up with a positive label,” Massie advises, “always, always, always refer to ‘Thank You for Smoking’s’ ice cream scene,” in which an ad-man father reframes a debate over which is better, chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Instead it becomes a discussion of freedom of choice.
Trump-style labeling can be effective within PR, agrees Matthew Mercuri, digital marketing manager for Dupray Inc. He says Budweiser has become known as the “Walmart of Beers,” because a Wall Street Journal article labeled it thus.
What matters is the message’s quality and how efficiently a PR team can ingrain the message, Mercuri says. The name has to resonate with people, sound good and make sense.
“This totally applies to PR,” he says. “Labeling is all about aversion to monotony. … [I]t breaks from convention. Trump’s ability to shock and spark an audience by using a labeled epithet is what stands out in today’s cluttered world.”
Donald Trump is good at coining catchy nicknames that caricature a rival and highlight his perceived weakness or insecurity, says Tom Lee, senior partner at 451 Marketing.
While Lee calls it an adolescent technique, “It’s a really effective way to get under someone’s skin. The more the person protests, the stronger the name becomes and the more it sticks.”
Trump employs comparative advertising—a negative advertising method that either directly compares or implies a difference between two products. Lee cites Wendy’s 1984 “Where’s the Beef?” campaign that implied that competitors’ hamburgers had less beef than Wendy’s. Starbucks was the target of a similar campaign about the price of its coffee.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,” Lee says. “The label has stuck. Once that happens it’s very difficult to remove. Just ask ‘Lyin’ Ted.’”
Strategic questions.
Should you try Trump’s insult game? Sam Butler, principal of 35th Avenue Partners, thinks not.
“While what Donald Trump is doing is working to tremendous effect in the current political climate, most brands aren’t playing the same short-term, zero-sum game that is a presidential election,” Butler says. “I would doubt that many could maintain the devil-may-care message and mentality for very long.”
If an organization wants to brand an opponent negatively or itself positively, he says, the organization should ask several strategic questions:
- What significant issue are you trying to address? Trumps knows his audience is angry, and his end game is simple: convert votes to win the election. “Does a company have as clear a sense of its issue, environment and objectives?” Butler says.
- What opinions, actions, and outcomes are you trying to influence in your favor? Does setting yourself up as a renegade make it more likely people will switch to your brand, or less? (He compares Trump to T-Mobile’s CEO John Legere, who has cultivated a renegade personality and, coincidentally, has exchanged Twitter taunts with Trump.)
- If you try labeling, are you ready to repeat it multiple times in multiple ways? (“This is where the subject line of this email comes into play,” Butler says.) Trump is consistent across Tweets, Facebook, media interviews, rallies and everything in between, he says.
“Repetition works wonders,” Butler says. “Are you willing to commit?”
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