The Trump campaign launches an aggressive four-day digital advertising campaign that will take over some of the Internet’s most striking intangibles in the three marquee days of the Democratic National Convention, where most viewers will be online to look.
Adhering to the president’s tendency to focus on himself during major Democratic events, the Trump campaign will take 96 hours from YouTube to begin on Tuesday, the second day of the convention, an expensive and far-reaching digital gambit.
The campaign will also empty the wallets of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and FoxNews.com with Trump ads for campaign. Even non-DNC programming will be flooded with Trump ads, because the campaign has purchased premium, if “unskippable,” ads on sites like Hulu.
The campaign amounts to “high seven figures”, a significant sum to spend online in such a short period of time, and could top $ 10 million based on the engagement metrics of some ads (some digital ads are sometimes charged extra based on engagement). The takeover of the YouTube banner and the homepages of the news websites are national tubes, while spending for Hulu and others will be in swinging states.
It’s an attempt to be so digital only universally during an almost all-digital convention, and the Trump campaign will adapt its message to a direct attack on the Democratic platform as a far-left manifestation of a Republican’s least fears. . Trump campaign officials said they were able to grab the digital slots because the Democrats, who are moving their original convention date, had not bought the time for the original week in July, nor for the new ones. Monday began.
“It’s great that Team Biden pulled the Trump campaign the best premium real estate on the internet during Joe’s big week,” said Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign. “We will show millions of Americans exactly how Joe Biden’s radical, left-wing takeover is now complete.”
Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Mr. Pray, mocking the campaign as “stunts” that waste money.
“No barrage of smoke and mirrors can hide the fact that the failed leadership of Donald Trump has cost more than 167,000 Americans their lives and the strong economy he inherited from the Obama-Biden administration in one of the deepest recessions in our country. history has driven, “said Mr. Bates.
The last presidential campaign to take over the YouTube banner for a longer period was the campaign of Michael R. Bloomberg, who did so 24 hours the day after Mr. Trump was impeached.
“It’s a massive deal – this is the homepage for the largest online video platform in the world,” said Tim Cameron, a Republican digital strategist. “In the same way that Netflix is marketing its latest content, it’s going to have a very similar effect where people are watching it. And many of them will opt for this viewing experience and consume this content. ”
Even an elaborate advertising campaign trying to secure the convention will of course not be able to take over the conversation about an event that gets hours of airtime every night and has numerous Democratic luminaries.
But the Trump campaign also makes it almost impossible to miss. With a heavy focus on premium unskippable “Pre-roll” ads that are displayed before content starts YouTube and other streaming platforms will force users to watch the full ad of Trump campaign before viewing their chosen videos.
The campaign has focused heavily on a digital strategy in recent years.
Officials from Biden’s campaign said they have consistently spent money on ads on Hulu, saying they are investing their money in more strategic ways on YouTube, and consistently concentrating on targeted states. They said their own data indicates that spending after a major event is more, and that the Biden team has reserved time on YouTube for the day after the Republican National Convention ends on August 27th. (The Trump campaign will also have its premium YouTube ad on the Friday after the convention.)
Republicans claim that the Trump campaign will reach a large audience with its approach.
“You’ll have very effective message penetration because the people who serve an unskippable ad want to see that content in the ad,” said Michael Duncan, a Republican digital strategist.
“That they are willing to spend 15 seconds to see your message,” he added. ‘It’s not like television where an advertisement comes in and you can go to the bathroom or leave the room until the show comes up again – that unskippable inventory has the potential to add not only a lot of scale but a lot of quality to your digital add buy. “
