How the Trump campaign’s ad takedown attempt backfired
The Trump campaign tried to get an ad taken off the air, but they ended up turning it into a blockbuster. Also in this week’s issue:
Just how effective is the term “social distancing”?
The Warren campaign released a list of their open-source tools
Whitney Houston, the Village People, and more inducted into Library of Congress registry
Yours,
P.S. For my previous newsletter, I used to keep a Notes app of the big stories in politics and culture that I’d screenshot and publish every month. This month felt like a time to bring it back because things are not the same as they were just four weeks ago. On March 1, the U.S. recorded its second coronavirus death, and by March 31, that toll has surpassed 3,400. So much has happened and I tried my best to cram some of the stories that stood out to me into a single screenshot:
How the Trump campaign’s ad takedown attempt backfired
The Trump campaign asked TV stations to stop running an ad attacking Trump last week, and said failure to do so could jeopardize their licenses. The campaign claimed the ad was false and misleading, but instead of getting it taken down, it got even more attention.
The ad, “Exponential Threat,” was put out by the progressive super PAC Priorities USA. It used Trump’s words claiming the virus was all under control with a chart of the rising number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. In a cease-and-desist notice dated March 25, the campaign challenged the ad’s use of Trump saying “this is their new hoax.”
Trump made his “hoax” statement at a rally in South Carolina late last month. The campaign said he was referring to his opponents’ “politicization” of the outbreak and not the virus itself, and that the ad’s splicing of multiple speeches implies otherwise. The audio in the ad clearly sounds as if it is made from multiple speeches.
It’s actually not rare for campaigns to challenge ads and request them to be taken down, but what’s unusual is that the takedown was made public. The cease-and-desist letter was posted on the Trump campaign website.
“It’s fairly common for campaigns to challenge ads run against them, but that process mostly plays out behind the scenes and out of the public eye — for good reason,” Steve Pierce, Priorities USA director of battleground state communications told Yello in an email. “If you’re a campaign who’s challenging an ad, you’re doing so because you don’t want people to see what’s in it. By publicizing your takedown effort, you are drawing more eyeballs to the ad itself and virtually ensuring that more people will see it. In other words, you’re basically begging for it to go viral.”
After the takedown leaked, online views of the ad skyrocketed. It’s now been viewed more than 1.8 million times on YouTube alone
Credit: Priorities USA
The ad was originally airing in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as part of a $6 million TV and digital ad buy. Since the campaign’s takedown attempt became public, Priorities USA has expanded its reach, announcing last week it would begin airing the ad in Arizona, and in Spanish in Florida. On Monday, the group released an updated version of the ad with some of Trump’s more recent statements praising the job he’s done combatting the virus.
Here’s what presidential campaign digital ads look like these days
Rallies might be canceled, but campaigns are still advertising online and going hard to meet quarterly fundraising goals. In the past week, the Trump campaign has spent $502,623 on Facebook ads, according to Facebook’s ad library, including ads for a Trump-branded dog collar and an “official approval poll.”
The Biden campaign has outspent Trump on Facebook in the past week, spending $868,735 on ads. Although most of Biden’s ads don’t reference the pandemic, a few do so vaguely, with copy like, “Over the last few weeks, we’ve transitioned into a totally online presidential campaign,” and a reference to “these uncertain times.”
The Sanders campaign has spent $0 on Facebook ads in the past week.
Just how effective is the term “social distancing”?
Credit: u/Hybrid_UX_Research
Is there a better way to communicate self-isolating during a pandemic than “social distancing”?
On Reddit’s r/coolguides, users discussed the above graphic and the problems with using a phrase that’s new and vague, as opposed to clear, specific instructions. Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz even tweeted the graphic, writing “Words that work.”
The World Health Organization has moved away from the term social distancing, in favor of “physical distancing,” because “we want people to remain connected” through the internet, WHO epidemiologist Dr. Maria Kerkhove said.
What do you think? Is there a better way to communicate public health recommendations during the pandemic? You can respond directly to this email if you want to share your thoughts.
Cardi B’s remixed coronavirus rant is a hit
Credit: @iamcardib/Instagram
No lie, Cardi B has done more to raise awareness of the coronavirus than some politicians. Her March 10 rant on Instagram about the virus has more than 27 million views, and the day after she posted it, WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
That rant was also remixed into a song by Brooklyn DJ iMarkeeyz, and the track debuted at No. 9 on Billboard’s Rap Digital Song Sales chart, with more than 3,000 copies sold. Proceeds from the song will be donated to families affected by layoffs because of the virus, Cardi tweeted.
If you haven’t heard it yet, you can listen here:
The Warren campaign released a list of their open-source tools
Members of the Warren campaign’s tech team posted some of the open-source tools they used for organizing in hopes they can be of use to others.
“In our work, we leaned heavily on open source technology — and want to contribute back to that community,” the tech team wrote in a Medium post published Friday.
Their list includes tech the campaign built itself, like a polling location lookup tool, an automated organizing email tool, and a web app for tallying delegates and reporting results the campaign used in Iowa. The peer-to-peer texting platform the campaign used, which was first developed by MoveOn, saved them more than half a million dollars compared to a more expensive vendor. You can read the full list here.
Shepard Fairey made a Greta Thunberg portrait for Rolling Stone magazine
Fairey made a portrait of the teen activist for Rolling Stone’s April issue. The cover story dives into Thunberg’s background, including how the Parkland students inspired her activism. It’s one of the few non-coronavirus-related magazine covers out right now, which Fairey acknowledged.
“The coronavirus is deservedly getting the majority of our attention and anxiety right now,” he wrote on Instagram. “Still, I think it is important to point out that the virus has illuminated deficiencies in our systems. It has created turmoil, and all of this is a warning for the devastating collapse of eco-systems and other structures we need to remain stable to avoid global chaos that will happen if we fail to address climate change.”
Fairey previously did a Barack Obama cover for Rolling Stone in 2009.
Whitney Houston, the Village People, and more inducted into Library of Congress registry
The Library of Congress has inducted 25 recordings to its National Recording Registry, including Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You,” the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, Tina Turner’s Private Dancer, and the theme song to “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a statement the music was selected from more than 800 nominations. You can see the full list of inductees here.
Politico’s cartoonist is hosting a free workshop
If you’re looking for a distraction Wednesday, Politico cartoonist Matt Wuerker — who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2012 — is hosting an online cartoon workshop at 12 p.m. ET. To attend the workshop, you have to register with Politico Live online.
How Bernie Sanders' logo ushered in a new era of democratic socialist design
ICYMI, I wrote about how the Sanders’ campaign logo breaks from what is popularly associated as socialist design. I also got my hands on some of the Bernie logo mockups that didn’t make the final cut from Wide Eye, the creative studio behind the wordmark. You can read my story here.
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