By Tyler Pruett
tyler@southerntorch.com
Though Donald Trump already dominates most of the media coverage, Americans will see much more of the real estate mogul-turned politician to begin 2016. While many news segments are dedicated to covering his campaign, until now, viewers could get a break from Trump during the commercials. According to a Fox News report, Trump budgeted a hefty $25 million for television ads during the fall and winter months of 2015, but the campaign used none of the funds. That’s all about to change, according to insiders within his campaign. The campaign will reportedly be spending as much as $2 million a week for television ads airing nationally.
The theme of the commercials will initially focus on his vision for America and policies, while not attacking opponents. Trump is known for relentlessly attacking opponents and responding to any criticism, which leads anyone to suspect that his television ads will turn into another outlet for this. An unnamed advisor for the Trump campaign seemed to confirm this, telling Fox News’ Howard Kurtz in an interview discussing the advertising push, that, “If you attack Trump, he will attack you 10 times as hard. We will not allow any attack to go unanswered.”
While a large amount had been budgeted for advertising in 2015, the campaign likely saved the cash due to the large amount of “free media,” or media exposure from news reports and interviews in which a candidate doesn’t have to pay for. His controversial views and remarks, while drawing criticism from many, has made him the top story almost daily since announcing his bid for the White House. The controversy surrounding him put a “Trump interview” in high demand, and the former businessman capitalized on the media frenzy. Although the Republican primary field is historically large, Trump appeared at many times to be the only one running; proving that sometimes even bad media can be good exposure. The campaign has also heavily utilized social media; frequently tweeting, as well as maintaining official Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The frequent interviews on news networks gave the real estate mogul the opportunity to attack opponents, as well as promote his views and policies while not experiencing serious fall out over controversial comments. Irregardless of positive or negative reporting, the exposure has only increased his name identification. In politics,”name identification” or simply, “name ID” is a crucial area of polling that is not frequently mentioned in the media. Name ID assesses how familiar a voter is with the name of each candidate. This is important because an uninformed voter will likely select the name they are most familiar with. Name ID is influenced by how often the voter hears the candidate mentioned in their day-to-day lives, such as social media posts or even hearing others talk about the candidate. Due to his celebrity status even before announcing his run, Trump already polled much higher than the rest of the field in this regard and the wall-to-wall coverage has only increased it. We can only expect the campaign to attempt to increase it further in the month leading up to Iowa, and this large-scale advertising push can be expected to do that.
