Executive Debrief: Your Brand & the 2020 Election

It’s not an election year — it’s the 2020 election year. 

This year has brought a bunch of unforeseen challenges for you and your brand — how to handle marketing concerns during COVID-19, tackling hygiene in ads, how to ride the pandemic when you’re a travel agency — but with less than 90 days to go, the US presidential election has its shot at the spotlight now. 

We’ve come up with a few pointers to help your brand choose a path to win this November, with a couple of Do’s & Don’ts to keep all parties civil — without forgetting that it’s 2020, and COVID-19 and racial justice are still big movers in the game.

1. Pick a side, or don’t 

Polarization is at our country’s core, especially along party lines. America loves to pick sides. And whether it’s on the pronunciation of “gif” or who gets to lead the country for the next four years, it’s hard to get stuck in the middle. 

For starters, getting into the election conversation could boost your word-of-mouth. On the other hand, it could land you on the wrong side of business. It all boils down to knowing your audience; more on that later. 

However, a brand that’s starting out may well benefit from joining a side. 

Campaigning lives on Twitter, how can your brand join in? Maybe you retweet statements that are synonymous with your own brand values. Whatever the way, make sure you steer clear of performative advertising — as we saw with the recent racial reckoning wave of posts, it’s pretty easy to identify. So if you’re gonna take a stance, commit to it. Plus, you’ll gain brand awareness. 

However, not all brands can join the party. You must weigh your potential benefit versus possible controversy. Additionally, make sure it gets noticed by those who need to, otherwise your marketing dollars could have been better spent elsewhere. 

2. Integration nation 

Show, don’t tell. Just like before, you don’t want your brand to become associated with performative activism, (the dreaded “virtue signaling” conversation), or tweeting just to boost a hashtag’s impressions. If the elections are the space to play for your brand, you can go the route of creating useful resources — from helping voters vote to making resources readily accessible to communities. It all depends on what your brand offers and who you reach. 

Today, people are seeking brand interactions that prove useful, and in an age of social isolation, many value helpfulness over anything else. A brand that lends a hand is bound to fall in good graces. 

3. Authenticity 

Which brings us to authenticity. Tried and true, your marketing efforts won’t break through if your brand just doesn’t belong there. This one here is more of a “don’t” than a “do” — because if you’re trying too hard, you’ll end up on the list for “Worst Brand Marketing Fails of 2020.” It’s better to stay out of the limelight than be noticed for being an attention-seeker. 

Tackle this by being well aware of your brand’s esteem. How do your competitors and target perceive you? What symbols and feelings are synonymous with your brand and do those feelings have anything to do with the presidential race or the political future of the country? 

If you’re not too sure about the answer, better do more research or sit this one out entirely. 

4. Audience know-it-all

So here’s our second-to-most important consideration: to know who you’re having a conversation with. This demands research and data. But you don’t have to have an extensive research department to shine; social listening is a simple yet useful tool to be aware of the basic truths about your consumers on any point of the funnel. 

Take Gen Z, hyperaware of societal issues. For a lot of them, this is their first presidential election. It’s a pretty historic moment for this generation to be heard. Your brand can support that. 

5. Should I Test?
The answer is always yes. 

This leads us to maybe the most crucial step in the end-game: testing. We know, your brand may not have all these advertising dollars.  At DBC, we consistently have clients who ask if testing is necessary. We can’t say it any more staunchly, it is. Whatever you publish can and will impact revenue, so in the end, it pays to take some time to see if your approach will have the intended effect you’re visualizing. Or, more importantly, that it won’t have the opposite effect. This election is high-stakes for all of us, as people, as companies, and as a country. Make yourself a promise: The last thing you need to happen to your brand in 2020 is to get canceled, so don’t. Follow the steps to do election brand marketing right, or don’t do it at all. 

With less than 90 days to go, we’re standing by to discuss your strategic brand, Reach out to us to continue the conversation.