The big picture: Bloomberg is no Trump, but is trying to beat the president at his own game.
Social creature: Trump’s re-election campaign has deployed Facebook in a bigger way than any campaign in history, outspending all the Democrats combined. Bloomberg’s team openly admires the digital prowess of Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and has built a “content factory” of constantly updating and iterating videos and messages that are narrowly targeted at — and constantly fed to — promising prospects.
Ubiquity: Trump forced himself into our lives with Twitter taunts and endless TV appearances. Bloomberg is buying his way into the minute-by-minute of our lives with TV ads. Bloomberg’s team believes one of the key lessons of Trump campaign is that if voters see you on TV all the time, they’ll take you seriously. At Bloomberg HQ, his TV ads play on a constant loop. It takes a while to realize it’s not cable news, where his ads seem nearly as persistent.
Success sells: Like Trump, Bloomberg promises ad nauseam to replicate his professional success in governance. Many of Bloomberg’s ads follow the rough arc of: 1) Hit Trump … 2) Why the problem matters … 3) What Mike did as New York mayor … 4) What Mike would do as president. It’s a key part of Bloomberg’s effort to signal, both overtly and subliminally, that he’s running against Trump — not the other Dems.
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