is it true that ' there is no such thing as bad publicity' ?

He still got major publicity? Ya, as an admitted child sex predator. Ruined subway restaurants multi-million dollar ad campaigns, but more importantly destroyed peoples lives.

Still got major publicity. Ok, then.

Bill


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Hi attackdome,

That is true to a point.

Good publicity is great,

Bad publicity for one entity can result in good publicity for another. And in some situations like a book author, or a reality TV celebrity, selling a story to a target market segment that is looking for an interesting story, bad publicity for that person can be good publicity for the commercial enterprise that is selling the story.

It truly matters that the publicity be good for the brand, not bad.

Trump's strategy was about getting the main stream media to talk about him by covering his bold and often controversial statements. The main stream media is in the business of publishing bad news, so they naturally covered it as bad news. However, Trump's core message was contained with the controversial statements, and delivered over and over by the media.

The media realized he was manipulating them, using them to deliver his message to the masses, but they couldn't help themselves from publishing it since it was so effective at selling their publications. And even though the media has made every effort to reframe his statements to hide or distort his true message, the core message still got through and had the desired effect on his targeted audience. He was using the media as a vehicle to deliver his campaign messages to the masses.

Trump definitely uses controversy to sell his statements to his target market, the media. And he has cleverly encapsulated a second level of messaging that is intended to target the masses. It's a very risking strategy, but he was already an expert at selling controversy because he has been a long time in the Reality TV business. Very few people can pull off what he has done, It has been an exceptional strategy.

Trump is currently in a dead heat with his opponent despite having been outspent 20 to 1 on political ads. So it would be hard to argue that his strategy has not been effective. It's great for getting exposure, but the content of the message is what does all the work of selling people. Was he able to get the right message through, or was it distorted beyond recognition? That's the risk in using controversy to deliver your message.

Trump's strategy has obviously worked very well for the primary election campaign for his party nomination. He generated more votes than any Republican candidate in history, by a very large margin. It has worked well enough to get an average of more than 100,000 people to watch each of his rallies this month, often with more than 20,000 people in onsite attendance at each venue. It was a clever strategy to combat an extreme media bias, certainly effective, but was it effective enough? In 2 weeks we will know if it worked well enough for the General election campaign. Either way, it is an excellent example of using controversy as a marketing vehicle for his message.

He was just tailoring the message to appear in the only format that the media would publish it. If you look at his paid advertising it is much less controversial and relies purely on making bold, value-centric messaging.