THE POWER OF BRAND TRUMP
Brand Trump
DONALD TRUMP, like him or loathe him, knows how to leverage the power of storytelling. Waking up to a second Trump presidency on 6 November 2024 is a sobering reminder of the power of brand mythology. But more than this, his second term win underlines a stark tenet of storytelling. Emotion sells.
Skilful orators like Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, have always known this. When you stir emotion, you have people’s attention. Yes, I realise that calling Trump a skilful orator might pique a difference of opinion. He doesn’t necessarily align to perceptions of the intellectual rhetoric of the aforementioned. But he does subscribe to an idea that, in the art of persuasion, emotion trumps rational.
Trump’s storytelling approach aligns 100% to the Epic Circle framework of my marketing guidebook for brands, The Good The Bad And The Epic, and every one of my Seven Story Codes are showcased:
Open with a hook. Make America Great Again is a potent hook (regardless of flawed logic—when exactly was America great? When women didn’t have the vote? During slavery?). Make America Great Again is a pledge to his audience. It garners immediate attention with a call-to-action that creates the feeling of a “movement”—to join people who want something better for themselves and their family. It galvanises those who feel they’ve been overlooked by the government and makes them connect to something bigger than themselves. Trump makes a promise to them. He pledges that life will improve. This is as tantalising an offer as it gets. It taps into the greatest motivator of them all. Fear. Trump knows how to hook his audience.
Define the problem. Key to Trump’s movement is tapping into the fears of voters who feel that the America they love has gone downhill. The slogan speaks to people who want the America of old. Who desperately want a return to the days of perceived past glory, to employment, to stability, to working together to realise the American dream. Trump stokes this fire. How? By highlighting and over-dramatising the problem. America is broken. Our borders aren’t safe. Our military doesn’t work. China is stealing our industries. And all the Radical Left wants to do is take away your guns and introduce socialism. Don’t let it happen. It’s glucose to the soul of the disenfranchised middle class and a powerful way to gain legions of fans. Trump knows how to build feverish loyalty and support by understanding and bringing to life the core problem that faces his audience base.
Make the brand a guide. Trump presents himself as the answer to the problem. A saviour. He isn’t swayed by donors and lobbyists because he doesn’t need their money. Sure he brags about ogling girls in beauty pageants, mocks the mentally ill and has no trouble inspiring an assault on the Capital, but this instead of horrifying his base actually just feeds his brand. Trump is an expert salesman who understands his base—his audience. He knows how to make them feel. How to get them riled up. His unique skill lies in giving them what they’re hungry for. A maverick. A firebrand. A gunslinger. Someone who will '“drain the swamp”. His campaign is a relentless appeal to the grievances of his audience.
Pivot at the mid-point. Trump is not idealogical. Trump is in the Trump business. We’re talking about a game show host here who has rallied more than a quarter of the US population to get behind him as the messiah and another quarter to vote for him despite his deplorable excesses. Trump adds fuel to this fire. The more provocative his rhetoric, the better he performs with his die-hard fans. Trump’s pivot at the mid-point is his ability promise one thing and then switch direction.
Hit a major crisis. Stories are more satisfying when a hero comes back from the brink of defeat and succeeds. Trust and credibility are earned only when a brand demonstrates that it can help their audience overcome a major crisis. Losing the election to Biden was Trump’s low point. But all this did was fire up his base and winning his second term has prompted Netanyahu to offer congratulations with this message: "Dear Donald, Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America”. The greatest comeback says it all. We yearn for stories that have a hero that rises up out of the ashes and wins again. His ability to bounce back speaks to people on a mythic emotional level that supersedes any discussion on policy or reason.
Defeat the villain. Whatever you think of Trump and his conservative policies, his personal excesses, or his moral turpitude, you can’t argue that he knows how to stir up his base through an appeal to tribalism. Trump knows that to galvanise his audience he needs to present a villain—someone, or something to rise up against. The antagonist that Trump brings to the fore? “The Radical Left”. Giving them a moniker or title, as he has done with so many of his political opponents—Sleepy Joe, Lyin’ Ted, Crazy Hilary, Comrade Kamala—is effective because it feeds an ancient “us vs. them” mentality.
Close with a twist. So many people see Trump as a grave threat to democracy. And they have good reason. Inspiring an attack on the Capitol Building and refusing to accept an election result are persuasive arguments for this. But will he fulfil our worst fears? Donald Trump is nothing if not wildly unpredictable. He’s built his mythos on this idea. He makes many promises (we’ll build a wall and Mexico will pay) and then switches direction and still manages to hold his audience in thrall. That’s storytelling at its finest—lead your audience to an end they expect, but in a surprising way.
Donald trump is a divisive figure. But whether you stand behind him, or you are appalled and disgusted by his behaviour, his lies and his rhetoric, it is impossible to argue that he doesn’t understand how to make his brand potent through aligning to the principles of epic storytelling.
We can profoundly oppose his worldview and how he goes about delivering it, but what we can’t do is deny the ludicrous power of his storytelling.
Storytelling works, regardless of ethos. Brands that understand this will always have the edge.