By Anne Ready
Los Angeles – Back when President Joe Biden was a candidate, there was a time when his campaign was lacking money and most importantly, momentum. His opponent, former New York City mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg was spending over $500 million on paid media — i.e. advertising — plus millions more on events, travel and staff. Joe Biden had only name recognition and reputation on his side.
But there’s an old saying in public relations. Earned media coverage has 3 times the value in credibility vs. advertising. At a fraction of the cost. There’s the relatively minimal cost of in-house PR or a PR firm to approach the media. And some media coaching to ensure the candidate knows how to effectively capture the moment in an on-camera interview, a debate, a victory speech. Platforms such as news outlets and social media expose without spending big bucks.
The public knows that you can’t buy media coverage or endorsements like the one from South Carolina Congressman and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. Timed on the eve of the state’s primary. And, it is believed, that Dr. Biden’s PR team persuaded the other presidential hopefuls Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg to endorse the former vice president as well. Just before Super Tuesday!
As important as the media, is the message. Think “Make America Great Again.” Dr. Biden’s campaign finally focused clearly on the bottom line for democratic voters: “I can beat Donald Trump!”
Strong Woman Number
And because the media neither slumbers nor sleeps, his pr folks also pitched the media after most polls closed. An op-ed piece in PR NEWS, written by Scott Circle Communications President Laura Gross cited an example of earned media. Which requires an angle. It was the story of protestors during Dr. Biden’s Super Tuesday victory speech. His wife, Jill Biden, also a PhD and Symone Sanders (no relation to presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders) a senior advisor to the Biden campaign together tackled protestors. In two minutes, these women became internet heroines. There was more earned media as the Sunday morning shows focused on the tackling incident. One even noted that twenty-something Ms. Sanders, former CNN political commentator, had worked for Bernie Sanders in 2016. The implication here was that someone young made the switch to Biden. Something many voters were contemplating.
“This display of strong women,” Ms. Gross commented, “resonated with some of the educated, suburban woman political parties seek to court. Tweets like these took seconds to compose and the costs were minimal.”
Following this, came a flood of overnight donations and endorsements, including Mike Bloomberg’s. Together it seemed the DNC had gotten behind Joseph Biden as their primary candidate to take down Trump. All the while, billionaire hopefuls Mr. Bloomberg and Tom Steyer had spent half a billion dollars each of their own money in paid media.
As Ms. Gross concluded, “embrace earned and social media. It’s usually better to have someone say something nice about you than to spend money to get attention and brag about yourself.”
Amen.