President Trump has announced his bid for reelection for the Presidency of the United States and has announced that the campaign manager for the bid will be his head of the 2016 campaign’s data operations, Brad Parscale.
The President’s reelection campaign made the announcement on their website, www.donaldjtrump.com.
“Today, President Trump announced the appointment of Brad Parscale as the Campaign Manager for his reelection committee as the advanced planning for the 2020 race begins,” the statement by Trump’s campaign read.
Parscale is a longtime digital marketing strategist for Trump, starting in the President’s real estate business before transitioning into his Presidential campaign. He has since lead digital strategies at the Republican National Committee.
Parscale is largely credited with mastering two critical social media tools, particularly on the social media platform Facebook, that gave the Trump outfit a distinct advantage over Clinton’s digital operation. One was the platform’s ads auction feature, which because of the Trump’s campaign more provocative content, allowed it to gain more prominent advertising slots on the platform for less money, outperforming the Clinton team’s advertising strategies substantially.
The other was Facebook’s “Custom Audiences” and “Lookalike Audiences” features, which allowed Parscale to target users who would be most receptive to the Trump campaign’s potential messaging. They also allowed Facebook to then search for, and create, lookalike audiences, who based on similar engagement patterns of those in the original list would also be receptive to the campaign’s messages.
The features helped the campaign expand the reach and effect of their digital advertisements.
“I always wonder why people in politics act like this stuff is so mystical,” Parscale said in late 2016 of his initiatives. “It’s the same [stuff] we use in commercial, just has fancier names.”
Ronna McDaniel, Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee Chairman applauded the President’s announcement, as well as the move to name Parscale campaign manager.
“President Trump is delivering on his promises for a stronger more prosperous country. More jobs, more take home pay, historic judicial appointments, and less burdensome regulations on our economy are already lifting all Americans and is exactly why we need to keep fighting to make America great. We’re committed to continuing this fight for our country by President Trump’s side and I’m thrilled Brad will help lead the effort,” she wrote in a statement.