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Trump: The Personal Brand that Won the Race

Donald Trump ran for presidency and won the race. Given his lack of political experience, he couldn’t rely on a previously campaigned electorate, meaning he was starting from scratch in his reputation as a politician. With this said, Trump has been marketing his personal brand for quite some time with his businesses and reality T.V. shows, but running for president required a completely different approach. Instead of selling a product, such as a hotel or TV show, he couldn’t rely on making selling points on how his products are better than his competitors because he was selling ideas, a completely intangible thing that people can assign meaning to in a plethora of different ways. Three examples of how he sold his ideas and himself to America can be seen in his campaign’s announcement speech, his Make America Great Again hats, and his inauguration speech. Unlike his Make America Great Again hats, speeches showed the most characteristics of his personal brand due to the fact that no one could ask questions and argue with what he said allowing him to stick with his pre planned message. Additionally, speeches allowed him to communicate and instill things you can only do in person. Examples of this are emotional faces, hand gestures, tone of voice, and symbolism in fashion. Simply put, he used speeches in order to do what other politicians simply didn’t do, speak in a “tell it like it is” attitude in order to separate himself from the other “well groomed” and established candidates.

His announcement speech was a face-to-face speech given in person at the Trump Tower in New York City. This speech was recorded live and broadcasted on almost all national television networks. In the last election cycle, Trump made claims on Twitter that he is going to run for office but didn’t follow through, so his need to convince people that he is seriously running for office this election cycle was a major factor in his campaign’s public announcement. This is exactly why this genre was used, to expresses a more traditional and formal campaign image. In addition to the traditional speech he gave, he proudly wore the American flag pin to associate himself with virtually every other politician who commonly wear the pin by to show patriotism. His audience was the general public and anyone interested in current events, American politics, or celebrity gossip/pop culture and they simply wanted confirmation regarding the rumors surrounding Trumps possible candidacy for POTUS.

Ivanka Trump began the speech by praising her father about the things he has accomplished in his life, how local and federal governments have asked him to save “long stalled, grossly over budget public projects,” and how he is “a man that doesn't need an introduction". She also said “My father has employed tens of thousands of people throughout his career, and he has inspired them to do extraordinary things. He has the strength to make hard decisions and motivate the people around him to achieve the impossible.” These excerpts are her attempts to tell the audience why Donald Trump is qualified to be the President, which is precisely what the rhetorical appeal Ethos is.

Donald then takes the podium and candidly talks about how we are loosing at everything, and how America needs to be a more respectable nation. This speech’s “tell it like it is” attitude served as a good introduction of his personal brand. A good example of this is when he stated “The US has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.” In this statement he attempts to spark a feeling of nationalism amongst the more honorable real Americans to repel the unworthy new Americans from their new home. Another example is when he stated “… our real unemployment rate is anywhere from eighteen to twenty percent don’t believe the five point 6… because China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs”(Trump). Whenever he brings up topics such as as the Mexican/American border, trading with China, and the military conflicts were involved in overseas such as Iraq, and how we can't even take care of our veterans that come home wounded from these conflicts are all examples of Pathos. He is trying to make his audience feel that America should always be number one in everything we do, and he is the man to provide this service to the American people.

The Make America Great Again hats were made to act as a brand reminder to reinforce his campaign’s message without having to give as many speeches or commercials. In addition to having other people advertise his message for him, he sold the hat which not only helped offset the costs for his campaign but made it different from the other candidate’s promotional offerings. The audience went beyond Trump supporters who bough and wore the hat and beyond their immediate acquaintances. Anyone who was engaged with mass media/pop culture came in contact in some way to his Make America Great Again hats.

The rhetorical appeals utilized in his Make America Great Again hats are Logos and Pathos. Pathos was utilized in order to appeal to his immediate follower’s basic driving emotion of wanting to preserve what happened in the past (why they are called conservatives). This emotion is different for all of us, in other words everyone has their own personal opinion on what made America great in the past. This is exactly why his phrase “Make America Great Again” was used, it’s not overly specific so the individual can assign their own feelings to it. Logos was used by wording his campaign’s message as economically as possible, that is with the least amount of words used. This word efficiency allowed his Make America Great Again hats to give the same message as one of his speeches, but short enough to fit on a hat. Besides being short enough to fit on a hat, its extremely easy to remember the slogan regardless if you directly follow him or not. Essentially, his hats combined two totally different genres, a piece of clothing and a campaign motto in order to stand out from the other candidate’s relatively un-popular promotional pieces of clothing such as their t-shirts and buttons.

Trump’s inauguration speech was a live face-to-face speech given to a crowd of people in Washington D.C. The speech was broadcasted on national television and was open to stream across the globe on many websites such as The Guardian Magazine’s website. The benefits of giving speeches, such as the ability to utilize hand gestures, tone of voice, emotions (facial muscles), and being able to pause in order to put importance/emphasis on certain quotes was all utilized by Trump in this speech. This is seen when he began his speech, while he was giving formal thanks to people such as Barack & Michele Obama for the smooth transition of power. While giving his formal thanks, he used virtually none of his flamboyant hand gestures as well as having an emotionless face. Almost immediately after his formal thanks, he returns to his hand gestures in order to place emphasis on his personal message and bring the attention back to him. As well as utilizing his hand gestures, Trump employed a stern face to compliment his hand gestures. This can be seen with his face of disgust when talking about what’s wrong with America. He did this by purposefully squinting his eyes to make hard lines in his face in order to give him a more serious or even angry look. In addition to his stern face, he did not wear his American flag pin like he did in his announcement speech. This is very significant, because according to a political expert Gilbert Cruz of Time Magazine the American flag pin is “… the quickest sartorial method for a politician to telegraph his or her patriotism” (Cruz). This along with a stern face and squint eyes sent a good non verbal message that he was not happy with how his country currently stands. With this said, his audience still want a unifying, electrifying, and inspiring speech from the new POTUS. Americans of all demographics and from almost all previous generations have viewed the new president’s inauguration speech almost as a state of the union or a foreword to a new era of America. Knowing the importance if this speech, Trump included all the three rhetorical appeals of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos.

Logos was utilized by speaking in his usual simple and easy to understand manner, a lot like how instruction manuals are short and as concise as possible with the least amount of confusion that can possibly come about his audience. He also utilizes logos when he stated “We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow.” He said this in order to remind Americans of the progress and innovation Americans have the power to make. Trump made it clear that he was going to work for resourceful, economical, and logical goals that can propel our nation to unimaginable heights under his administration.

Pathos was utilized by trying to spark a feeling or nationalism amongst his audience by saying things like America will start winning again, and the American people needs to start being number one again as well. He tried to spark a feeling of nationalism and make people feel like Americans are special when he stated “We are one nation and they’re pain is our pain, their dreams are our dreams, and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny…” Another good example of this is when he stated “… mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, an education system flushed with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.” In this statement he tries to make Americans realize how the previous administrations have failed them and that America deserves a better government.

Ethos was utilized in his speech by talking in a planned, stately manner that lacked nicknames and clichés. In his previous speeches and rally’s, he would speak extremely informally relative to other presidents to his audience in an unplanned manner, but this speech was different. He tried to let America and the rest of the world know that a responsible mature president was just elected in order to solidify his credibility as the new POTUS. He also stated “… today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington DC and giving it back to you the people” (Trump). He said this in order to let people know not only is he credible to to be the POTUS by being mature and stately, but how he puts people first. Putting people first is what the American people want to hear from their president, simply because that’s why the government exists, to serve its people.

Trump branded himself in a way American politics have never seen before. Every politician running for office has to sell themselves, but its how Trump sold himself that made his campaign so interesting. A good example of how unusual his campaign was strategized was his Make America Great Again hats. In modern history, buying political promotions was never dared to be done, politicians wanted to get their names out as wide as possible so they gave their promotions out for free. His oratory approach was new as well, and can be seen in his campaign announcement speech as well as his inauguration speech with their “tell it like it is” attitudes. Simply put, these differentiating factors are what got Trump elected.

Works Cited:

Cruz, Gilbert. “A Brief History of the Flag Label Pin.” Time, Thursday, July 3, 2008
Trump, Ivanka. “Candidacy announcement Speech.” June 16, 2015, Trump Tower, New York, New York. Address.
Trump, Donald. “Candidacy Announcement Speech.” June 16, 2015, Trump Tower, New York, New York. Address.

Trump, Donald. “Inauguration Address.” Inauguration of the President of the United States, January 20, 2017, Washington D.C., Address.

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Writing into the Day 2/9/17

Jeffrey Johnson
Feb 9, 2017
1 min read

The problem this meme is shedding light on (its exigence) is how Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays even though you have a desire for their delicious food. The mode of this meme is a combination of imagery and text, which is probably the most powerful way to communicate an idea. The media of this meme is the internet and its various outlets which has the power to reach any one via social media, news tabloids, blogs, etc... Whats good about this method of communication and memes in general is that it utilizes the power of both text and imagery, but the power of emotion as well. It used to be that the only way to communicate emotion was through face to face conversations or in person speeches, but the age of industrialization gave birth to a number of immensely powerful organizations such as multinational businesses and governments all of which needed to spread their message as efficiently as possible. This competition between political party's and businesses to win the minds of the masses are what created what we would call today the meme. The first examples of memes were propaganda posters that were immensely popular in world war II, and business advertisements of all sorts.

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