No amount of money will sell a bad brand
The race for the Whitehouse in the US saw the largest amount of money ever spent on trying to secure the top job. The Republicans alone have spent over 1 Billion dollars.
Yes that’s right 1 Billion on a political campaign, the result of all their spending was a poor showing, and a loss.
Carl Rove was behind much of the Republicans spend and a large part of the spend was focused on traditional channels, mainly television. They ran some 82,000 ads over the period, over a year that’s 1500 ads a week.
Donald Trump posted a message on Twitter saying: “Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.”
Don’t get me wrong the other side probably spent as much – disgraceful on both counts – but they spent it smarter and the brand they had was more believable. They accessed other channels and connected directly with people and built relationships.
It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at a bad idea, it has to believable to be successful.