Ranya Jairi

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trump trump 2 haha

On January 20^th of 2017, Donald John Trump, became the 45^th president of the United States of America. A once unimaginable scenario became reality and it had the United States in a clear divide, with many people shocked and many protests (Healy & Peters, 2016). Especially since president Trump’s campaign strategy was somewhat unconventional, particularly his digital and social media strategy. According to Brad Parscale, president Trump’s digital director, Trump’s success is attributed to his digital strategy. Specifically, the way data and digital marketing were used (Beckett, 2017; Tyson, 2016).

Parscale stated that Trump’s administration never tried to win over the whole nation, instead the Trump campaign took advantage of data and digital marketing and focused on a specific audience. The campaign also made sure that Trump’s personal message reached the targeted audience through various social media platforms. In a NPR interview Parscale made the following statement (NPR, 2016):

‘We never fought for the popular vote. There was no economic reason, and there was no reason based off the system of our constitution to do so. We needed to win 270 [electoral votes], and to do so we needed to win in certain states, and we needed to target registered voters that had a low propensity to vote and a propensity to vote for Donald Trump if they come.’

So, let’s break down Trumps campaign. As mentioned earlier, Trump’s campaign was never meant to target all Americans, just the ones who agree with him and would vote for him. During the elections Parscale started to collect and store data, that contained information on over 220 million Americans that support Trump. This database was later referred to as project Alamo (Winston, 2016). After this Alamo was established, the Trump campaign monitored the success/ failures of their messages, whether they were through various online platforms or from offline appearances. This enabled them to optimize their strategy by, for example, allowing them to rearrange their budgets if necessary (Tyson, 2016). More importantly, they were able to shift their attention from regions that were less interested and focus more on the regions where most of his supporters were.

Lastly, Trump’s social media strategy also contributed to the success of his campaign. During the elections Trump often made headlines with his controversial tweets and his ‘clapbacks’. From Hollywood actors and actresses, fellow politicians and even ex-president Barack Obama, no one was safe from a tweet, and more importantly Trump would not shy away from controversy (Scripted, 2017).

In conclusion, Trump’s digital and social media strategy were what set him apart from the competition. The disruptive way Donald J. Trump lead his campaign is unprecedented, and has changed the way future presidential elects run their campaign forever.

Healy, P. & Peters, J.W. (2016, November 9^th). ‘Donald Trump’s Victory Is Met With Shock Across a Wide Political Divide.’ Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/donald-trump-election-reaction.html
Beckett, L. (2017, October 9^th). ‘Trump digital director says Facebook helped win the White House.’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/08/trump-digital-director-brad-parscale-facebook-advertising
Tyson, M. (2016, December 19^th). ‘How digital marketing helped Donald Trump win.’ Retrieved from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-tyson/how-digital-marketing-hel_b_13721224.html
Scripted (2017). ‘Donald Trump’s Marketing Strategy’ Retrieved from: https://www.scripted.com/content-marketing/donald-trump-marketing-strategy
Winston, J. (2016, November 18^th). ‘How the Trump Campaign Built an Identity Database and Used Facebook Ads to Win the Election.’ Retrieved from: https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac
NPR (2016, December 6^th). ‘How Trump Waged An Under-The-Radar Ground Game.’ Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/2016/12/06/504520364/how-trump-waged-an-under-the-radar-ground-game

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virtual_reality1

Around this time last year, Pokémon Go took the world by storm. For those of you who have missed this overnight sensation, Pokémon Go is a (smartphone) game that blends the real world, with a (fake) digital one (Fitzpatrick, 2016). Some might ask themselves how the creators of Pokémon Go, blended the real world with a digital one. The answer to that is very simple, through virtual reality (VR).

Virtual reality, as defined by the Virtual Reality Society, refers to a three-dimensional, computer generated environment that an individual can explore and manipulate. The individual who is submerged in this world, can nearly do anything in the digital world that they can do in the real world (Virtual Reality Society, 2017). VR is often associated with games and/ or the gaming industry, because it is the only industry thus far in which VR has gained a foothold (Freeman & Freeman, 2017). Due to this association, it has become difficult to acquire funding for research regarding the implementation of VR in different industries, even though it has been proved that it has potential in other industries.

VR has been used for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) since the 1990s (Senson, 2016). Ever since it has proved effective in the treatment of PTSD, the use of VR has expanded to other fields of research within the medical field (Botella, Serrano, Baños & Garcia-Palacios, 2015). New treatments for psychological disorders, such as social anxiety, various phobias, and most recently depression, have been developed and have become popular topics to research (Freeman, Reeve, Robinson, Ehlers, Clark, Spanlang & Slater, 2017). According to Freeman et all. (2017), the use of VR in treating psychological conditions has proven to be effective and promising. However, due to inadequate funding, research has been limited.

In conclusion, virtual reality could be used for more than just the gaming industry. As mentioned before, the treatment of psychological disorders such as phobias and social anxiety can change for good. The only obstacle that the implication of VR faces, in the medical field, is the lack of funding. Without adequate funding, we will never find out what the true impact of VR will be on the medical industry.

– Botella, C., Serrano, B., Baños, R. M., & Garcia-Palacios, A. (2015). ‘Virtual reality exposure-based therapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder: a review of its efficacy, the adequacy of the treatment protocol, and its acceptability.’ Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 11, 2533–2545. http://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S89542
– Fitzpatrick, A. (2016, July 12^th). ‘How Pokémon Go took over the world.’ Retrieved from: http://time.com/4400791/pokemon-go-iphone-android-nintendo/
– Freeman, D. & Freeman J. (2016, March 22^nd), ‘Why virtual reality could be a mental health gamechanger.’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/mar/22/why-virtual-reality-could-be-a-mental-health-gamechanger
– Freeman, D., Reeve, S., Robinson, A., Ehlers, A., Clark, D., Spanlang, B., & Slater, M. (2017). ‘Virtual reality in the assessment, understanding, and treatment of mental health disorders. ‘Psychological Medicine.
– Senson, A. (2016, June 6^th). ‘Virtual Reality Therapy: Treating The Global Mental Health Crisis.’ Retrieved from: https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/virtual-reality-therapy-treating-the-global-mental-health-crisis/
– Virtual Reality Society (2017). ‘What is virtual reality.’ Retrieved from: https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/what-is-virtual-reality.html

Game Changer: Trump’s digital strategy

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The extended use of virtual reality

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