Cross-Posted from DanCirucci.com
Right now the Trump brand has to be considered one of the world’s most powerful brands. Certainly it is one of the world’s best known and most admired.
Understand, we’re talking not just Donald J. Trump, but brand Trump — the Trump name and all that it stands for. And yes, Trump is a big part of that and, arguably, the founder of the brand itself but the brand is bigger than him and bigger even than the Trump family because it is forever tied to all that Trump has built — the buildings, the country clubs, the hotels, the resorts, the dining and entertainment venues, the products and merchandise, the social media platforms, etc. It’s mammoth!
In public relations we have a rule: sales overnight; brands over time. What this means is that with the right product and the right pitch anybody can make a quick sale. Turn on the TV or look here on social media and you’ll find plenty of products and services for sale. Lots of people are out to make a buck and many of them will succeed to one extent or another. But precious few (almost none, really) will build a brand.
Brands take time to build — lots of time. That’s because a brand is a promise between the producer and the consumer — a promise that is relentlessly kept over and over and over again, building enduring trust. For the manufacturer or producer, that’s hard work because the consumer has many choices and can easily go elsewhere if expectations are not met.
Still, you buy the branded promise or service because you know that what you get will be exactly as promised, exactly as it’s always been, exactly as you expect it to be. And you’ll willingly pay more for it, if need be. Think of a classic brand like Coca-Cola. It looks the same, it feels the same, it tastes the same every single time you buy it and consume it. It never, ever varies. That’s the promise of the brand. And the promise is always kept.
Brand Trump started as a brand that promised luxe living in landmark buildings where your every need was met. It was, by design, an aspirational brand — a brand intrinsically associated with the top tier of the American dream, promising the very best that life has to offer. And while the brand went international, with Trump residences all over the world, it always maintained its unique American identity and remained connected to Donald Trump, the brand’s most relentless, resilient, inimitable promoter.
Of course, it wasn’t long before the Trump name/brand identified itself with a whole host of other attractions, products and services as Trump was able to license the moniker. Some of these efforts were more successful than others but the brand proved so powerful over so many decades that it was easily able to overcome whatever bumps in the road it encountered along the way. One of the most astonishing feats was Trump’s remarkable ability to gain so much free positive publicity along the way, saving the brand billions in advertising expenditure.
Taking a trusted brand into the political realm is, to say the least, risky — so risky that it’s almost never been done. But Donald Trump has always been a high stakes gambler. Time and again over the past decade, he has jeopardized the existence of the brand itself and all the businesses attached to it. He put it all on the line. It was daring, breathtaking and unprecedented. Watching it all played out on such a grand scale, with so much at stake, was nothing less than a history-in-the-making experience — something that will be studied for generations to come.
Trump’s Big Gamble paid off, and now, even though Donald Trump will once again have to seperate himself from the brand on January 20 when he takes office, you can still hear him on the radio selling Trump watches and Trump sneakers and pitching a piece of the action on social media as well. President Trump remains a Master Salesmen.
It’s who he is, it’s what he does, it’s what he was, indeed born to do. And he understands, better than anyone else, not just the power of the brand but that, in the end, everyone wants in on a successful brand.