Info-tainment, Kamala’s campaign failure, and the distortive role of social media marketing

The recent US election has capped off one of the biggest global election years in recent history, and the world around us is changing rapidly. Digital life, and specifically social media platforms,  play a huge role in both how we have got to where we are and where we are going next. The role of social media marketing in political campaigns has never been more significant, and this was clearly demonstrated by the Kamala Harris campaign failure.

The age of info-tainment: how social media shapes political campaigns

Roughly one fifth of audiences say their main reason for using social media platforms (like Facebook) is to get news and information, according to MIDiA’s Q3 2024 consumer survey. This is similar to the number of users who mainly engage with them for entertainment (both behaviours vary by platform, which we elaborate on in our latest MIDiA report, “Social is eating entertainment”). According to Reuters, other studies have found that social media is one of the most common sources for audiences to get their news  – with established news publications and apps on the decline. 

Platform ‘neutrality’ means something very different to what it did four years ago. During the 2016 election cycle, Donald Trump was banned from many platforms. This time, while Meta’s platforms deprioritised political content entirely, Elon Musk went all in for Trump – and the posts that made the most waves on his social media platform, X, seemed to align with this position. Editorial slant has always played a role in politics. However, as social media platforms become information platforms, it is playing a starring role rather than a supporting one.

Digital distortion in the Kamala Harris campaign

Perhaps even more telling of today’s digital environment is what happened with the Kamala Harris campaign. As a marketing project, it hit all the right points. There were viral memes and popular ‘collaborators’, from Beyonce to Eminem. To Harris’ existing followers, it seemed as if a win was inevitable. And yet, the votes came in, and the truth was revealed to be quite different. 

Social media marketing distorts success across industries. This story is likely familiar to anyone in charge of artist marketing or the promotion of a new film. You can get every ingredient to your marketing campaign right, and yet no new audiences are reached or converted. A viral song on TikTok may fail to translate to hard ticket sales for the same artist’s tour. Meanwhile, social media gave the TV industry an inflated view of Succession; in reality, the finale drew a fraction of the viewership of HBO’s bigger, more mainstream hits. View counts do not always translate into action, with the core proposition’s success – regardless of social activity – still the defining factor that is harder than ever to predict in the clutter of digital metrics. 

Social media is more powerful than ever, yet its impact is also diminished. There is a misalignment between what performs well on a platform and what people go offline and actually do. Social platforms are adept at creating cults of personality based on tribalism (hence the rise of fandom). Nuance is easy to lose in the deluge of content. Audiences prefer simple things that can permeate the information overload and be remembered two days later. 

The limits of social media marketing and what comes next 

Moving forward, this ‘digital distortion’ of reality will not lessen – if anything, it will get more extreme. With Musk likely to take a cabinet role in the new administration, we are looking at less regulation aimed at neutrality and consumer protection and more erraticism and unpredictability of rules. 

Far from indicating a future where social platforms are everything to culture, this points to the opposite. Digital metrics are fickle; the information delivered via the content hardly sticks. Clips of funny talking points go viral, but the meaning behind them goes either unexplored or overanalysed, with no in-between. Meanwhile, audiences are turning to offline solutions when they want to engage more deeply with something as a way to combat this.

As the digital world becomes increasingly fragmented, inconsistent, and unreliable, it risks becoming a blunt tool for everyone from campaign organisers to entertainment marketers. It may land content directly in front of people, but increasingly fail to deliver any deeper results. 

The latest US election, and Harris’ campaign failure in particular, demonstrates that social media is a hall of funhouse mirrors. It can show all the ‘right’ signs, it might even provide some entertainment, but once you have emerged on the other side, you begin to realise nothing real actually happened as expected. 

Real-world touchpoints and cultural integration have never been more important, both in terms of reaching people, and measuring the impact of that reach. Knocking on doors may be the IRL version of a banner ad, but showing up at a WWE event creates deeper ties to something bigger that are less easily shaken off. The data can show how many people have seen something or given it a casual ‘like’, but only human presence and taste can truly understand the value of a core proposition that ends up making or breaking success, no matter how good its marketing is. 

Doubt has been planted in the minds of millions of people who saw an election reality play out very differently from their digital perception. Marketers should learn the same lessons.