This week something really interesting happened. I was jogging on the treadmill at Planet Fitness (because who wants to run outdoors when it’s 40 degrees and rainy??) and looked up to the row of TVs to see, surprising no one, an ad for Michael Bloomberg. But it wasn’t the familiar ads we’ve seen recently.
This campaign ad featured Bloomberg’s relationship with former President Barack Obama. Take a look.
The timing is what’s very interesting about this ad. A few days ago the Iowa caucuses took place started and, while final votes are still being counted days later, Biden looks to be well behind the leader of the Democrat nomination process. If Biden was banking on support from the Obama camp, and clearly he was, that will all but disappear after his dreadful numbers in Iowa. So the day after the Iowa caucus, Bloomberg airs an advertisement touting his relationship with Obama. It’s very clever and strategic to do this as support for Biden is most likely going to disintegrate and those folks will need another nominee on whom to cling.
In the commercial, Obama spoke praises of Bloomberg, so Bloomberg is clearly trying to rally everyone who loves Obama onto the Bloomberg bandwagon.
What do you think about the timing of this ad? Will it help Bloomberg? It’ll be interesting to see if Obama officially vocalizes support for any of the nominees, as he hasn’t so far.
-Out of the Wilderness
