It was the political upset the world didn't see coming. Photo / AP
It was the political upset the world didn't see coming. Photo / AP
The brains behind Donald Trump's successful digital election campaign has revealed how he pulled it off without "trickery" and predicted the US President will be re-elected in 2020 because of the way his message resonates with the public.
Mr Trump's digital campaign director Brad Parscale urged the President to "keep tweeting" if he wants another four years in the Oval Office and said people love the way he talks to them direct, reports News.com.au.
"I love the tweeting. I'm sick of people who don't want to talk directly to people," Mr Parscale said. "The truth is when people get up again in four years, and they have to click that button again [they'll ask] are they being provided with more? Do they have more in their pocket?
"I think you're going to see the same thing again. There's a lot of noise in between then, but the truth is people vote that way."
Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon, the man with no political experience Mr Trump hired for $1500 to build a website just 90 days out from the election revealed the result was more to do with having a "great product" than algorithm "trickery".
"It's been very interesting to watch the meltdown of the American media about the Donald Trump campaign and how we did that," he said. "They believe foreign actors and all that stuff ... it's crazy.
"They want to believe that you can't find Americans and give them a message that matters."
The comments come following Facebook's admission 126 million Americans were exposed to content produced by Russian backed-bots during the campaign.
The full extent of Russian interference is unknown however the FBI has recently charged Mr Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort with money laundering, while foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is co-operating with investigators.
Paul Manafort was charged with money laundering. Photo / Getty Images
Mr Parscale admitted retweeting a Russian bot posing as a Tennessee Republican Party account but thinks claims Russia handed Mr Trump the result are overblown.
"I don't want Russia to meddle in our election any more than any other entity, however I think that the scale and the scope of it was pretty tiny," he said. "I hope they investigate it and figure out the truth."
How he got the job
Mr Parscale revealed how he got the Trump job by pitching him a story about Steve Jobs who had showed two versions of an ad for the iPod - one showing technical features and one of a woman dancing.
"I said 'that is the presidential campaign you should run'. It's about how people want to feel. They don't want to see engineering. They want to dance."
The former consumer marketer who tweeted as Mr Trump during the live debates told how the campaign used data to break down audiences and microtarget them using up to 150,000 versions of ads on the same day at times tweaked for font, colour or wording.
Engaging content was fed back to the system while underperforming ads were dropped in an algorithm-led strategy assisted by Facebook's own staff embedded in their offices (Facebook claims it gave Hillary Clinton's team the same support).
But despite the technical wizardry and $300 million ad spend in three months, Mr Parscale said the heart of the campaign was Mr Trump and his message.
"What we did was try to encapsulate Trump's voice as megaphone and warp around that and try suck up all that other air and space so we could raise the money for people to show up."
"They just want to make it out to be something more. They don't want to believe that Trump was going to bring other change, and bring real change. They still can't get over it.
You would think, a year now there would be a little bit of acceptance."
Former White House deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh - who left in March to work at a pro-Trump think tank - said in addition to Mr Trump's level of engagement, the often overlooked factor that propelled Trump's success was Barack Obama.
"We saw the most polarising president in I would argue a couple of generations in Barack Obama.
"He took the country incredibly to the left and I think it gave a bit opportunity for President Trump to come with his pro-growth, pro-trade, pro-economic populism message."
While she admitted it was tough to control the rogue 'Tweeter in Chief', she said Mr Trump's pure engagement levels were hard to argue with.
"Anytime you're trying to run a campaign as an operative and as a political staffer you think to yourself 'oh goodness if I was the candidate I wouldn't have done that' but it was hard to argue with the president' success in engaging with the electorate. He was getting the attention of the American electorate in a way that candidates don't normally do."
As for 2020, Walsh said she's not worried about Democratic candidates waiting in the wings that have the same inspirational abilities Mr Obama pulled off in 2008.
"You're not seeing a deep bench of young Democrats coming up that look like Barack Obama," she said.
"What I have found normally is that people don't really like to go out and vote against something they want to go out and vote for something."
Mr Parscale's advice for 2020? "Hire me," he told the President.
"Keep tweeting. Tell people what you're thinking. Tell people what you want to do. Talk to them."
