Emmanuel Macron tried to refresh the official Presidential communication standard by going on Youtube to target a younger audience. But did that really work?
Most French Presidents have had to deal with trying to refresh their communication strategy: they want to brush up on their style to reach out to French youth, picking up on the way they talk, on what they like, to show that they are in tune with the times.
We can think back to Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in December 1975, spending New Year’s Eve at the home of a French family, or François Mitterrand having a go at Pig Latin with journalist Yves Mourousi in 1985 or more recently Emmanuel Macron, the youngest President of France.
More than a month following the video that came out and caused so much talk and backlash on the web, let’s try and take a step back and see what we can learn from this, from a communication and not political perspective. This unprecedented address begs the following question: should we just communicate or communicate justly?
Communicating Justly – a Kind of Paradox
With close to 7.6 million views in a single day, the video that was posted on the channel of Youtubers McFly and Carlito reached close to 15 million views in total.
According to a survey conducted by LCI a week later, 79% of the people surveyed said that they had heard about this video – exposure that the two Youtubers could only dream of even though they are already very popular (more than 6.7 million subscribers) with some disapproving (37%) this communication strategy believed to be an attempt by the President to boost his popularity.
With this video though, Emmanuel Macron has crossed over into a new media format: that of entertainment.
By intentionally addressing non-political issues and concerns, that are clearly not areas of interest of the two interviewers, the President is sort of hosting one of these Reality TV shows that could be dubbed, Diving Into Uncharted Waters. He wanted to show a very different side of him: someone who is much more spontaneous, easy-going and modern despite the very formal decorum and official setting of the Elysée Palace.
What was featured: sports, music, entertainment, French Pop Culture but no subjects related to politics whatsoever were addressed. Was leaving politics out of the picture a « faux pas » or a media mishap?
In his book, Le Devoir d’Influence, Nicolas Narcisse writes:
“just as too much tax kills tax, too much communication kills communication (…) communication doesn’t just boil down to coming up with a catchy slogan or applying a proven strategy. Communication is a field that calls on one’s sensibility, requires flair and a unique appreciation of context and surrounding of the object or subject being communicated on.”
Was Emmanuel Macron’s intention to show that there was a normal human being behind the politician?
To what extent can we actually consider that leaving politics out of the picture was a mistake when in actual fact his address was still a Presidential address?
As Marshall McLuhan, the philosopher who studied media theory said, after all “the medium is the message.”
Just Communicating: the Essence of Social Media
The advent of social media has led to a major paradigm shift in communication. Often enough it is all about communicating for the sake of communicating – communicating at all costs.
In fact this all-out communication frenzy is theorized in Guillaume Debré’s book called, I tweet therefore I am, which takes a very close look at Donald Trump’s communication strategy during his presidency:
“He became the essence of his presidency, his own identity. His tweets are his doctrine, his program, philosophy, his modus operandi and his political agenda all at the same time.”
If it is true that social media did help humanize brands by facilitating direct interaction with their consumers, social media has also allowed individuals (politicians, artists, influencers…) to promote themselves like a Brand.
If we circle back to the happening of President Macron on Youtube, this branding strategy is referred to as “activation.”
In other words it’s partnering with someone in order to try to reach a much larger target audience and generating as much interaction possible with that target audience.
With such an approach you get to reap the benefits together: McFly and Carlito gained legitimacy and the President got to show a different side of him, i.e. that he was young, hip and connected – which in itself is a political message.
Social media definitely introduced us to a new era of communication a.k.a. the buzz.
It doesn’t matter what kind of message you’re trying to get across, it’s the impact that counts #breaktheinternet.
The true power of social media is influence and believing that that influence can threaten coherent and quality public debate has been put forward by Christian Salmon.
In his article titled, “The Tyranny of Jesters: the King is Dead, Long Live the Fool”, he writes:
“the triumph of the art of storytelling, now at the hands of the political sphere, will have led to the debasement of public speech. It is now all about waging a war of words, virulent and violent rhetoric, delivering rival and viral narratives.”
So at the end of the day, was that Presidential address worth it? Did it influence the target audience – young voters – to warm up to or even take an active interest in politics? Did it boost the current President’s approval ratings or secure his bid for a second term in the Presidential elections of 2022?
If we look at the regional elections and the record-high abstention rate, especially among young people, nothing is less certain. Nevertheless, with nearly 75 000 comments and 1.5 million reactions, it will have made people react.
As journalist Léon Zitrone once said, “whether there is talk about me, good or bad, at least people are talking about me!”
Article initially published in Comarketing-news.fr
