US president Donald Trump’s famously short attention span means that people trying to get information to the president have to get creative.
His daily security brief is kept short and full of graphics and maps. According to Reuters, National Security Council staff add the president’s name to as many paragraphs as possible to sustain his interest in memos. His advisors often give interviews to media outlets they know he’s likely to see as a way of telegraphing information to their boss; cable news shows and New York newspapers are particular favorites. Fox and MSNBC reportedly raised ad rates to more than double their pre-election value during shows the president is known to watch.
Now, it seems that lobbyists trying to reach members of Trump’s inner circle are pulling some stealthy—and technologically savvy—maneuvers of their own. A recent New Yorker article highlighted one of the more ingenious methods of getting their causes in front of Trump’s advisors: ads targeting computers near the White House and Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort and frequent getaway.
“The reporters that are around Trump and around the White House and everyone around the President is being targeted through geotargeting and I.P.-address targeting… by people who couldn’t get onto the big TV shows and into the big papers,” a Republican consultant told reporter Ryan Lizza.
Trump himself is probably not seeing these ads. He’s famously not a big computer user, preferring to have articles printed out for him. No word on whether anyone has successfully reached the president via a promoted tweet.