Online Optimism
All right, well thanks for joining us, Haima. How are you?

Hyma Moore
doing well thank you Sam and thank you Meara for having me today it’s a rainy day in DC so wishing I was there with you guys

Online Optimism
Oh yeah, it’s very, very hot here. Yeah, it’s like 90 degrees. So I think I’d take the rain. We can swap places. Yeah, either way. Well, thanks again. Let’s just jump right into it. We know you work in politics and communications. And so I just wanted to ask you, how important is the role of the press in politics?

Hyma Moore
Yeah, that’s a great question. And Sam, sometimes people ask me what I do and I say just communications because politics can be a little, um, uh, you know, divisive sometimes. Uh, so thank you for calling, calling me out. Um, but so one of the things that, you know, I’ll put my like DNC democratic hat on for a second. You know, what we’ve noticed over the last four years is Democrats respect the free press.

Online Optimism
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Hyma Moore
uh, you know more than the previous Trump party and so we are trying to exercise that as we are now in charge of both the Senate the house and the white house. We’re trying to continue to be respectful and appreciative of the press um, so I you know, I have a couple of different opinions around that so one the free press is so important to the way our country functions and the way we

deliver information to individuals on the ground in the states and the cities constituents. But also, and more importantly, the free press gives the politicians, you know, a way to not only get the message out succinctly, but also to be challenged. You know, when you’re when you’re you look at the White House briefings with the press secretary shout out to, to our current press secretary, Kareem Jean-Pierre, who’s really awesome, and to Jen Psaki, who was who was awesome before her, but they

every single day stand in front of all the press around this country, both local, national, and some international foreign press as well, to answer the hard questions on behalf of the president, but also to receive feedback from what’s happening in Idaho, what’s happening in New Orleans, from the press. And sometimes you don’t really get that perspective until you ask the question and ask to answer it. And so the press in some ways is more important than the politician.

Because like the government and like the things that are completely standard in people’s lives, the press serves as one of those outlets. And so I would say so, so important. And we are super appreciative that the free press exists and that we live in a country that we are able to express ourselves freely.

Online Optimism
So coming from a social media background myself, the way that we address our audiences is obviously so key. We’re always thinking about who our audience is. Is messaging to audiences in politics different than how I might talk to a consumer?

Hyma Moore
Yeah, it actually really is, Amir. And that’s a really outstanding question, because I think sometimes we have, I’ve worked in PR on both sides, working for hotels and for tourism organizations like New Orleans and Co. When I worked for Devony in New Orleans, but also working for politicians like Hillary Clinton, Mitch Landrieu, whose audiences sometimes overlap, but the idea of how we present a message, look at…

You know, there’s a, I get really peed by this sometimes, but you know, I think Pepsi Cola or one of the big companies, their message now is better together. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s message was stronger together. And we just did not resonate that as well as the better together for Coca-Cola or whatever company it is. And that’s because our audiences are different. And when you think about, you know, stronger together from a political perspective, that’s talking about how people

lives function day to day, what their value systems are, how they approach their education for their children, how they approach their healthcare for themselves and their elderly family members. But when you talk about consumer marketing, you’re talking about someone’s desire for something or someone’s need for something. And so in politics, while we try to create the need and desire as much as possible, it’s just different. And so we have to be very, very nuanced in how we get that message out.

I was down in Florida last week and we were in both Miami and Orlando. And the way you speak to Puerto Rican Americans about issues, both on the ground in Puerto Rico and in America, it’s completely different than the way you speak to Venezuelan Americans about issues in Venezuela and issues in America. And so the same thing kind of takes into account both the consumer versus the constituent. And so…

When you sell it in consumer and something, you want them to buy it and purchase it. When you sell it in constituent of something, you want them to believe in it and become it. And so that’s kind of the nuance and the difference.

Online Optimism
Oh, I had a question off of that and now, oh. So I guess my question is, do you think one is more difficult than the other? Do you think it’s much harder to get someone to believe in a message than it is to get them to desire a product or something from a specific brand?

Hyma Moore
Yeah, totally. I think there’s definitely one that’s much easier. It’s much easier to sell a product to someone. For instance, you look at the Four Seasons Hotel in New Orleans. It’s been coming online for years and years now. And once it came online, the selling point was if you want to be included in the new New Orleans, if you want to be included in the upscale, elite, leisure lifestyle,

You know, you come to the Four Seasons. You eat dinner here, you buy drinks here, you stay here. When I, when I’m talking about, you know, Joe Biden, you know, you know, build back America, uh, build back better, or, or talking about, uh, Donald Trump, make America great again, both of those essentially mean the exact same thing, but for different audiences. And so obviously Donald Trump was able to sell that and get a bigger buy-in than we were in some ways.

to build back better. And that’s just because like, you know, you have to proselytize people in a certain way when you want them to believe in, you know, that type of messaging. And so it’s very difficult. You have to go to their church houses. You have to go to the barber shops. You have to go to their grocery stores. You have to go where they are in order for them to actually start believing that you want them to be a part of what you’re selling them. Whereas if you’re selling Coca-Cola, they can choose to drink Coca-Cola and no one ever knows. You know, they don’t have to put a Coca-Cola flag.

you know, run their house or put a Coca-Cola bumper sticker on their Subaru. You know, so it’s a little different. You know, it’s hard to say, you know, come be a part of this movement with me because you’ll get, you know, these X, you know, amenities. That’s just not the case because we’re selling, you know, hope and dreams and those sort of things, not Coca-Cola’s and hotels.

Online Optimism
I was just gonna say something. I think that’s so interesting because if you can get that emotional buy-in from a product and people do put bumper stickers of products on their cars and they do kind of buy-in in a way that I think a political campaign would want them to buy-in to their mission. And so I think that the people that…

that buy in so firmly with products, you can really tell that product has affected them some way. I mean, people put Salt Life, Monster, different types of bumper stickers on the back of their cars, and you know exactly who that person is, and you can kind of identify their persona based on what types of products they like. I don’t know if that makes sense. If Spindrift sent me an entire wardrobe, I would be fully branded in Spindrift. Exactly.

Hyma Moore
No, I agree. And look, I’m like a big Celsius energy drink guy. So Celsius, if you’re listening, please bring us some sponsorship. We love Celsius. But I think you’re right. I think the idea here is all about what’s your value proposition? What are your values? And I think for products, sometimes it’s a little easier to build a broader coalition of values than it is politics.

Online Optimism
Mm-hmm.

Hyma Moore
know, as a Democratic Party, we have a huge tent and we’re trying to, you know, bring a lot of people along with us and, and really like be inclusive. Um, but that sort of, you know, not only bifurcates our message, because it’s not just two ways, it like completely like segments our message. And so it’s harder to get a, like, you know, huge array of buy-in when you have so many different people you have to talk to at the same time on top of not selling a tangible product.

Online Optimism
Do you think that the evolution of social media from, because when Obama became president during his first run, social media was nowhere near what it is. And then during the 2016 election, even to the 2020 election, social media really evolved in that span too. Do you think that how social media has affected, how we engage as people has impacted how you kind of have to brand and package these campaigns?

Hyma Moore
Thanks for watching.

Hyma Moore
Yeah, totally. And I think what you recognize is we think about that. We think about what that Twitter thread looks like. We think about what the real looks like on Instagram and now we’re on TikTok. And so for us, it is, I would say personally, it’s really awesome that we have additional tools to get to people directly in their houses outside of television.

outside of traditional news media and articles. And so it’s been a whole entire game changer. The way, so in some instances, on one instance it’s just overwhelming and we just have way too much access and just too much going on. But on the other hand, and I think the bigger and better point is, we’re able to speak to a 75 year old woman in Wisconsin at the exact same time we speak to a 19 year old young man in college in Georgia.

And that’s cool. You know, we have to back in the day, you know, look at newspapers when they circulate and look at TV You know who’s watching news at 10 p.m. Versus who watching at noon who’s watching at 4 p.m And now we don’t have to even think about that we can literally get on our phones or on our computers and send out these messages to a Vast array of different types of people at the exact same time and then also, you know Meara, you know this because you’ve done this it’s the feedback loop that’s really awesome and so we’re able to instead of doing focus groups and

Online Optimism
Yeah.

Hyma Moore
I love being on the ground. Like I said, we were in Florida last week and it was really awesome hearing so many different things. But we’re able to get information from on the ground within seconds when we tweet something. And not all of it is always factually correct and are a depiction of how people feel in all of Wisconsin. But it is a sample. And you get an idea of how people are responding to your messages based on what their response is to your social media. How many times they share, what do they say under it, who are they sharing it to?

when they share it. All these different things have just been a really great asset for political parties and campaigns. And I think we are leaning into it, really leaning into it now, much different, like you said, than 08 and 09. And I think Obama, you know, really kind of had the blueprint on how to engage that way in that way. But you’re seeing Joe Biden, President Joe Biden, who is, you know, in his mid 80s, you know, on social media every single day. You know, you wouldn’t have, you know, this is unfoundable in some ways.

Online Optimism
I totally agree. And one thing that I find really interesting is that because we can talk to people more directly and with more nuance and more explanations of whether it’s policies or positions or anything like that, I wonder if old school taglines are as important as they used to be. Build back better, stronger together, make America great again. Do we still need all of these taglines

may not say everything we want them to say when we can dive way, way deeper in a 30 second TikTok clip than a three word tagline.

Hyma Moore
Yeah, I think you need both. That’s the reality, you need both. And what we’re seeing on the ground is if when we focus too much on one, we miss the other, there’s still a vast amount of people who are yard sign, you know, yard sign Democrats, yard sign Republicans, who really, really buy into having that value signal in front of their yard or being able to take the gif or whatever, you know, the meme or whatever, we’re trying to push out to just show that they are part of that.

Messaging or whatever it is. We’re trying to sell and so I think it’s important to do both You know you look at Hillary Clinton 2016. There were several different iterations of Stronger together that we that we went through breaking down barriers, you know, I’m with her, you know stronger together You know those fighting for us, you know, that was a we went through a lot of different, you know different iterations of that And it all signaled two things. We wanted to say

Hillary Clinton is your candidate and she’s gonna do what she’s gotta do to make sure you get what you need. One, and then secondly, giving people an avenue to say that they are a part of that movement. Look at what Bernie Sanders was able to do in 2016 and even in 2020. He is the epitome of being good at both. And he had yard sign Democrats, but he also had the Twitterati and all these other folk on social media who were…

like, you know, really pushing his messages forward in a really authentic, beautiful way. Um, and so, so yeah, you need both. And, and I think Bernie is gonna, it’s going to be a blueprint for us to follow, even local candidates to follow. You can see Gary Chambers in Louisiana, you know, Gary’s doing such a great job of doing both as well right now. Gary Chambers has a really great persona on social media, but he also has that old school sort of, you can take them to church and get, you know, the church mothers to buy into him as well.

type of persona.

Online Optimism
You know, I think about how I originally was thinking that these slogans are a bit more dated, and people these days want to know a lot because we have such a huge information loop on the internet. But at the same time, we know that Gen Z has very short attention spans. And then when you give them the quick and dirty of what you’re about, that’s what’s going to stick. So I guess that pretty much leads right into our next question.

So which type of messages are most likely to get audiences to act? Is it the logic or is it the emotion?

Hyma Moore
Wow, well, that’s like literally the most intense question I’ve ever been asked before my entire life, Mir, but thank you. No, this is like something that, you know, not only, you know, like not only are like the political communicators thinking about this, but we’re all thinking about this, even folk who are, you know, selling hotels and selling, you know, restaurants and all these things. We’re trying to say, like, what moves people? We want people to be moved and compelled. Like, what’s going to compel them to do something?

Online Optimism
Thanks.

Hyma Moore
And what we’ve recognized, you know, beyond logic, yeah, logic is a secondary, a second tier. You know, we want, there’s gotta be some logic there, but the first initial, the real kind of thing to get people going is emotion. You know, you look at, I hate to keep referencing this, and I like told, I was doing a lecture like at a college a couple years ago, and I was like, look, at some point, I’m gonna stop saying this. But I haven’t, because Make America Great Again has just been such a successful.

You know, they’ve even, it’s even like MAGA, like MAGA itself has its own life now that is different than make America great again. And then, so the initial impetus in the president, you know, Ronald Reagan used the same slogan, you know, when he ran for president and it had a different connotation to it. But what Donald Trump was trying to get people to do is look, America is slipping and it’s slipping into the hands of people we don’t want it to slip into and we got to fight back and we got to make it great again.

And so it gave people a rallying cry, but also gave them a real, in some ways, twisted, logical sense of direction. You know, they knew that whatever they had to do, it had to be in the guise of making America great again. And so that could be voting, that can be standing up for, you know, debolishing Roe, that can be, you know, putting more guns and whatever it is. They know that that’s what it means. And so I say all of this say that.

initially you have to move people emotionally. You have to get them to be a part of it and rally around it. And then the second tier of that has to be logic. Like, what do, so now that we are all here, we’re in the arena, what do we do? And I think that’s when the, when you find the smartest messengers, you know, John Devaney, who, who’s down in New Orleans, who I just adore, who’s just probably one of the, you know, greatest marketers and messengers communicators, you know, in, in the South, maybe in the country.

He would always say that, bring people here to the table and you have to give them a reason to come to the table. But then once they’re at the table, you have to give them marching orders. And I think that’s where the good people are. When they say, make America great again, but then what does that mean? You go out and you pass out these flyers, you go out and you write to people to vote, you go out and you vote for Donald Trump, you vote for other candidates that have that same MAGA stamp on them. And it becomes something that creates…

Hyma Moore
change, you know, I use that word, you know, kind of, you know, in quotes. Um, but, but it did, you know, it gave Donald Trump a way to create his type of change, it gave Barack Obama, you know, literally a way to create his type of change because he did the same exact thing with hope and change. Um, and so emotion first logic second.

Online Optimism
Yeah, I think, you know, I just, ooh, how do I wanna say this? I feel like the whole MAGA messaging gave that product. You were saying that, you know, political messaging isn’t a product, but MAGA kind of became a product that people sought to buy and you see a lot now of…

Someone on social media might not say something supportive of Joe Biden and someone from the MAGA side will be like, yeah, and they’ll be like, no, I don’t mean that like you. And they’re like, well, why aren’t you blindly supporting him? And it’s like, well, I didn’t buy the product. I still want this product to be separate or this isn’t a product, it’s a person entirely. But MAGA like, you know, became a brand, became a lifestyle brand almost.

Hyma Moore
And so, Miriam, what we’re seeing now is there is a wedge between individuals who want to be MAGA stamped and those who just want to be functional, practical, good Republicans. And we’re going to drive, and you’re going to see us over the next few months, we’re going to drive that message to the ground. You know, are you, do you want to be a MAGA Republican or do you want to be a Republican in the sense of Ronald Reagan and other folk who were able to, you know, we…

Online Optimism
Mmm.

Hyma Moore
Granted, I don’t agree with anything they talk about, anything they stand for, I just don’t. So I’m gonna put it out there. But as a professional and someone who’s done this business, you have to respect Mitt Romney, you have to respect Ronald Reagan, you have to respect, so there’s Republicans who present an agenda, and then they also come with policy to back it up. The Niagara Republicans don’t stand for agenda, don’t stand for policy.

Online Optimism
Hehehe

Online Optimism
Yeah, it really is being part of the thing, regardless of what the thing actually does. Yeah, that’s really, it’s really interesting. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Hyma Moore
Yeah, and you can see, yeah, you can see it. Look at all the stuff that’s happening right now with Pride Month and how all the brands and all the, everyone’s like, come join the, this was something that was difficult for a lot of brands just a decade ago. And it was difficult for even people who are not LGBTQ plus to identify with. And now you’re seeing so many allies, so many friends, so many different people who are just celebrating

pride from the perspective of the pride brand because they feel like they’re included in it now. And I think corporations and companies and nonprofits decided to do that. And I think it’s been helpful for the overarching engagement of allies and people of LGBTQ plus from that space. And so, yeah. So it’s one emotional, but it was logical. It’s like, look.

sell stuff, and there’s beautiful product, you can buy a rainbow shirt, you know, all these things, and it just labels you. But now it doesn’t just label you as gay, it labels you as someone who is a part of the movement. And I think that has been really cool.

Online Optimism
Yeah, I think what you’re talking about is when messaging transcends into identity. And then that’s really when it drives people to action. So that’s super interesting. I honestly really could talk to you for hours because this is really interesting to me. But I think we’re going to try and wrap it up and keep it at a tighter 20 minutes, if that’s okay.

And, but thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much for kind of sharing what it is you do and your perspective on all of this. I think, you know, especially the way that you talked about pulling from emotion into action, it kind of reminds me of how we market in the marketing funnel. It’s kind of the same idea. You have to get people interested and then bring them down into actually doing something and making a change, whatever that may be. So.

Really interesting to see how those two connect and your perspective.

Hyma Moore
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thank you guys for having me Sam AMeara and you guys know I’m a huge fan of all my optimism and have been for a long time since you guys have been around and you guys have just Done such a great job And even when I was a graded New Orleans, Inc helping us get through some of the issues we’re working through Internally, but also companies that we’re bringing it to New Orleans It’s very important to have you all be the you know, the front door to getting the product out to people

Online Optimism
Thank you. Is there anywhere on social media that our listeners should find you or your work?

Hyma Moore
Yeah, just like all the rest of the political codes in the world. I spend way too much time on Twitter So you can just find me on Twitter at Haima more H Y M A M O R E So at Haima more and then Haima more on Instagram and Facebook and all the others But I spent a lot of time on Twitter

Online Optimism
Perfect. All right, well, thanks so much. Thanks, Hyma. Talk to you later. Bye.

Hyma Moore
Great. All right. Thanks, folks.