Zohran Mamdani and the Death of Ads
You can't buy attention anymore, and that's bad news for old-school marketers.
I just got back from two weeks spent chasing my toddler around the beaches of Spain. All of my shorts have olive oil stains, and it feels like a year’s worth of news happened while I was away. Iran and Israel went to war! Trump bombed Iran! The Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA Finals! And in my hometown of New York City, a 33-year-old comedic rapper-turned-state-assemblyman won the hotly contested Democratic nomination to be mayor.
I know: Zohran Mamdani’s win is a week old — in Internet time, it’s been months. But I can’t stop thinking about the huge media and marketing lessons in his victory.
The perfect modern marketing case study
Zohran Mamdani’s battle against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was the perfect modern marketing case study. It was old school vs. new school. TV vs. TikTok. Memes vs. money.
Cuomo’s campaign epitomized the old school approach. He had an NYC-record $25 million SuperPAC behind him to execute the tried-and-true political marketing playbook:
Raise a shit ton of money.
Wait until several weeks before the election.
Bludgeon your opponent with attack ads.
Meanwhile, Mamdani epitomized the new-school approach to marketing:
Spend relatively little money.
Win attention through TikTok and Instagram’s Discover algorithm.
Turn your messaging into a meme.
In other words, it was buying attention vs. earning it.
Despite Mamdani’s meteoric rise from an unknown State Assemblyman to top contender, the consensus was that the old-school playbook would win. Cuomo was the heavy favorite heading into last Tuesday’s primary. But when all the ranked-choice votes were finally tallied yesterday, Mamdani whooped the former Governor by 12 points, 56%-44%. And there are key media and marketing lessons we can glean from his win.
It’s never been easier to scale attention with the right Rizz
Attention is the most valuable resource in our disorienting media environment. As I wrote a few weeks ago, the new Post-Follower Era of Social has completely transformed how we capture attention. Every social media platform has copied TikTok’s Discover algorithm, which renders followers somewhat irrelevant. You can have zero followers and get millions of views if the content is good and you have rizz, which is precisely what happened with Mamdani.
As Ezra Klein put it on his podcast, Mamdani understands the “grammar” of vertical video, the strange syntax of the TikTok and Instagram algorithms. He launched his campaign by taking a common TikTok format, the man-on-the-street TikTok video, and twisting it, announcing his candidacy at the end.
Trump is the hook. Mamdani’s candidacy is the line and sinker. This is the thread through every message he put out, earning hundreds of millions of free impressions: An intuitive understanding of vertical video, a charismatic style, and a distinct visual language that makes you instantly recognize everything that comes from his campaign.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
You can’t buy attention anymore
Fifty years ago, Americans had three TV channels and a handful of radio stations. It was deliciously easy to buy attention during commercial breaks. Today, the only way to reach most people is through their phones. Sure, you can buy ads and shove them into vertical video feeds, but unless that ad is as the surrounding content, people won’t remember it.
Cuomo spent nearly $25 million on ads across TV and digital, and most New Yorkers I know don’t remember seeing his campaign once. (The same thing happened to Kamala Harris.) Mamdani’s campaign, meanwhile, was impossible to escape in your feed. He was the ultimate New York influencer.
Too many CMOs remain convinced that they can scale attention and revenue by shoving ads into search and social ad platforms. It rarely works anymore, and you’re lucky to get back $0.50 on the dollar. If you want to grow, you need great content. There’s no other choice.
Meme-ify your message
Mamdani’s genius was his ability to meme-ify his message. I was a dedicated Kamala supporter this past fall, but I'd have struggled to rattle her top three campaign messages off if you asked me her top three campaign messages. With Mamdani? It’s easy.
Freeze the rent
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Free childcare
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Free buses
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
If you want your brand message to break through, ask: “How can I make this feel like a meme?”
And if you want to rattle your more powerful competition, screw it — turn them into a meme too:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
4. Founders and Politicians have the same job now: Influencer-in-Chief
We’ve entered a new political era in which if you want to be a successful politician, you need to be an influencer. This is the secret to Trump’s power — his ability to command massive attention at any moment and inspire an army of influencer-disciples to wage the attention battle on your behalf. Trump spoke the language of Twitter; Mamdani is the first politician to do it through TikTok. If you want to stand out, you need to win the war for organic attention.
The same rule applies to founders and execs. The law of shitty click-through rates has savaged most marketing channels; it’s near-impossible to drive positive ROI by following traditional best practices. That webinar series will not save you. The most successful founders today — Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Sarah Blakely, May Habib — gain an unfair advantage by winning outsized, free attention, usually by mastering the grammar of a specific social platform.
If you don’t have the rizz to pull that off, you better hire execs who do. Otherwise, you might find yourself wandering the streets of Manhattan with that Sad Cuomo look on your face.
If you liked this story, you’ll also like:
Chart of the Week
If you work in tech, you’ll be surprised to learn that only 28% of people have ever used ChatGPT for work — which is pretty damn low when you consider that 60% of the US labor force are knowledge workers. The AI Hype Bros want you to feel more behind than you really are.
Recommended
Your Hip Surgery, My Headache (David Sedaris / The New Yorker): The GOAT of non-fiction humor essays is back.
My Couples Retreat With 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them (Sam Apple / Wired): You’ll be telling everyone at the barbecue about this bonkers story from my old media partner Sam Apple.
9 Rules for New Technology (Ted Gioia / The Honest Broker): A fascinating lens into why AI falls short for most people.
I’m the Fractional CMO at Pepper and the best-selling author of The Storytelling Edge. Subscribe for free to get new storytelling and content strategies in your inbox each week.
Great article explaining how influencers garner free attention.
And that sad Cuomo look is priceless!
Whatever one's politics, the lesson here is so on the money for anyone marketing a brand right now. You see the same trend on both sides of the aisle. Authenticity (or perceived authenticity) and meeting people on their turf with good content FAR outstrips old school ad spend tactics