Marketers, What's Your Covfefe Strategy?

Ad Age "Media Guy" columnist Simon Dumenco's media roundup for the morning of Wednesday, May 31: One of the running in-jokes at Ad Age among the editors and reporters has to do with the fact that whenever something stupidly viral happens in the culture, random publicists will quickly email to suggest why the CEO they represent is an expert on it, or why the product they shill is relevant to it, or why Ad Age should be doing a story about how "savvy" marketers can "leverage" said stupidly viral thing. Now that President Trump has unleashed covfefe (see No. 1, below), I've actually already decided on my own personal covfefe strategy -- with a little help from the Merriam-Webster Twitter account (see the last line in the tweet embedded in No. 7, below). Anyway, let's get started ... 1. Covfefegate! "And on the 132nd day, just after midnight," Matt Flegenheimer of The New York Times writes, "President Trump had at last delivered the nation to something approaching unity -- in bewilderment, if nothing else. The state of our union was … covfefe." Flegenheimer's piece is a wry tick-tock of the social media reaction to Trump's now-deleted 12:06 a.m. tweet ("Despite the constant negative press covfefe") -- including the president's own 6:09 a.m. folllow-up tweet. + "'Covfefe' tells you all you need to know about Donald Trump," by CNN's Chris Cillizza. 2. Speaking of Twitter, Trump also chimed in at 7:14 a.m. about Decapigate: "Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!" + earlier: "Kathy Griffin: 'I beg for your forgiveness' for gruesome anti-Trump photo shoot," via CNN in a post that includes the network's own official statement about its relationship with the comedian. 3. Regime change: "Anthony Mason will serve as interim anchor of the CBS Evening News after Scott Pelley was pushed out of the chair," per The Hollywood Reporter's Marisa Guthrie. "The broadcast is still titled the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, and sources at the network say Pelley will return to say farewell to viewers, said multiple CBS News sources. The network has yet to officially announce Pelley's departure." + elsewhere in media personnel news: "Times Will Offer Employee Buyouts and Eliminate Public Editor's Role," per The New York Times. 4. Meanwhile, a scoop this morning from Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Trump is pulling U.S. out of Paris climate deal." This key passage puts the move in context: The other outliers: The only other two countries that aren't supporting the deal are Nicaragua and Syria. 5. "The USAA financial services firm is reinstating its advertising on Sean Hannity's Fox News Channel program after receiving heavy criticism for its initial decision from many of the military members and veterans that it serves," reports the AP's David Bauder (via USA Today). "The San Antonio, Texas-based company said Tuesday it will also start advertising again on other programs where it had suspended ads, including 'Hardball' and 'The Rachel Maddow Show' on MSNBC, and Jake Tapper's 'The Lead' on CNN." 6. Russiagate, cont'd. "President Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, told NBC News on Tuesday that if he is issued a subpoena as part of Congressional probes into Russian interference in the U.S. election he will testify," per Ken Dilanian and Adam Reiss of NBC News. "Earlier, Cohen said that he has received requests for information from the Senate and House intelligence committees but said he wouldn't comply." 7. And finally, to bring things full circle ... Wakes up. Checks Twitter. . . . Uh... . . . 📈 Lookups fo... . . . Regrets checking Twitter. Goes back to bed. Thank you to Nat Ives, Adrianne Pasquarelli, Anna Sekula and Jessica Wohl for their roundup suggestions. Simon Dumenco, aka Media Guy, is an Ad Age editor-at-large. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.

Marketers, What's Your Covfefe Strategy?

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