Trump tweets anti-AT&T tirade

Its often said the pen is mightier than the sword, but President Donald Trump seems to think his twitter account is the literary version of a dirty bomb.

In the latest example of the flurry of tiny hands scampering across the keyboard of an unsecured iPhone, the Commander in Chief has taken aim at AT&T, suggesting US citizens should turn elsewhere for their daily fix of connectivity.

Those expecting some sort of scandal might be disappointed. AT&T hasn’t actually done anything wrong aside from owning CNN, a regular target for the President.

What we are unsure of is how much of an impact these sorts of attacks will actually have on the AT&T brand. Of course, there will be millions who simply disregard the majority of messages which float out of the Oval Office, but there are probably as many who would take the President’s word as gospel.

There have been other attacks from Trump using the virtual highways, with Amazon CEO at the centre of one of these examples.

Back in April 2018, Trump set his eyes on the eCommerce giant. The stream of abuse suggested Amazon was being naughty with its tax returns, was holding the US Postal Service to ransom and Bezos’ purchase of the Washington Post was purely to acquire a lobbyist and a voice which could undermine the White House. Some points were fair, such as the creating accounting techniques, though the Presidential paranoia suggesting political propaganda perhaps showed a measure of the man’s ego.

In the war of words with Amazon, it was largely hot air. The President was flexing his muscles, without actually doing anything. If he wanted to do any real damage, he could have cancelled the AWS multi-billion-dollar contract with the Pentagon. But he didn’t.

Bearing this in mind, AT& shouldn’t have too much to worry about, though it certainly doesn’t have the same brand credibility as Amazon.

According to The Values Institute, a research and consulting practice solely focused on values based corporate culture, Amazon was the most trusted brand in the US in 2018. AT&T was the best scoring telco on the list, though it ranked down in 32nd. This is down from 14th in 2017. 32nd doesn’t sound too bad if you consider all the companies which operate in the US, though the scope of this survey is quite limited, only taking the biggest names into account.

Interestingly enough, AT&T finished below Taco Bell, which is regularly featured in a variety of toilet memes on the social media platforms.

Amazon has the credibility with US consumers to simply ignore any Twitter abuse from Trump, but telcos certainly do not have the same relationship with consumers, especially when you consider the recent race to the bottom. For some, telcos are utilities. It is a tough reputation to shake, while a constant focus on speed and price won’t help at all.

Looking at the potential impact of the President’s social media temper tantrums, it does seem to be short-term in most circumstances. This is not the first time President’s have named and shamed companies, President Kennedy did it in the 70s, but social media is a new beast. Most of the time with Trump’s rants, share price seems to be hit for a short period, though it recovers soon after. There doesn’t really seem to be any notable follow through from the President’s threats.

In the Amazon case, share price dipped by 11% during the exchange. The threat of intervention was enough to spook some. However, it took roughly two weeks for recovery, and since that point share price did increase almost 40% before a heavy fall last month.

Research from Juma’h Ahmad and Yazan Alnsour of University of Illinois also suggest there is limited impact from the President’s social media fury. In a study which looked at Presidential attention on 58 companies, the duo concluded there was no long-term, material consequence for the business, with any impact in the financial markets limited to three to five days.

Interestingly enough, Trump seems to be having less of an impact on the world as his term progresses. According to data from CrowdTangle (covered here by Axios), Trump’s interaction rate has fallen from 0.55% in the month he was first elected, to 0.16% in the month through to May 25 2019

The growth in Trump followers is still staggeringly large, though it appears he is not getting the same cut through as before. This might be down to a couple of different reasons, perhaps more laissez faire followers or maybe there is just too much noise reducing the effectiveness.

While there is a risk, especially considering the sustained nature of Trump’s hatred towards CNN, we’re not convinced whether an attack on AT&T’s reputation from Trump will have too much impact. However, the President has a track record of swaying the masses.