How the Biden campaign’s Super Bowl strategy proved his skeptics wrong — again

When it was announced that President Biden would not be doing a sit-down Super Bowl interview, many in the media were quick to denounce the decision.  

Some called it a bad, ineffective campaign strategy. Others called it a missed opportunity to engage with a large audience and a “sign that the staff or yourself doesn’t have the confidence in you.” The widespread sentiment from political insiders and strategists was that this was the wrong move. 

But those arguments miss something more fundamental about the nature of the Biden campaign: It is finding newer, more innovative ways of reaching voters.  

Why sit down for a 30-minute TV interview when you can reach just as many people, if not more, through other mediums and platforms? Why engage in an interview that most people wouldn’t even take the time to attentively watch? What may have been worked a few years ago simply is not the case in this election.  

While Biden didn’t engage in a traditional one-on-one Super Bowl interview, that does not mean people didn’t see him during the Super Bowl. In fact, it’s the opposite.  

The Biden campaign engaged in a meticulous, well thought-out social media strategy. It started by making history and becoming the first major presidential campaign to launch a TikTok account. Their first video featured President Biden answering a series of Super Bowl-related questions — in so doing, it presented a version of President Biden that most TikTok users have never seen.  

It wasn’t just TikTok, either. Biden dominated virtually every other major social media platform. 

Shortly after the Kansas City Chiefs won, the campaign posted on both X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram an image showing an ominous Joe Biden with lasers coming out of his eyes, accompanied by the caption, “Just like we drew it up.” This not only displayed President Biden’s sense of humor, it also undercut the notion that the Super Bowl was some sort of “deep state” conspiracy theory. As one of my college friends texted me after seeing the post, “This is the version of President Biden I’ve wanted to see.”  

Both the campaign’s launch on TikTok and posts on social media platforms have paid off enormously. In under 24 hours, the campaign’s TikTok has amassed over 5.8 million views, 570,000 likes and over 60,000 followers. On X, his post has garnered more than 478,000 likes and over 170 million views, and on Instagram, his post has hit nearly 1 million likes. 

In sum, the number of people who have seen President Biden through his Super Bowl posts is just as high, if not higher, as the number he would have reached had he done the Super Bowl interview. Even better: President Biden spent a fraction of the time he would have spent for the Super Bowl and it worked just as well. The president’s team took a gamble and it worked.  

As impressive as the Biden campaign’s reach was, its social media strategy speaks to a much more important aspect of this election cycle: the shifting demographics of the electorate and how the Biden campaign is responding to it. By choosing an online-driven social media strategy instead of a sit-down, formal interview, the Biden campaign is sending a strong message that it is actively fighting for new votes — namely, the votes of young people who have been overlooked in politics for far too long. 

The campaign should know that it can’t stop with one light-hearted Super Bowl TikTok. Their goal of penetrating an entirely new landscape of social media and mobilizing the largest voting demographic in this election will only work if it’s done the right way. Here is how that can happen.  

Going big entails compiling an exhaustive list of dedicated, aggressive and popular content creators who either support the president or who are already outspoken on political issues. As often as the campaign and president can, they should collaborate with those influencers on the president’s or their own social media feeds. Equip them with the information and messages they need to create content around Biden’s priorities and initiatives. Find ways to feature them on the president’s social media and talk to them about the issues they care most about, what President Biden has achieved so far, and what he promises to do in a second term.  

The end goal of going big: Make the president’s commitment to engaging with young people and all he has accomplished and will do if re-elected as clear as possible.  

But the buck shouldn’t stop with the biggest, most famous influencers. There’s also a small way to approach this and amass just as much attention. That involves something the campaign has already started doing.  

Recently, President Biden engaged in a kitchen-table conversation with a family who benefitted from his student loan forgiveness program. One of their sons recorded the gathering and posted it on social media; the moment has since gone viral. The president has also visited a boba shop, a brewery, and a barbershop. These moments may seem ordinary or unexciting, but they capture a key part of the president’s character: he’s personable, he’s empathetic, and he’s warm.  

Finding opportunities for the president to connect with Americans in normal settings can go a long way. Unlike, going big, going small allows voters to see the personal side of President Biden—one that many voters still have not completely absorbed. But once they do, it could change their perception that Biden is too old to be president.  

Now, the Biden campaign has an important tool to reach my peers — in addition to its existing efforts to organize on college campuses — in order to sell his accomplishments and get them excited to vote. With 10 months left to go, it’s time for the campaign to be more aggressive than ever before. Only then does Biden have a real chance of keeping the White House and saving democracy.  

Victor Shi is a senior at UCLA, co-hosts the iGen Politics Podcast and serves as strategy director for Voters of Tomorrow. He was previously elected as the youngest delegate for Joe Biden and has worked on presidential, congressional and local campaigns. Follow him on X and Threads at @Victorshi2020.