Gary Briggs On Why He Became the Digital Director for the Bloomberg Presidential Campaign

Gary Briggs, former CMO of Facebook and current Digital Director for the Bloomberg Presidential Campaign, ended day two of the International Conference in a fireside chat with Neel Ajjarapu, the President of Business Today. Briggs reflected on his career path, which led him from the world of politics to the world of marketing, and in a strange way, back to politics again.

Briggs graduated from Brown University with a degree in politics. He originally planned on pursuing a career on Capitol Hill and had interned there every summer during his time at Brown. But ultimately, he decided that he didn’t want a full-time career in Washington. Fortuitously, Briggs met an employee at Pepsi at a party, who informed him of a marketing opportunity. Thus began Briggs’ marketing career.

Gary Briggs has been all over the news for joining Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential campaign. Briggs explained that prior to working with Bloomberg, he had simply wanted to help the Democratic Party and had looked into working on several campaigns. Briggs explained that in comparison to the Republican party, the Democratic party had little “digital agency.” In other words, democrats were unable to capitalize on new media forms in the same way the Republican Party has been able to. 

Bloomberg joined the presidential campaign, as in his view, no Democrat nominee at the moment had the capacity to win the swing states, and therefore, the presidency. Once Bloomberg decided to join the campaign, Briggs saw an opportunity to run a successful digital campaign.

Briggs’ knowledge of the changing marketing world will surely bring a fresh, exciting edge to his media campaign. Throughout the fireside chat, Briggs commented on the importance of self-marketing. He noted that companies and startups can only succeed if “you know what you’re about.” If companies or startups can’t define what “they’re about,” then they can easily fall apart when times get hard.

Given the knowledge that Briggs has acquired, combined with his interest in policy that he curated in college, it’s no surprise that he’s now working in an area that combines both marketing and politics. However, although Briggs has had decades of marketing experience, he still claims that the Bloomberg campaign is the busiest he’s ever been. Since the campaign took off so late, the timeline to aid the campaign is much shorter. We look forward to seeing Briggs’ marketing expertise come into play on the campaign trail.