Zoom's Kamala Boom

Plus: Scam highs and Crooked Media lows

Banner Image: Bloomberg

Happy Monday! As the first full week in August rolls on, we’re reflecting on a politics-heavy week of news and how Zoom is benefitting. But first…

📡ON OUR RADAR

• "Know your audience" is a crucial comms mantra for all political figures. Trump's appearance last week at the National Association of Black Journalists faced heavy criticism for his offensive remarks questioning Kamala Harris’s racial identity, among other controversial statements. Media coverage widely condemned his comments.

• America’s darling Snoop Dogg has been the crown jewel of the U.S.’s abroad ambassadorship, brandishing the Olympic torch, grooving with the women’s gymnastics team, and cheering on Team USA in some eye-catching custom gear. The Olympic spirit has also found a conduit in Flavor Flav, labeled the “official hype man” of American women’s water polo.

• Prominent liberal podcast Pod Save America is facing internal staff tensions, according to a Bloomberg article published this week. Despite its progressive stance, the podcast’s parent company, Crooked Media, has been criticized by younger employees for alleged union-busting and workplace inequality.

💡ON OUR MINDS: Zoom’s Kamala Boom

• Over the last several weeks, Kamala Harris’ VP campaign has turned to virtual rallies hosted on Zoom as a critical fundraising tool.

• The team made history by hosting the largest Zoom call ever, with 200,000 participants, during a fundraising event titled “White Women: Answer the Call,” which raised over $11 million for Harris’ presidential campaign.

• Other identity-based groups, including Black Women, Labor, Rural Americans, and White Dudes, all for Harris, are part of a broader “Zoom Boom” strategy that has seen significant grassroots support, raising over $200 million and gaining 170,000 volunteers in just one week.

• This is obviously good news for Harris, but it is even better news for Zoom, the beleaguered video conferencing platform at the center of it all. Zoom has yet to re-capture its pandemic-era highs, and this use case has renewed the app's visibility.

• As the campaign continues, Zoom is expected to remain a key piece of Harris’ strategy, and we’ll be closely watching to see if Deadheads for Kamala can move the needle for both the candidate and the company.

🥊QUICK HITS:

In case you missed these reads:

• Online scams are becoming more common— some scammers are victims of human trafficking; others are making $600K a month holding Instagram accounts hostage.

• Kamala Harris’s VP pick is heating up with a true Mamma Mia unfolding over the weekend— we may find out about the pick as soon as this afternoon.

• Tough crowd: CrowdStrike shareholders aren’t over the July 19th outage and are suing the company.