Michael Bloomberg has a new weapon in his $100 million ads offensive against Trump: A former Facebook executive
- Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his presidential bid over the weekend. He's running as a Democrat against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Bide, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, among several others.
- Before announcing his presidential bid, he announced a $100 million TV advertising offensive aimed squarely at President Donald Trump.
- For his digital ads, Bloomberg's campaign is turning to former Facebook executive Gary Briggs. He announced as much on his Facebook page over the weekend.
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In January 2018, when Facebook's chief marketing officer Gary Briggs left the company after five years of working at the social media giant, he indicated a vague interest in politics.
"I plan to help the Democratic Party on some efforts leading up to the US midterms this year through to 2020," he said on his Facebook page at the time.
Nearly two years later, Briggs is joining Michael Bloomberg's presidential campaign as its digital director. He's the man in charge of the candidate's new $100 million digital ads offensive.
Briggs confirmed his new role in a Facebook post on Sunday:
His role in the campaign has him working the other side of his previous role - he'll work with Facebook and other digital services to promote Bloomberg's presidential bid.
Briggs brings a familiarity with Facebook's ad policies to the Bloomberg campaign.
He started with Facebook back in 2013 and stayed with the social media giant for five years. Having been the chief marketing officer of one of the world's most successful companies certainly won't hurt either, to say nothing of his prior achievements: He did marketing at Google and ran marketing at PayPal, with stints at Motorola and Pepsi before that.
Despite increasing scrutiny on Silicon Valley, especially on Facebook, hiring Briggs indicates that the Bloomberg campaign isn't afraid of being associated with the tech industry.
The ads for Bloomberg's presidential campaign began rolling out this weekend, the first of which you can see right here: