After Alec Baldwin portrayed a bushy-eyebrowed, outspoken caricature of President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live, some attendees of his Friday morning keynote address at the 2016 INBOUND summit at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center wondered whether he would stick to business talk, or address the election results.
Acting as Trump — and even as Trump impersonating Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger — Baldwin brought back his famous impersonation to an audience of over 10,000 people at the main stage of the digital marketing conference.
From Nov. 8 through Friday, the event center filled with professionals from around the world to take part in the summit, created by HubSpot. The introduction of services like https://serpninja.io/guest-post-service/ has taken digital marketing to a whole new level. The conference itself centered around the cutting-edge digital marketing methods of HubSpot.
Keynote speakers, such as Baldwin, were meant to inspire and educate marketing and sales professionals for future success. Many speakers, however, including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Reshma Saujani, altered their talks to mention the election results.
So while Baldwin planned to speak on his business experiences with podcasting and acting, his talk took a serious tone when politics came to light.
When asked whether he would continue to humorously portray the president-elect, Baldwin expressed uncertainty.
“We were assuming that he would lose and it would be funny,” Baldwin said to the audience. “And that would be that. Then he won. I never thought he’d win. So I never thought I’d have the opportunity you’re talking about.”
Since the audience consisted of various political perspectives, some in the conference were unsure about the presence of politically charged speech by speakers.
Shirien Elamawy is a marketing manager at IT managing company CWPS, based in Washington, D.C. Walking into the Baldwin event, Elamawy said she questioned what political temperament would permeate the room.
“Are they actually [going to] let him say his two cents, or try to keep it [politically correct] so they don’t ostracize a certain segment of their audience?” Elamawy said.
Baldwin’s political dialogue embraced the notions of civic engagement.
“If you really want change in this country, this is only going to happen if you want it,” Baldwin said. “Politicians are scared of you. They are scared to death. All the money in the world can only neutralize your indignation.”
For example, in reference to Trump’s electoral college victory over Hillary Clinton’s popular vote, Baldwin gave a spirited call for revision to the current legislative policies.
“If you want to avoid that happening again, you have to rise up and change the system,” Baldwin urged the crowd.
He also spoke about his concerns regarding the future of the marginalized Americans.
“Latino Americans, African-Americans, people of color, people who are not white; you want to send them out the door everyday thinking they are a step behind everybody else?” Baldwin said. “Do you want to send them out the door feeling bad? I don’t think so.”
Instead of taking the form of a lecture or speech, Baldwin held a casual conversation with the audience and his interviewer, former “The Daily Show” correspondent and comedian Jason Jones.
Miriah Mather, a marketing student at the Dominican University of California, gave her impression on the relaxed nature of the keynote.
“I was pleasantly surprised to find a much different side of Baldwin than I have experienced watching him on television,” Mather wrote in an email to The Daily Free Press. “Of course, he was hilarious as always and had an amazing way of keeping the audience engaged, but he also revealed a very authentic and humble side of himself.”
Baldwin connected with the audience about various aspects of his personal and professional life.
This included asking a Brooklyn native about her favorite pizza place in New York City and requesting a Bloody Mary for an attendee who appeared hungover during the talk.
Baldwin also shared some personal stories, such as his adoration for Tina Fey during his favorite job, “30 Rock,” and his dislike of doing formulaic works just for ratings rather than quality.
He mused this notion by jokingly saying he will appear in a clichéd and commonly produced storyline “What Are We Going To Do About Dad” movie next summer.
Alec’s keynote commenced the final day of INBOUND, leaving attendees carrying his words for the rest of the day.
“When you finally rise up and say, ‘I don’t care. I want you to do this, and I want you to do this,’” he said, “[politicians] will listen to you.”
Attendee Lucy Sullivan, the head of marketing at Management Research Group, said she appreciated the keynote even though it strayed from the original agenda.
“As far as what’s going on [with the election], there was some hope there,” Sullivan said. “It’s been a really hard week to focus on marketing, and I really appreciated … anyone that was willing to speak about what’s going on outside of INBOUND.”
