So you want to run fundraising ads. You have a strong message and a candidate with a great story. But who should tell that story?
When we think of direct-to-donate (D2D) ads, we almost always imagine a candidate speaking directly to their potential donors, and while that CAN be your plan, it’s best to consider your options.
Your candidate?
The person running for office is almost always the best person to tell THEIR story. Whether it’s why they decided to run or an anecdote about what makes them better than their opponent, a candidate is a good choice for a direct-to-camera video.
“But SB,” you ask, “what if we’re not telling a story?”
You’re always telling a story, even if it’s a 6-second clip. You want to use every piece of content you post, every paid ad you run, to add to your candidate’s overall story or the “story” of the race. D2D is no different, and this story will help frame the way you ask for donations. For candidates, authenticity is key, and a campaign’s worst enemy in small-donor outreach is canned, cliché messaging that sounds like it was written by a K Street consultant (no offense to… us). You want your candidate to look and sound like they are honestly telling the viewer what they feel in their heart. Don’t believe us? Check out what the other side is saying about authenticity and fundraising. Are they evil? Yes. Are they right? Unfortunately, also yes.
Sometimes, candidates are the best people for the job. When you have a candidate with a strong personal story and mass appeal, they rarely need backup. Our team has already helped fabulous candidates leverage their stage presence, likability, or viral moments to wow donors and take on opponents backed exclusively by high-dollar donors.
But, what about when a candidate needs a surrogate? Here are some options:
Go big and name-drop
Celebrity endorsements are, in a word, controversial. Every election cycle, we hear pundits on the news say celebrities don’t help candidates win, and every cycle we see celebrities mass-endorse on both sides of the aisle. Those pundits may be on to something; a celebrity telling someone to vote for a candidate likely does not move the needle all that much.
However!
Celebrities, when they’re viewed as authentic, can and do help with fundraising pushes. Not all celebrities are created equal, though. Celebs with some kind of connection to your candidate’s locale are generally the key. Like with candidates, authenticity is key, and celebrities are shown to influence young men more than any other subgroup.
If you can get a celebrity to record a short video for your candidate, you’ll want to make sure it comes off as genuine, with them expressing some kind of personal belief or feeling as to why people should donate to your candidate.
A politically active Wisconsin native like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who is universally beloved, was a strong fundraiser for our late-in-the-game fundraising push for the Wisconsin Dems’ bid to defeat the much less universally beloved Elon Musk’s endorsement.
If you’re having trouble with early name ID, a known figure asking on your candidate’s behalf is a good cheat code.
Keep it local
Who do voters trust more than the local “pillar of the community”? Whether it’s a small town or a neighborhood in a big city, we all have people we inherently trust when they speak out on community issues. It might be a small-business owner, a beloved teacher, or a religious leader, but it is almost always someone we, as a society, view as both inoffensive and having done something good for the community.
You can call them “public figures,” “hometown heroes,” or “local legends,” but sometimes the best person to make an ask is someone who is respected by a large swath of the electorate. This is someone your candidate’s community will recognize, at least by name, and have a positive feeling toward when they see them on screen. They differ from celebrities in that they have street cred from the community electing your candidate, rather than national fame.
If your candidate has an authenticity problem, this is your BEST bet: trust by association.
Leave an impression
No matter which direction you take, your candidate needs to raise funds. The best person to record D2D videos depends entirely on the situation and where both the campaign and the race are.
About the Author of this edition of the SBDownload:
Mike Carroll joined the SBDigital team during the 2016 election cycle and currently serves as the Director of Advertising. With SBDigital, he has worked with candidates and organizations nationwide to build strong digital outreach campaigns and to shape effective ad-buying strategies. Driven by a passion for environmental policy and the importance of local progressive politics, he has worked closely with advocacy groups and state and municipal candidates to strengthen their digital strategy using innovative tools and scrappy budgeting.
Specializing in pressure campaigns, Mike recently worked with organizations such as Earthjustice and Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania to push elected officials to support common-sense clean energy policy and champion Indigenous water rights, using everything from live streaming to digital out-of-home advertising. Managing SBDigital’s Ads Team, he focuses on improving how we drive turnout, engage donors, and support social justice advocacy through a wide array of digital resources. Mike lives with his dog, Bruin, in Queens, NY, where he is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing.
Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mar.22082