Скачать или смотреть Tim Holden - DEFEATED

Category: Best Use of Pre-Roll – F49

Title: Tim Holden – Beholden to whom


Briefly Describe the Campaign Context (2000 Characters)
This video was created for Independent Expenditure, The Campaign for Primary Accountability (CPA) for the Democratic Primary in the Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District.
With a huge fundraising advantage, strong party support and near universal name recognition no one expected Tim Holden, the longest serving Congressman in Pennsylvania, to lose in a Democratic Primary.
But redistricting had robbed Tim Holden of parts of his district and he was somewhat less known in these areas of the district. Holden had a credible challenger, local attorney Matt Cartwright, but Cartwright was unknown in almost the entire district and was working to introduce himself to voters. With the usual support from Washington PACs and insiders, Holden was set to heavily outspend Cartwright in the Primary Election.
For an upset to happen, Holden had to be defined early to new voters as a “Democrat-In-Name-Only”. And turnout needed to be higher than a traditional Primary Election.
This was difficult for the Cartwright campaign, as it was dedicating its resources to introducing him to the voters. Also, negative attacks from Cartwright risked alienating voters who didn’t yet know anything about the challenger.
Our I.E. client, The Campaign for Primary Accountability wanted to make the highest impact with the lowest amount of dollars. We used this 15-second web ad to paint Holden as a Republican in Democratic clothing.
What was the principle goal of the material? (2000 Characters)
Despite Holden’s advantages, our polling showed three of his votes were unpopular with Democrats. Our ad used humor to hammer away on these votes, allowing newcomer Matt Cartwright to use his resources to introduce himself to the electorate.
We used this web ad as a 15-second pre-roll to Internet cookies tied directly to the voter file, targeted to Democratic voters in the district. What these voters needed to know was that Holden wasn’t a real Democrat.
We also needed to boost turnout to strip the incumbent’s natural advantage in a low-turnout election. By also targeting the ad (again through internet cookies) to voters who don’t typically vote in Democratic Primary Elections, we helped to expand the electorate, so Cartwright could compete against the party infrastructure and insiders.
Because we wanted as many complete watches as possible for the ad, we decided on a 15-second video which sporadic voters would be more likely to watch without closing the video.

What happened as a result? (1000 characters)
The 15-second ad dramatically increased the number of completions of the ad –the number of people who saw it, and the amount of times they saw it. In fact, the company where we purchased the cookies said our ad had more completions than any other ad in their inventory. The ad was shown on all the local news stations, picked up by bloggers and sent virally.
The ad allowed Cartwright to use his resources to introduce his candidacy to voters, free of the risk of alienating voters by attacking an incumbent who was well-known and liked in the district.
Reminding activists in the district that Holden often voted against President Obama’s agenda heightened the excitement in the race – and led to large turnouts in liberal parts of the district.
Holden was defeated by Matt Cartwright by 15 points. PA political pundits and Washington insiders cited our ad as a big reason for Holden’s loss. Turnout was dramatically higher than normal Primary Elections in the district.