No on A won in the digital space, ran a virtual campaign that will serve as a model this November

Overview

In order to defeat Measure A, the No on A campaign had to convince voters to go against their instincts. The campaign asked San Diego County voters to oppose giving themselves a voice -- in this case a vote on future residential projects -- and instead leave those decisions with elected representatives. 

This presented a significant challenge. Measures that claim direct democracy or to “give the power back to the people,” have a certain curb appeal with voters, but No on A was able to overcome the odds. It wasn’t because of a reliance on traditional campaign strategies supported by a massive war chest. No on A won because of solid research and creative, hefty investments in digital and TV ads, sharp public relations, an unmatched coalition, smart decisions, a big push at the end, and a Hail Mary.

No on A did not have the financial resources necessary to mount a traditional campaign, and it also was forced to adjust to the fact that it had an enormous voter universe to cover. There are 1.8 million registered voters in San Diego County. The No on A campaign raised and spent $1.7 million -- not a lot of money when you need to talk to nearly 2 million voters. So the campaign eliminated direct mail and door-to-door outreach -- expensive and traditional voter contact tactics. 

All politics is local, they say, and the NO side leaned into that, leveraging personal relationships to help land endorsements. San Diego turns bluer by the day, it seems, so No on A set its sights on the Democratic Party endorsement as well as labor endorsements. Democratic voters were expected to turn out in higher numbers than in past primary elections, so this had to be a bipartisan effort to succeed. 

No on A also had the benefit of exceptional clients: the Building Industry Association of San Diego County and local, state and national REALTORS®. They established the vision and set the goals, and then they let the campaign team do its job, supporting the team along the way.

Message Crafting, Creative and Production

“Good content isn’t about good storytelling. It’s about telling a true story well.” - Ann Handley

Even though research successfully tested messages No on A’s consultants developed, and the team knew the chords it needed to play to win, it had to be careful how it talked about housing.

San Diego County voters care about housing, but many of them do not support building more homes or apartments. It’s a tricky thing, but the nuance is critically important with voters. The majority care a great deal about our housing affordability crisis, meaning they feel homes and apartments are already too expensive and they do not want to put even more housing out of reach for young and working families. 

Measure A would have made homes and apartments more expensive, and its loopholes and exemptions meant it would not have protected our rural lands or given voters the control it promised. Those factors, if repeatedly explained to voters, would doom the measure. So would exposing the out-of-town billionaire owners of the Golden Door Spa -- a $10,000-a-week hotel in North County -- who drafted the measure, paid to put it on the ballot, and bankrolled the YES campaign all in an effort to keep affordable homes and apartments away from their luxury resort.

The NO campaign faced another challenge: weight of message. It identified the right messages, but it did not have the money it needed to repeatedly reach voters. 

Fundraising was a challenge from the start and did not loosen up until the campaign was nearly out of time. With less than two months before Election Day, the campaign was on track to raise about $1.2 million of its $1.5 million budget -- which was slashed early on from $2.5 million because of a lack of donations. How do you reach 1.8 million voters enough times to persuade them with a budget on life support? You break the traditional rules of campaigning, and you do it as methodically and thoroughly as possible.

The decision was made that the No on A campaign’s voter outreach would rely solely on a robust digital program, a limited but targeted TV buy, some slate mailers and public relations.

When you eliminate door-to-door canvassing, phone banking, direct mail and other traditional campaigning methods, it means your soundbites have to truly be soundbites, no longer than 30-seconds or a couple lines of copy with a graphic, as the digital media and TV bible dictate.

Enter IVC Media, the digital media firm MNM hired to direct No on A’s online communications. By establishing a unique and eye-catching brand from the inception of the logo, to a combination of photographs blended with custom-designed illustrations, IVC created a digital footprint that represented in a creative way the negative impacts Measure A would bring to our region.

The colors and the artwork broke through the clutter and represented the severity of the measure while evoking a feeling of “proceed with caution,” to communicate one of the campaign’s primary messages: behind Measure A’s politically convenient messaging were loopholes and exemptions and out-of-town billionaires that would harm our region and our neighborhoods. “Measure A is not what it seems,” the NO side warned voters. “It won’t do what it promises.”

The campaign created a total of 8 highly-produced videos used across multiple platforms, focusing on all the general and micro-messages identified from polling and focus groups as being important to target sub-groups within the massive San Diego County voter file.

Every video was supported by a number of graphics and earned media (stories, op-eds, columns and related news coverage) through a retargeting campaign. Every voter who watched or engaged with a No on A video then received a combination of graphics, display and/or video ads, as well as earned media posts, to validate claims and further drive the conversation and boost awareness of the measure in a very competitive electoral environment. The environment grew even more crowded when presidential candidates like Mike Bloomberg started buying all of the available TV advertising time and crowding the digital arena across San Diego County, targeting many of the same voters No on A was trying to reach.

Brushfire Poll

With both sides campaigning hard, the No on A campaign decided to do a last-minute poll 17 days before Election Day to see how voters’ opinions had moved, which messages were working, and how the campaign should focus its big late-money TV and digital advertising buys.

The poll was not encouraging. 

“YES remains substantially ahead in the Measure A vote (40% to 27%, with ONE-THIRD undecided) and those who have already voted are lopsidedly in favor of the measure 58% to 41%,” the campaign’s pollster wrote in a memo to the team. “On the other hand, while NO has not budged since May, YES has come down significantly from 49% back then...While the likelihood of our side prevailing is relatively small, the NO side could pull this out. We have seen other situations in which our side was drawing dead, but that’s not the case here.”

Bottom line: the No on A campaign’s limited voter contact had started to move voters and the campaign’s heaviest spending period was about to begin. Its ads would be up on TV, all over digital, and on slate mailers. To win, the campaign needed to sow enough doubt to ensure the remaining undecided voters voted NO, and it had little time and limited resources to achieve this. A strong close was necessary. 

Calls went out to supporters, many of whom responded by chipping in to help the campaign raise a lot of late money, and with time running out, No on A surpassed its adjusted $1.5 million budget goal by $200,000.

Additional broadcast, cable and Spanish TV spots were purchased through Election Day. As more money came in, No on A moved to purchase more TV but it was blocked from doing so because the presidential candidates had bought all remaining time slots. So the campaign invested its remaining funds in digital advertising, significantly increasing its digital budget the final two weeks of the race.

Digital Bonus: One of the unsung benefits of social media is the almost immediate feedback received in real time from voters. Having done many campaigns in the past, the digital team has developed recon tools and experience that allows it to get a read on the electorate and the messages that work better than others.

Towards the end, when both campaigns were spending heavily online, the digital recon made it apparent that: 

1. The digital investments had worked -- numerous voters were using No on A’s messages while commenting on Yes on A ads over what they saw as problems with the measure. 
2. The YES messages were not working with voters as seamlessly as they were when the campaign began because the NO messages had caught on with the electorate.
3. The research and the execution were in agreement: No on A had a fighting chance.