Kathryn Garcia IE
Goal
With mayoral endorsements rolling in for the relatively unknown head of the NYC Sanitation Dept - Kathryn Garcia - we knew she’d need some outside help to compete with the other top tier candidates. We knew “ranked choice” voting would play a pivotal role in the election and we set out to turnout likely Garcia voters - both first and second choice voters - among key demographics.
Seeing The Need
After the NYT and others endorsed her, Kathryn Garcia was gaining momentum but she was the only major candidate without an outside group helping amplify her message and increase her name recognition. Along with fellow Obama' ‘08 alumni, Ronnie Cho, we immediately set up New Generation of Leadership PAC and began to raise funds.
Creative & Media Working Together
Name Recognition
Garcia was surging, but there were a LOT of NYC voters who didn’t know who she was. We’ve learned that sometimes the best advertising is not designed by us at all, but instead simply delivers the message of a trusted validator // messenger.
Finding Women Voters
There was palpable excited among some NYC voters to elect the City’s first female mayor. We knew Garcia would appeal to that demographic and we leaned into it. This made a massive impact in Ranked Choice Voting when Maya Wiley was eliminated in the 10th round of redistribution and Garcia came with 1% point of Adams almost overtaking him.
Yang Second Choice
Andrew Yang was an early frontrunner in the race but as his candidacy started to fade, we were seeing that Garcia was the overwhelming second choice candidate for Yang voters. Anticipating that Yang would be cut and his votes redistributed in the Ranked Choice Voting process, we encouraged likely Yang voters to choose Garcia as their second choice. This made a huge impact in 9th round of redistribution helping to propel Garcia ahead of Maya Wiley.
The Creative
Having just a few short weeks to operate, we were able to make some great creative that worked seamlessly and effectively with our media.
The Big Insight
Using proprietary data from Vizio and LG, we were able to watch in real time the media spending of all candidates and their outside groups. We noticed a crazy trend - more than 85% of media budgets were being spent on traditional broadcast TV.
In NYC, roughly half of New Yorkers have begun to cut the cord. And 41% of African American voters, 43% of Hispanic voters, and 40% of Women voters can ONLY be reached on OTT (Over The Top devices; ie Streaming, Apple TV, Roku, etc.). We took advantage of these people who were being left behind and were able to reach our target voters on a one to one basis.
The Bottom Line
Reaching Voters That Were Left Behind
The other campaigns and outside groups involved in the mayor’s race were largely spending their media buys on broadcast television and just hammering those viewers. But over ½ of NYC has “cut the cord.” 41% of AFAM voters can ONLY be reached through OTT // streaming. We were able to reach those people one-to-one with our first party data in a way that none of the other campaigns did.
Play To Win
We knew that Garcia’s path to victory would be through the newly implemented Ranked Choice Voting system and we worked deliberately and efficiently to turn out every first, second, third, fourth and fifth vote for Kathryn Garcia. From focusing on women voters to Yang 2nd choice voters, we made a big impact in sustaining her surge in the final weeks of the campaign.
Unprecedented Run
Garcia gained over ten percentage points from where she started in the first round of Ranked Choice Voting. Our efforts were laser focused on finding how she’d be able to find second choice votes from candidates that we knew would be eliminated. While she didn’t win, we were very pleased to see the impact of our targeted and efficient campaign.
