- Presidential
Ad Spending « Unite the
Country
Unite the Country
Interview with Steve Schale.
Steve Schale, CEO of Unite the
Country, a pro-Biden super PAC formed in Oct.
2019, provided some observations in a March 7,
2021 email interview with Democracy in
Action. During the early primary campaign,
Unite the Country advertising played an key role
keeping Biden in the mix. By the general
election it was one of many pro-Biden groups;
according to data from AdImpact, between May 1
and Nov. 3 it spent about $13.4 million,
including $5.3 million in Pennsylvania, $3.1
million in Wisconsin and $2.1 million in
Michigan and $1.4 million in Arizona.
We operated under two theories:
We operated under two theories:
1. The race wasn't about
Donald Trump - instead, it was about reassuring
voters about Joe Biden. Granted,
this was initially pretty counter to the views
of most, but our research in late March/early April
was pretty clear: there was a majority of voters in
swing states that did not want to vote for Trump
again. This didn't mean they wouldn't -
just that they didn't want to. They had
questions about Biden - many people didn't really
know his history, or the work he did as VP (we ran
into the same issues in the primary). So we felt as
though we needed to define Biden early - because
frankly, we believed the Trump people would see it
the same way, and try to define Biden before the
hard side could get on their feet. In the end,
when you look at how the campaign and all the
outside groups operated, it was clear this
became the governing theory of the case.
2. The campaign would
eventually raise enough money to
drive their own message, so our best money
spent was whatever we could spend at the time.
We didn't look at the election as a race from
E-Day backwards - we looked at it from whatever day
we were at going forward. Our sense - which
proved right - is the grassroots was so amped up
about Trump that Biden would eventually raise more
than they could spend on TV - and in the end our
dollars late would just be miniscule in
comparison. On the flip-side, we knew they
needed to get on their feet, so whatever we spent
now would only help build their foundation.
We viewed the map like everyone
else, and believed, as did everyone, that the
fastest path to 270 was through the upper
midwest. We invested our TV spending with a
focus on the mid-sized tv markets with the highest
share of persuadable voters, based both on modeling
and on actual electoral history. We leaned in
on telling the Biden personal story - the economic
record - and his vision going forward. We also
played in Arizona as part of a consortium of groups
around his COVID relief plans. We relied
almost exclusively on positive ads, and our ads in
testing were among the most effective.
Outside of that, we ran several
concurrent digital programs, focused on suburban
women and on African American voters. These
programs, by and large followed the same narrative,
but whereas our TV was more front-loaded, our
digital effort was highly targeted based on modeling
and ran from mid-June until Election Day. With
these cohorts, we wanted to have a longer
conversation about the Biden plans for getting
America going again after COVID.
In terms of digital, we felt there were very
specific audiences we had to win, particularly in
WI, PA, and MI. Digital allowed us to have a
longer conversation.
Our TV in the general had two goals: One, we
wanted to spend what we had, when we
could. Again, our basic theory of the case was
the campaign would have more money as the
campaign went on, so the more we could do
early, the more we helped. So rather than
have a 20 week effort from the election back, we
tried to spend what we could, when we could, in key
markets where we saw gaps in spending that we could
fill - particularly when there was no positive Biden
on air. For example, we spent heavier leading
into August, because at that point, the campaign
wasn't up at the robust levels they had later.
We spent later when we raised more late.
_________
See also:
Max Greenwood. "Biden super PAC launches $10 million campaign ahead of Democratic convention." The Hill, May 8, 2020.
Elaboration provided in March 10 email.
We tried to fill gaps as we saw them, or focus on audiences on we felt our "unite the country" brand would help. A lot of outside groups had their own programs - we viewed our role as more complimentary than program-based. We wanted to make sure the Biden side of the argument was always in the conversation.
We tried to fill gaps as we saw them, or focus on audiences on we felt our "unite the country" brand would help. A lot of outside groups had their own programs - we viewed our role as more complimentary than program-based. We wanted to make sure the Biden side of the argument was always in the conversation.
_________
See also:
Max Greenwood. "Biden super PAC launches $10 million campaign ahead of Democratic convention." The Hill, May 8, 2020.