Digital Advertising: Independent Expeniture Campaign

Keep Government Accountable (KGA) is an “independent expenditure” political action committee (IE PAC) that supported the election of State Auditor Nicole Galloway. As an IE PAC, Keep Government Accountable was prohibited from coordinating with the campaign with one exception. Galloway could fundraise for the PAC, but she could not, nor could any member of her campaign: direct spending, provide non-public data, or coordinate any other campaign-related materials.

We designed a two-pronged strategy: First, any advertising would be exclusively digital. We utilized several digital platforms including targeted ads on mobile devices, social media platforms such as Facebook and streaming services such as Hulu. Second, KGA would run almost entirely negative ads. It was KGA’s assumption that the Galloway campaign would run both positive and comparative advertising. It was also the assumption that in the current political environment in Missouri, it was important to disqualify the Republican nominee.

The strategy involved targeting the counties that would be receptive to Auditor Galloway’s message. That included “swing” counties such as St. Charles and Jefferson, but also included counties that had some exposure to the work that Auditor Galloway had done such as Greene and Calloway counties. In the counties that were targeted, Galloway significantly outperformed the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and the GOP auditor nominee significantly underperformed the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate.