Ever notice how some political campaigns, nonprofits, and advocacy movements just seem to get it? It’s no accident — it’s the work of creative directors, message testers, designers, researchers, project managers, and the entire battalion of people in the progressive movement whose job is to make smart creative that connects with people. With a massively important presidential election and so much on the line this year, the past couple months have yielded so. Much. Content. Luckily for you, we are big fans of Content™ — just ask everyone in #creativebits, our internal Slack channel dedicated to ooh-ing and aah-ing over our favorite creative we’ve worked on or seen out in the wild. We’ve waded through the good, the bad, and the meh to share this batch of electoral creative we’re feeling especially inspired by.

The Best of Best Practices

Whether you’re talking about candidates or issues, every org’s values and mission should come through loud and clear in every piece of creative.

We love the tenets of the Race Class Narrative — and they apply especially well to this election season where Trump and the GOP are trying more desperately than ever to keep us divided.

Tenet 1: Lead with shared values (like this ad from SEIU):

Tenet 4: Clearly name the villain and their motivations (like this ad from the UAW):

Tenet 5: Close with a positive vision for the future (like this ad from the Harris campaign):

It may seem like a lot to condense into one piece of creative – and that’s okay! Not every piece of creative will hit on every point of your message. The point is to incorporate this frame in your overall messaging to maximize its impact. For more messaging tips, check out this great messaging toolkit and our own Guide to Effective and Ethical Direct Response Creative.

Best of Getting to the Point

A Harris versus Trump administration will have policy implications at every level…but less than a week out might not be the best time to get into the finer points of administrative law or international trade agreements (unless you’re a real policy wonk talking to other real policy wonks — in which case shine on, you crazy diamonds.). Even if it’s interesting to you, an overly specific message is less likely to resonate with infrequent or undecided voters who don’t follow politics as closely. (We, however, are total nerds about the intersections of policy and audience/message testing. If you’re interested in nerding out with us, get in touch!)

For example, Get Free’s creative projection on the RNC headquarters doesn’t get bogged down with every part of Project 2025 (The RNC building isn’t large enough for a projected list of everything wrong with Project 2025.) Instead, they focus on the bottom line – Project 2025 is bad news for Black Americans.

It may seem like oversimplifying, but when you’re leading with your shared values (hi, tip #1!), voting isn’t just a choice between two candidates or two political parties. It’s a choice between two different visions for the future — rolling back progress or moving forward into a more just, equitable future. This ad is a clear and heart-wrenching example that illustrates just how high the stakes are. When we frame this election in stark terms, the choice is clear and motivating.

Standard video ads on social channels or static and animated digital ads are all great for reaching broad swaths of people about pretty much anything — just ask the ten-of-thousands of businesses, organizations, candidates, and more who rely on social media ads.

But it can be hard to stand out. That, coupled with increasing restrictions on social media ads deemed “political”, it can be hard to get your message out. The examples below maximize your existing video assets by extending them to new placements. For example, digital-out-of-home (aka DOOH) is one of the most trusted media channels out there. A recent study found that a staggering 73% of consumers expressed a favorable view of DOOH ads – way more than television/video (50%), social media (48%), online (37%), audio (32%) and print (31%). DOOH allows you to reach people where they physically are, whether that’s the airport or bus stop.

If you’re looking for new creative, think about partnering with social media influencers. They are experts at creating engaging content for their (often niche and otherwise difficult-to-reach) audiences. With some coaching, they can take your talking points and make sure they’re reaching the people who need to hear them most. Just look at how the Harris campaign has invested heavily in influencers. This electoral cycle can be a great opportunity to start a long-term partnership with influencers and get reliable access to the audiences you want to reach. Check out how we worked with the National Education Association to build out their influencer program from the ground up. 

Diversifying your medium can be a great way to create the surround sound effect that helps your message get through to people across a variety of channels. For example, audio ads — whether they’re podcast or radio — can help you reliably reach smaller but specific audiences (for example, reaching students in swing states through college radio stations.) According to a 2023 study, audio ads have a 128% greater attentiveness score than TV and a 66% greater score than online video. Audio also allows for a mix of languages, like this Spanglish ad raising awareness about California’s Earned Income Tax Credit. 

This example from the National Education Association is more advocacy-focused, but it would be an easy tweak to tie book bans to the importance of voting in local elections, Project 2025, or what’s at stake this November.

Have you seen a really great piece of creative recently? Send it our way! This is a safe space for nerding out about electoral ad creative. 

And speaking of nerding out – want to talk more about how to supercharge your organization’s digital presence beyond the electoral cycle? Drop us a line! 

CHALLENGE: How can we mobilize infrequent Black and Latinx voters in Wisconsin and Michigan and defeat Donald Trump?

OUR APPROACH: We used the SEIU’s core issues—including the fight to raise the minimum wage—as a jumping-off point to connect with potential voters, layering in additional creative concepts constantly to reflect what we were hearing on the ground and our own internal research.

In 2018, we worked with SEIU to flip the governor’s mansions in Michigan and Wisconsin. In 2020, we set our sights on the White House. We worked with SEIU to mobilize infrequent Black and Latinx voters in Wisconsin and Michigan and defeat Donald Trump. 

Getting there wasn’t easy. Our creative strategy had to continuously evolve to meet the challenges of 2020—from a crowded presidential landscape, to pivoting our entire organizing strategy after COVID-19 shut down in-person efforts, to communicating with voters about a long list of new deadlines and complicated rules around voting in the primaries and general.

To connect with potential voters, we knew our creative couldn’t look like just another political ad or text from a candidate. We chose fresh, modern designs to capture people’s attention mid-scroll. And we knew voters would tune us out if we parroted the same tired talking points people have heard for years. Instead, we used a combination of research, social listening, and feedback from voters and organizers to ground our message in what people were talking about, worrying about, and hoping for in communities across Michigan and Wisconsin.

Meeting the Moment in a Pandemic

Fight for $15 organizers had been working in Michigan and Wisconsin for years, organizing workers around raising the minimum wage. 

We began our electoral work there, using Michigan and Wisconsin’s low minimum wages as a recruitment hook.

We don’t believe in “set it and forget it” messaging strategies—especially in a cycle as tumultuous as 2020. We relied on polling data and research from movement partners, social listening, feedback from the “field,” and our own creative performance to authentically connect with and motivate voters. 

For most of the cycle, voters were more concerned about getting good-paying union jobs, staying safe from COVID-19, and fighting back against police violence and anti-Black racism—not thinking about voting, much less candidates. So we met people where they were, focusing on the issues and highlighting opportunities for people to rise up and create the change they needed in their communities.

Motivating the Electorate

We knew many voters felt apathetic about politicians and skeptical that their vote could make an impact in the election. So in addition to recruiting people to the Fight for $15’s list, we also served people motivational content to remind them of the power of collective action.

Navigating Chaotic Primaries

The Wisconsin primary was our first “dress rehearsal” for the general election. We used the issues, creative themes, and optimization learnings from the first few months of our work to bridge the gap between issues people were activated on and candidates they may have been less familiar with, such as WI Supreme Court candidate Jill Karofsky (who won!).

Michigan’s primary was an opportunity to build on the work from Wisconsin’s primary—including introducing more tactical social pressure ads, and experimenting with ways to educate voters on the different ways they could cast their ballot this year.

Turbocharging the Creative Process

We used Swayable to run pre-market testing ahead of critical strategy pivots. Data from Swayable helped us understand how to effectively walk people through the mechanics of voting by mail or voting early in-person, and how to persuade skeptical Biden voters to be excited about the Biden-Harris ticket.

Swayable testing helped us understand the most effective ways to talk about Trump, as well as which audiences were most motivated to vote after hearing Trump attacks.

Fighting for Black Lives

When Kenosha, WI police shot Jacob Blake, we paused existing content to give space for people to grieve—and act. 

Building on the FF15’s work on the ground in Kenosha, we used digital to raise money for a GoFundMe for Jacob’s family, and we shared ways people could join the protest for Black lives in their communities.

Leveraging the Midwest’s Power

By the general, we were firing on all cylinders, leveraging the issues that resonated with voters during the recruitment phase to build the case for voting, using our learnings from Swayable testing and ads optimizations during the primaries to effectively walk people through how to vote, and utilizing a wide variety of creative styles to cut through the noise of early voting and GOTV and reach voters authentically.

To counter disinformation and help people make a plan to vote safely, we directed potential voters to a Facebook Messenger bot flow.

We Weren’t Done Yet

Of course, the election didn’t end on November 3. On top of that, Facebook announced a blackout period for political content, closing off a valuable communications channel with voters.

We were ready despite those hurdles, prepping display, video, contextual, and SMS content designed to protect the results and reinforce the narrative that Biden won.

Our Impact

After over a year of organizing, we reached nearly 6 million voters in Michigan and Wisconsin with our content, generating nearly 339 million ad impressions and 45,000 SMS engagements. Those authentic connections with voters paid off: we won the White House and local races across Michigan and Wisconsin.

Disenfranchisement targeting Black, Latinix, and Indigenous Americans has been a part of our system from the start. And when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, they released a predictable wave of new attacks on voting access. 

One of the most dangerous current threats to voting rights for people of color comes from states shutting down polling places. States from Texas to Arizona to Georgia have closed hundreds of polling locations in recent years, the vast majority in areas with large and growing Black and Latinx populations. 

Now the COVID pandemic has thrown traditional in-person voting into chaos, giving legislators cover to close even more polling locations during the presidential primaries and lead up to the general. In Kentucky, the number of polling places dropped from 3,700 to less than 200.  Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city of 600,000 people, went from 180 to just five. In New York City, polling places were closed or moved at the last minute, with little notice to voters. 

But here’s the good news, at least for the 2020 Election. Many states are now offering expanded vote-by-mail, hypothetically making it easier for anyone to vote from anywhere, without stepping foot inside a voting booth—if they can figure out how to get a ballot, where to return it, and make sure to meet the deadlines for both. 

That’s where you and your top-notch digital program steps in. Layering in digital ads to your existing electoral strategy can deliver critical information to voters wherever they are on the internet, make it easier to access mail-in ballots, and ensure voters know exactly where, when, and how to guarantee their vote is counted on Election Day. If you’re ready to add vote-by-mail ads to your digital strategy, we’ve got five things to keep in mind:

One: Start Now
In a normal Presidential election year, frequent voters know the drill, and it’s newer or infrequent voters who may need some extra guidance on how to cast a ballot. But in this vote-by-mail world, everyone is going to need a little help.

Now is the time to make sure your target voters understand how to request an absentee ballot, before the already noisy election year advertising gets even louder. There are a number of tools —like vote.org, voteamerica.com, and wecanvote.us—that make it easy to drive voters to state-specific information. Some can be embedded on your own site, keeping your trusted voice front and center. 

With so much to distract potential voters right now, a few weeks of absentee ballot request ads won’t cut it. To make sure the maximum number of people can get a ballot, your ads program should be pushing ballot requests early, often, and right up to the request deadline. 

Two: Show AND Tell
Of course, a link to a pretty form isn’t enough. It really can’t be overemphasized: many people have no idea how to vote by mail, even your most reliable voter universe. And even if they do, they still might think it’s a bad idea! That’s where the trusted voice of your organization can make a big difference. 

Since each state is different, make sure you’re on top of the rules—then make those rules crystal clear for voters. Your ads should spell out the process, making it accessible and easy to follow. 

Eye-catching text treatments can put the requirements front and center. Animations can help draw eyes and boil down complicated steps into compelling visuals. Volunteers can film simple explainer videos that speak directly to your target audience, calling out misconceptions and highlighting the most important steps to make sure every ballot gets counted. 

Three: Get Tracking
Once ballots have started to mail out, it’s time to layer in ads explaining how and when to return them—and when it gets down to the wire, even where to drop them off in-person. 

Put tracking in place to identify potential voters who click through to the ballot request page (and ideally, people who actually complete a request), and plan a separate communications stream for these audiences. Remind voters to mail their ballots back, putting postmark deadlines front and center in every single ad. As Election Day nears, ID in-person drop-off locations or other last-minute options to make sure your audience knows where to go and what to do when it’s too late to mail. If possible, coordinate with offline ballot chase programs to layer ads with phone or SMS outreach. 

Make sure ads are showing at a frequency high enough to stand out—at least seven times per week across platforms, and more leading up to the deadline. If budgets are limited, concentrate ads in the 2-3 weeks leading up to request or mail-in deadlines, as the impact of seeing an ad fades quickly.

Four: Messaging matters
If you typically target low-frequency or new voters, running voter education ads in tandem with your persuasion or candidate ID programs may be old hat. But with vote-by-mail, even your high propensity voters need the boost. Direct mail and SMS tests have shown that what works in traditional GOTV outreach, like social pressure tactics, works for getting voters to request and mail back absentee ballots too. So remind your target voters that their friends and neighbors will be voting and that their voting record is public, like this example from the VPC:

While digital ads may not have the text volume of a mail piece, they can take advantage of video, creative animation, and easy interactivity. Think a Zoom group chat placing ballots in the mail, or a text message exchange between friends making sure they’re ready to vote. Bring in the issues that matter to your audience and remind them why their vote is so important for their community and the country. If you can, use a testing tool like Swayable to experiment with which messaging frames move your audience the most—then double down on them in the weeks leading up to Election Day. 

Five: Go for Surround Sound
Your options for digital ads also go far beyond Facebook. New political targeting restrictions can make channels like YouTube less cost-effective for narrow targeting on a smaller budget (unless you’re running non-partisan voter registration ads!), but there are other options to build a smart, deep-reaching media plan. Depending on your target audience and budget, consider layering in programmatic video and audio ads (ads that follow a voter wherever they happen to roam online), targeted digital tv buys, or even podcasts. Just remember that creative isn’t one-size-fits-all-channels. 

And don’t leave your ads program to do all the heavy lifting. Coordinate your digital ad targeting with other social-distancing-friendly outreach tactics like SMS or peer-to-peer texting programs, mail, and phone banking to make sure your target audience is hearing and seeing about vote-by-mail wherever they turn. 

Voting by mail may be a brave new world for many of us, but if this forced experiment works, it could also mark the beginning of a sea change in how America votes for years to come. Voting by mail certainly isn’t a panacea—in fact, a recent report on the Florida 2018 midterm elections found that mailed ballots cast by Black, Hispanic, or other voters of color were twice as likely to be rejected as those cast by white voters, often due to missing or mismatched signatures. Many voters are justifiably skeptical their votes will even count.  

Solving America’s voting problems won’t happen in a single election (for that, we need long-term community organizing and power building, the restoration of the Voting Rights Act, and vocal outrage from ALL voters!). But in 2020, voting by mail will save lives and lay the groundwork for expanded vote-by-mail in future elections too, and that’s a huge step in the right direction. 

Related Links

• What Facebook’s new ad policies mean for you
• What to do right now: Digital Ads
• Coronavirus Demands a Quantum Leap in Organizing