Leveraging Earned Media in Political campaigns A case study: John Bel Edwards for Governor

“ ” Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. The purpose of PR according to the PRSA But what are the goals of Political PR?

Political PR has three main goals Goal 1 Increase turnout of likely voters Goal 2 Raise Money for you or friendly PAC Goal 3 Persuade persuadable voters who are LIKELY to vote

Traditional PR vs. Political PR Audience and Potential Consumers, Messaging, Brand Exhaustion, Crisis Communication, Digital Marketing

Audience and Potential Consumers Traditional PR Based on demographically based theories. "Who is likely to buy a product or give to a cause?” Political PR Based upon which demographics are most likely to vote for a candidate. How many target audiences are needed to get to a 50% + 1.

How to get a Democrat elected? Early polling told us we needed to appeal to WOMEN and to registered Democrats who hadn’t voted Democrat in a long time. Message testing told us which ones were most powerful with those demographics.

Messaging Traditional PR Brands aim to have the same problem statement, industry viewpoint or brand perception shared across sources and media. Political PR You need messages that Identify problem statements that every persuadable voter agrees with (Bobby Jindal is bad!) Identify problem statements that create higher engagement among particularly important blocks of voters (Meet the litmus test on conservative issues like abortion and guns) Identify problem statements that reinforce the “brand loyalty” of your “traditional” voter base. (John Bel has been fighting for enforceable “equal pay”)

Using Earned Media as a Tool For the first two years of the campaign we focused on getting as much earned media coverage as possible that fit into one of those three messages…

1. This letter was written in 2012 when JBE knew he was likely running. Connected to anger in one of his base audiences, state workers.

2. We worked hard on Radio coverage in 2014 because our name recognition was as low as 6%. JBE focused on his bio, which transcends party.

3. Work around issues like Medicaid Expansion played to JBE’s base, and talking about them early meant that as public opinion evolved, we picked up persuadable voters.

Brand Exhaustion Traditional PR Finding ways to reengage people with your brand, like live video streaming to make them feel like part of the action or VIP “insider” previews of new product launches, can help cure brand exhaustion. Political PR Not all that different from a traditional PR approach

In the political PR world, these brand exhaustion strategies work particularly well: 1. Reengaging Base “special ask” – personalized communications that ask them to do something new and unique, like live tweet an event that you will be streaming. 2. Reminding Base Why They Like You Reminding your base why they liked you to begin with – we found that “throwback Thursdays” were particularly good for this on social media, because we could easily remind people they’d liked something in the past 3. Some Brands Never Fade Patriotism and love for country is a brand in and of itself. JBE’s status as an Army Ranger and his use of the Honor Code may have gotten a little old, but those ideas never suffer the same brand “exhaustion” that real brands do.

Example of Patriotism as Theme

Crisis Communication Traditional PR Fire someone, apologize, and appear to be solution-driven Political PR Correct and pivot. The Pivot - Within two days of this “Syria” crisis, Bobby Jindal dropped out of the race for President and we launched an online only ad about Jay Dardenne’s endorsement of John Bel

Digital Marketing vs. Tradtional PR Tradtional PR Engagement: Measure the number of people who engaged with an item (social shares, likes and comments). Impressions: Measure the number of people who may have viewed an item. Items: Measure any content (blog posts, articles, etc.) that originally appeared as digital media. Mentions: Measure how many online items mention the brand, organization, or product. Reach: Measure how far the pr campaign managed to penetrate overall and in terms of a particular audience Political PR Impressions vs. Engagement - John Bel had low name recognition for the majority of our campaign, so we cast a really wide net.

1 month of digital ad campaigns

Engagement Opportunities Sitelink extensions Text Ads Search Ad Display Ad

Video Promotions: Oil and Gas Loyal Voters

Questions?