Kathryn Garcia for NYC Mayor

Kathryn needed to make voters aware of who she was and how much experience she had in running major portions of New York City’s infrastructure. After spending her career across the NYC Department of Finance, Department of Environmental Protection, and Department of Sanitation, Kathryn knew the inner workings of the city very well, but the residents of the city didn’t know her name yet: A March 24th poll had her at only 2% favorability for the mayoral primary, and she needed that to increase quickly.

Knowing we had to maximize a limited budget in America’s largest city, we put together a Smart Targeting Strategy to make sure we honed in on Primary election voters and minimized waste in a city of 8.4 million people.

From 2% to 49.6% in 12 Weeks:

Our strategies that helped build name ID and win votes for Kathryn Garcia

“Change Media was referred to us by peers and we’re glad they were. When money is limited, spending resources in a targeted way matters. Change helped us do that with strategic advice, an efficient and ambitious digital program, and excellent execution to help our campaign maximize voter outreach.”

Kathryn Garcia

Director of New York State Operations

Strategy 1:

Match and Deliver Lots of Ads to Super Voters

City primary elections often have a low turnout rate. Finding and prioritizing the individuals with a track record of voting in these elections can give a campaign the advantage when other campaigns are trying to communicate with everyone.

Strategy 2:

Bid Thoughtfully to Hit Key Targets, Optimize Budget, & Maximize Each Campaign Dollar

We used pre-booking to reserve ad inventory in targeted geographic areas and against our list to lock in low rates and lock out competitors. Inventory was 50% cheaper this way.
We prioritized geographic targeting in zip codes with significant percentages of our target list to maximize the social pressure effect of persuasion ads.
We used varying technological targeting tactics to best fit the population density of the neighborhood - from large apartment complexes in Manhattan, to rowhomes in Brooklyn, to standalone houses in Queens.

Strategy 3:

Target Voters In Their Native Language

New York is an incredibly diverse city, so we made sure to run ads in Spanish and Simplified Chinese across social, display, pre-roll, and streaming TV. Kathryn’s website also had 10 language options so residents could easily learn about her platform.

Strategy 4:

Run a Just-In-Time Absentee Targeting Program

Heavily target voters as they receive their ballot

Exclude them from ads after they’ve voted

Strategy 5:

Build a Strategic Ranked-Choice Voting Plan

We ran a multi-faceted approach to take opponents’ supporters’ votes after they dropped off by showing how Kathryn can meet their voting priorities too.