Find Your Best Messages with Creative Focus
by Amos Budde
Today’s political and media landscape is more complicated than ever, making it difficult for political campaigns to know how to talk to voters. Campaigns know that their creative choices are important, but traditional message testing methods are flawed — slow, inaccurate, and expensive — which often leads campaigns to do minimal testing (if any), get incorrect information or receive results far too late for them to be useful.
But in politics, getting the messaging right really matters. We know this firsthand because at Civis we’ve tested over 100 general election ads in the last four years. In our tests, we’ve found that the best 10% of ads are, on average, more than five times as persuasive¹ as a typical ad. We’ve also seen that about 30% of ads tested actually cause backlash², reducing support in key subgroups. Not only are campaigns often missing a chance to optimize their messaging and media buys, but many of them are paying to show ads and messages that hurt their cause.
So we decided to build our own approach to message testing, built on Civis’s unique survey infrastructure and data science platform. We’ve spent the past five years perfecting the science and technology that powers our message testing and the past several months packaging it into an easy to use online application. We call it Creative Focus and, today, it’s now available for campaigns and organizations across the United States.
Introducing Creative Focus
Creative Focus is an easy to use online tool that puts the power of Civis message testing into the hands of progressive campaigns and organizations around the country. Creative Focus makes message tests fast and affordable, so campaign teams can quickly get information about what’s working, iterate on their creative and messages, and ultimately get the right messages to the right people.
We’ve designed Creative Focus to be intuitive and straightforward so that campaigns can get their tests started within minutes, not days. To set up a test, a user uploads their videos, images, or messaging, selects the audience they want to test, provides a description, and clicks launch. Tests can be run for campaigns of any size, from national down to a single congressional district, and results are returned in just days.
Creative Focus at work
At Civis, we pride ourselves on delivering the truth above all else, a principle that is deeply entrenched in the research & social science technology which powers Creative Focus. Our message testing work runs the gamut, from progressive politics to national nonprofits to big name brands. We helped the Children’s Defense Fund learn which messages persuade skeptics to support anti-poverty programs, we’ve analyzed the impact of Super Bowl ads on brand favorability and purchase intent, and we work with progressive campaigns to understand what most persuades voters to support their candidate.
And while we’ve found some interesting trends along the way, more than anything we’ve learned to be surprised. It’s very hard to predict which message and which ads are going to perform best among voters.
This was especially clear with our recent work in the recent Alabama Senate race. Republican Roy Moore was mired in controversy and scandal, and our client was able to use Creative Focus to quickly find a message that would cut through the noise and persuade people to vote for candidate Doug Jones. As profiled by the New York Times, our message testing resulted in some unexpected findings about the messages and creatives that resonated with Alabama voters. Our client and the Jones campaign were able to take those insights and use them to choose the best messages and secure a historic victory. This is a good reminder that iterative, rapid message testing is a crucial piece of securing votes and winning elections.
Behind the Scenes
Creative Focus is built on the gold standard of scientific research — randomized control trials. In practice, this means that Creative Focus will randomly show some people one ad, show other people a second ad, and show others no ad. By measuring the opinions of each group in a survey and comparing them against one another, Civis can directly measure the impact of each ad on the outcomes that matter most, like candidate favorability and turnout likelihood.
For each message test, Civis will automatically send a survey to thousands of people who meet your criteria. Within just a few days of your original request, you’ll know how your messages performed, measure any potential backlash, and understand which subgroups were most receptive to each creative.
Once your tests are complete, Civis can then help you directly target the people who are most persuaded by your messages, building a custom persuasion audience (online or offline) for each piece of creative. In previous tests, this has resulted in a 40% cheaper cost per targeted impression over traditional first-party targeting online. And, most importantly, this creative-first targeting means that you are delivering your best messages to the most receptive audiences.
Great! How do I get started?
Creative Focus is now available for political and advocacy groups (and we’ll be releasing a version for the commercial sector in the coming months). If Creative Focus sounds like a good fit for your organization, drop us a line and we’ll get the ball rolling.
Happy testing!
¹ Research available upon request
² Research available upon request
