WEBVTT 1 00:00:20.519 --> 00:00:23.239 Welcome to pot Save America. I'm Dan Piferan. Today I'm 2 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:26.399 joined by Danielle Butterfield, the executive director of Priorities USA, 3 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:28.440 one of the largest and most important super PACs and 4 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:32.079 democratic politics. Priority USA does a lot of essential digital 5 00:00:32.119 --> 00:00:35.439 work in the party, building infrastructure, investing in research and data, 6 00:00:35.679 --> 00:00:38.600 and running ads to reach the voters campaigns often struggle 7 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:40.600 to reach. They're in the midst of a massive study 8 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:44.479 about how less engaged voters are getting their information on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, 9 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:47.159 and even Ai chatbots, the platforms that will decide the 10 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:49.240 twenty twenty eight election, whether we like it or not. 11 00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:52.560 Priorities has already started a thirty million dollar campaign to 12 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:55.600 define the twenty twenty eight Republicans like Jennie Vance and 13 00:00:55.640 --> 00:00:58.439 Marco Rubio, and I invited Danielle on the podcast to 14 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:01.240 unpack that research and talk about what they've learned. We 15 00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:04.000 dove into their findings, talked about how the media environment 16 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:06.359 has changed since the twenty twenty four election, and broke 17 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:08.480 down some of the ads they're already running. It was 18 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:10.400 a great conversation and we'll get to it in a minute, 19 00:01:10.439 --> 00:01:13.040 but before we do, please consider becoming a pain. Subscriber 20 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:15.040 to Friends of the Pod. Subscribers get access to the 21 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:19.319 single best show produced Acrocmedia, Pollar Coaster with Me, Dan Pfeiffer. 22 00:01:19.719 --> 00:01:21.400 I was forced to say that by producers, but I 23 00:01:21.439 --> 00:01:22.480 really do you like the show? And I think you 24 00:01:22.599 --> 00:01:24.959 like it too. This week on Pollar Coaster, we discussed 25 00:01:24.959 --> 00:01:27.439 Angie Nixon's upset winn in Florida, new pulling in the 26 00:01:27.519 --> 00:01:30.400 Michigan Center race, and a strange fake pulling scandal on 27 00:01:30.439 --> 00:01:32.599 the Ala mayor race. And while I have you out 28 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:35.439 there subscribing to truly great content, check out my substack 29 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:38.319 message box very breakdown what is happening in politics. You 30 00:01:38.359 --> 00:01:40.439 can find it all at cricketd dot com slash yes 31 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:42.599 We Dan, or subscribe to Friends of the Pod at 32 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:45.760 Crooked dot com slash friends. All right, here's my conversation 33 00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:48.840 with Daniel Butterfield. Daniel Butterfield, welcome to Pod Save America. 34 00:01:49.599 --> 00:01:50.480 Thanks for having me. 35 00:01:51.159 --> 00:01:53.400 All right, so excited to talk to you. Thanks for 36 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:56.680 doing this. Priorities has been working on a whole bunch 37 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:58.239 of things are really interesting to me. I want to 38 00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:01.280 talk to you about the study you've done on less 39 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:04.760 politically engage voters I want to talk to you about 40 00:02:05.439 --> 00:02:07.280 how you're thinking about ADS, and I really want to 41 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:10.120 talk to you about why you are already spending money 42 00:02:10.159 --> 00:02:12.039 to try to win the twenty twenty eight election in 43 00:02:12.039 --> 00:02:13.560 the middle of the twenty twenty sixth election. We're going 44 00:02:13.599 --> 00:02:15.319 to do all of that. I'm going a level set 45 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:18.759 on a couple things. First, For people who've been around 46 00:02:18.759 --> 00:02:20.879 politics as long as I have, they remember Priority to 47 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:23.680 the USA as sort of the Democratic superPAC spending tens 48 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:28.120 of millions of dollars to elect Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton 49 00:02:28.159 --> 00:02:31.120 spending money for Joe Biden. That's not what Priorities USA 50 00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:33.319 is now. So maybe talk a little bit about who 51 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:35.159 you are and what you guys are doing so our 52 00:02:35.199 --> 00:02:36.360 audience understands. 53 00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:37.000 Yeah. 54 00:02:37.039 --> 00:02:40.400 So I joined the Priority's USA team back in twenty seventeen, 55 00:02:40.800 --> 00:02:44.960 fresh off the Hillary Clinton campaign. Priorities, you know, up 56 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.800 until that point, had been operating to you, like you said, 57 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:51.879 as a presidential superpack. But in the aftermath of twenty sixteen, 58 00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:55.680 one of the most urgent, kind of quickest realizations that 59 00:02:55.719 --> 00:02:58.039 folks had about why we lost was just how little 60 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:02.280 Democrats had invested on digital compared to television. And so 61 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:04.960 the Prioriti's team got some funding to kind of stay 62 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:09.080 open beyond the presidential and really investigate why that is. 63 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:11.520 So that's when I joined the team. I became our 64 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.360 digital director alongside a bunch of other really smart people, 65 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:16.879 and we kind of made it our mission to really 66 00:03:17.039 --> 00:03:20.360 diagnose and understand why the Democratic Party is so severely 67 00:03:20.439 --> 00:03:23.719 underinvest in digital, but then also like to actually close 68 00:03:23.759 --> 00:03:25.319 the gap to right to raise a bunch of money 69 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:28.240 to spend on digital. And so flash forward to where 70 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:31.039 we are today. I like to say that we are 71 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:35.039 anchored as a as a presidential organization, but we really 72 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:37.360 have gotten to a point where we're using the midterm 73 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:40.960 elections and special elections to really prepare and get better 74 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:43.240 and innovate and try new things so that by the 75 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.879 time the next presidential election rules around were like that 76 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:47.960 much more ready for it. 77 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:49.599 So that's how I would think about us today. 78 00:03:50.280 --> 00:03:52.520 I know the presidential election seemed like a million years 79 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:54.479 away for a lot of people, but as I like 80 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:57.759 to point out that, if we follow the previous schedule, 81 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:01.319 one exactly one year from now, be Democrats and Republicans 82 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:05.360 on stage in debates actually like this thing will we 83 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.520 will be this thing will be often running the day 84 00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:11.120 after the midterms, so people should be prepared for that. 85 00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:16.120 And so just also to level set here. You know, 86 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:18.600 as you point out, like in twenty seventeen, you're worried 87 00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:21.240 about the digital gap in working on it. After the 88 00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:23.800 twenty twenty four election, there was this sort of widespread 89 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:27.959 consensus that Democrats had once again been out maneuvered digitally. 90 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:30.800 There's all the talk about all the podcasts that Trump 91 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:33.079 did and how they were, you know, using the internet 92 00:04:33.079 --> 00:04:36.480 to target these less engaged voters. You know, I think 93 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:38.279 that there was a general sincerity among a lot of 94 00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:40.160 people in the party to try to close the gap, 95 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:41.839 even if they didn't know exactly how to do it 96 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:45.360 or how the gap got there. Eighteen months after that election, 97 00:04:46.439 --> 00:04:48.639 where do you see things? Has the party made real 98 00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:50.680 improvements here? How much work needs to be done? 99 00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:54.360 Yeah, I mean, we obviously have made improvements, but we're 100 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:56.040 not where we need to be, right. I think in 101 00:04:56.079 --> 00:04:59.639 the aftermath of twenty sixteen, it was quite easy to say, wow, 102 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:02.680 cards are really not spending anything on digital. In the 103 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:06.360 aftermath of twenty twenty four, Democrats outspent Republicans two to 104 00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:09.319 one on digital. So it's no longer a numbers game. 105 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:12.600 It's actually like several layers below the surface, which makes 106 00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:15.000 it a lot more difficult to diagnose and solve. And 107 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:18.279 that's why, you know, it's no surprise that this the 108 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:20.399 last couple of years post twenty twenty four have been 109 00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:24.240 a really tough set of fundraising years for Democrats because 110 00:05:24.279 --> 00:05:26.639 the solutions to why we lost in twenty twenty four 111 00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:30.319 really require us to dive deep and solve some big, 112 00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:34.319 bigger cultural problems that we have ingrained in our party. 113 00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:36.120 And so, you know, I think, if I'm going to 114 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:39.680 diagnose that problem in one sentence, my read is that 115 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:42.759 while Democrats are spending a lot more money on digital 116 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:45.680 than they were back in twenty sixteen, we're still running 117 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:49.279 digital programs to mirror what goes on on television. And 118 00:05:49.319 --> 00:05:51.399 I think that's the crux of the problem that I'm 119 00:05:51.439 --> 00:05:52.040 seeing today. 120 00:05:52.439 --> 00:05:54.360 Could you say a little bit more about what that means? 121 00:05:55.240 --> 00:05:58.360 Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, twenty years ago, 122 00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:01.120 when a campaign was setting out to reach voters, they 123 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:03.480 had a handful of options of how they were going 124 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:05.800 to do that. They could buy, you know, broadcast cable 125 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:09.160 television points, they could knock doors, build an organizing program 126 00:06:09.480 --> 00:06:12.600 send out mail pieces. Digital really wasn't on the table. 127 00:06:12.680 --> 00:06:15.160 When you're setting out to you know, run a TV program. 128 00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:17.680 You're picking out DMAs that are efficient based on where 129 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:21.160 your your state or congressional district is. You're building really 130 00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:23.959 fancy models to determine which door I'm going to knock 131 00:06:23.959 --> 00:06:26.279 and which door I'm going to skip. You're, you know, 132 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:28.879 building mail pieces that you know, same thing you're going 133 00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:31.560 to mail to one house and not to another. But 134 00:06:31.639 --> 00:06:35.639 I think that what we have really failed to realize 135 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:39.519 is that digital opens up so many more possibilities to 136 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:41.600 be able to reach voters in ways that bleed so 137 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:45.279 much far beyond where you live, what your DMA is 138 00:06:45.480 --> 00:06:48.319 and what your voter file score is, And we're really 139 00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:52.639 failing to lean into the creativity that digital affords us 140 00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:55.959 when when we do that, and I think put put 141 00:06:56.160 --> 00:06:59.319 in a much simpler way, nine out of the ten 142 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:02.639 top U t ads in twenty twenty four were just 143 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:05.720 thirty second ads that ran on TV first. So we 144 00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:09.000 are quite literally practically taking thirty second ads that we 145 00:07:09.079 --> 00:07:11.959 run on TV and then putting them on YouTube and 146 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:13.319 expecting people to watch them. 147 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:15.439 And that is quite literally lighting money on fire. 148 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:17.839 I mean, I've instruck by this, and you know, as 149 00:07:17.879 --> 00:07:20.360 you know, we've been sort of both together and severally 150 00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:23.879 screaming about this for a long time. Yeah, anyone who 151 00:07:24.639 --> 00:07:30.519 watches YouTube would understand that a TV commercial run on 152 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:34.240 YouTube makes no sense. It would be like someone putting 153 00:07:34.279 --> 00:07:36.959 a print ad on your television when you were watching it, 154 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:40.160 so you would just be supposed to read it. And 155 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:45.279 they're obviously incredibly smart people working in digital spaces across 156 00:07:45.399 --> 00:07:48.399 the party in the Harris campaign and some of these 157 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:52.639 super PACs in the Biden campaign in twenty twenty. What 158 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:55.160 accounts for the fact that there we're sort of like 159 00:07:55.319 --> 00:08:00.000 jamming this anachronistic square peg into a much more modern roundhole. 160 00:08:01.240 --> 00:08:04.240 I mean, I think I cannot adequately answer this question 161 00:08:04.399 --> 00:08:07.319 without addressing the consultant driven nature. 162 00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:08.000 Of decisions. 163 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:12.519 Right like it is just if you want to look 164 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:16.399 at profit margins for a second, I'm what I'm basically 165 00:08:16.439 --> 00:08:19.519 declaring that a campaign should do costs a lot more 166 00:08:19.639 --> 00:08:21.600 than what it costs to run a TV campaign, So 167 00:08:21.639 --> 00:08:24.279 that such that if I'm asking a campaign to cut 168 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:26.360 twenty ads to put on the Internet instead of one 169 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:28.959 ad to ship to everyone, that is obviously going to 170 00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:31.519 eat into profit margins, and you know, the folks that 171 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:33.600 have been around for a really long time are going 172 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:36.720 to resist that. So I think that the pressure has 173 00:08:36.759 --> 00:08:39.519 to come from a from a different place. That's part 174 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:42.200 of what Priority sees as its role in this ecosystem 175 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:45.159 is pushing the hard questions and you know, trying to 176 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:48.039 get past profit margins as the as the core goal. 177 00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:50.120 It's it's, you know, ridiculous that we even have to 178 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:53.440 have that conversation, but it's it's also part of why. 179 00:08:53.519 --> 00:08:55.799 Like when I joined the team in twenty seventeen and 180 00:08:56.399 --> 00:08:59.080 you know, was offered the job as digital director, part 181 00:08:59.080 --> 00:09:01.159 of my negotiation and was I want to build an 182 00:09:01.159 --> 00:09:03.120 in house team because I don't want to have to 183 00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:06.360 worry about, you know, working with a set of consultants 184 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:08.440 that's ultimately going to be trying to you know, pay 185 00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:10.879 the bills. I want to hire people that are purely 186 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:14.480 focused on trying new things, innovating, and that has to 187 00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:17.039 be their their number one focus. You know, I don't 188 00:09:17.039 --> 00:09:18.799 want to get on here and say like consultants are 189 00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:21.039 in it for the right reasons, right, so many democratic 190 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:23.559 consultants want to win these elections, but they also have 191 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:25.840 to pay bills, and when you are forced to make 192 00:09:25.879 --> 00:09:30.440 decisions between paying bills and you know, winning elections, that's 193 00:09:30.519 --> 00:09:34.519 naturally going to create attention that we just can't ignore. 194 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:37.559 But anyway, all of that to say, you know, I 195 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:41.360 think it is extremely easy to look at the reach 196 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:45.320 numbers that YouTube affords where you're any given week eighty 197 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:49.600 ninety percent of voters are reachable on YouTube, and to say, oh, 198 00:09:49.679 --> 00:09:52.159 that's just an extension of TV, just like TV is 199 00:09:52.200 --> 00:09:54.720 A is a one size fits all reach broadcast. We 200 00:09:54.799 --> 00:09:58.799 literally use the word broadcast to describe TV. If you're 201 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:02.559 treating YouTube like a podcast channel, though, you're just missing 202 00:10:02.639 --> 00:10:04.919 the point, right. And I have a lot of good 203 00:10:04.960 --> 00:10:07.440 friends that you know, work on the Google sales team, 204 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:08.759 love them to death, but. 205 00:10:08.919 --> 00:10:11.639 Their sales pitch is YouTube is TV. 206 00:10:12.200 --> 00:10:14.679 I just fundamentally disagree with that, right, Like, if you 207 00:10:14.720 --> 00:10:17.320 are treating it like a broadcast channel, you were fully missing. 208 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:19.799 The point the YouTube is TV thing. And I'm going 209 00:10:19.879 --> 00:10:21.559 to get your study a minute, but you've got me 210 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:23.639 down a rabbit hole. And I knew that would happen 211 00:10:23.639 --> 00:10:27.200 in this conversation because this is a issue a particularly 212 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:30.879 nerdy interest for me. I mean, YouTube is TV. And 213 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:33.639 this is the thing I've done the round since twenty 214 00:10:33.679 --> 00:10:36.600 twenty four, meeting with various politicians, and I've tried to 215 00:10:36.600 --> 00:10:38.480 explain to them, and I use YouTube as TV for 216 00:10:38.519 --> 00:10:41.519 the purpose of understanding that for people to like actually socially, 217 00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:46.919 these politicians understand that young voters watch YouTube on their 218 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:50.440 TV right they come home, they turn it on. And 219 00:10:50.519 --> 00:10:52.879 what's different is they're not looking at TV guide or 220 00:10:52.919 --> 00:10:55.240 the literal TV guide that shows up in your affinity 221 00:10:55.399 --> 00:10:58.559 or cable. Thing is that the algorithm is showing them 222 00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:01.840 things based on you know, a lot of data mining 223 00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:05.200 and the and the things that subscribe to. But where 224 00:11:05.279 --> 00:11:09.440 the point you're making is where the analogy fails is 225 00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:13.399 that it is not consumed in the same way and 226 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:15.879 sort of like you can't just put a TV show 227 00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:18.279 on YouTube, which is why YouTube does not invest in 228 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:22.120 scripted television, Like there's like a lingua franca of it. 229 00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:25.519 And if the ads, if you're running TV ads on YouTube, 230 00:11:25.519 --> 00:11:28.399 even if it's being watched on a literal television, that's 231 00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:30.320 not what people are expecting, so they are more likely 232 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:32.519 to dismiss it, is that, right, Yeah, just. 233 00:11:32.519 --> 00:11:34.879 I think it's an attention span problem, right, and it's 234 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:36.879 a function of you know, if someone is sitting to 235 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:39.200 and you're correct that a majority of people when they're 236 00:11:39.279 --> 00:11:42.720 using YouTube are literally using watching it on a smart TV. 237 00:11:43.559 --> 00:11:46.120 And that is different than YouTube TV, which is like 238 00:11:46.159 --> 00:11:48.759 a subscription service that people pay for. No, it's literally 239 00:11:48.759 --> 00:11:52.240 YouTube dot com being streamed on a television device. But like, 240 00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:55.080 how many of those people are also holding their smartphone 241 00:11:55.080 --> 00:11:57.519 and playing games, Like I've it into that category, like 242 00:11:57.799 --> 00:11:59.879 it is extremely tough to get me to pay attention 243 00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:02.320 to one screen. And I know I'm not alone in 244 00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:06.279 that situation. So you both have an attention span challenge, 245 00:12:06.559 --> 00:12:09.480 and then you also have a challenge slash opportunity that 246 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:10.919 people are using YouTube in. 247 00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:13.360 Very different ways. It's a battleground, right. 248 00:12:13.399 --> 00:12:16.440 It's people listening to podcasts, it is people playing games. 249 00:12:16.759 --> 00:12:19.399 Is people watching clips that their friends send them, like 250 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:22.159 it is people listening to music. It's just it's so 251 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:25.000 many different things that if we're going to try to 252 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:28.399 squeeze it into to one category, we're really we're really 253 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:30.960 feeling And this does open up a really good, you know, 254 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:34.039 segue to a lot of the work that that Prairie 255 00:12:34.279 --> 00:12:37.879 is doing too to really understand, like you know, I'm 256 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:41.879 pretty tired of media consumption research looking like let's slap 257 00:12:41.879 --> 00:12:43.399 a question to the end of a poll and ask 258 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:47.039 how many people are watching YouTube. I need to know much, many, 259 00:12:47.080 --> 00:12:49.679 many more details than that to really understand how to 260 00:12:49.720 --> 00:12:52.080 cautacraft a media strategy. So that is the work that 261 00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:55.159 Priorities has been investing in since twenty twenty four. Wrap 262 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:57.200 actually way before twenty twenty. We were doing this in 263 00:12:57.240 --> 00:13:00.399 the middle of twenty twenty two, And that's the work 264 00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:01.840 that we're excited to chat about. 265 00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:04.399 Yeah, so you've, like I said, you've been studying how 266 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:07.759 people actually get information in this crazy, insane world we 267 00:13:07.799 --> 00:13:09.720 live in, and not's just how people like you and 268 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:11.399 I can information because we kind of get information the 269 00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:13.200 same way people have always got information, Like we're going 270 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:16.399 to sources to get it. We're following politics closely. But 271 00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:18.600 you know, as we've talked about sort of endlessly on 272 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:21.320 this podcast and elsewhere since twenty twenty four, is the 273 00:13:21.360 --> 00:13:24.799 swing voter is not necessarily a well informed centrist white 274 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:27.759 man from Wisconsin. It is someone who doesn't pay that 275 00:13:27.799 --> 00:13:30.200 much attention to politics and is sort of kind of 276 00:13:30.759 --> 00:13:34.799 you know, surfing the news at best and we're very weeded. 277 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:36.840 We're not very good at reaching the people or understanding 278 00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:39.080 those people. So you've been looking at them. So before 279 00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:40.679 we get into like what you actually found, can you 280 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:45.600 get walk us through the process by which you try 281 00:13:45.639 --> 00:13:49.639 to understand the media habits of these less politically engaged individuals. 282 00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:50.240 Yeah. 283 00:13:50.279 --> 00:13:52.799 Absolutely, But just to underscore what you just said in 284 00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:55.679 our post twenty twenty four research, we actually found that, 285 00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:00.639 beyond age demographic, geographic indicators, that your consumption of YouTube 286 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:04.320 was more predictive of your vote choice and your vote 287 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:07.039 swing from twenty to twenty four than anything else. 288 00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:08.919 So people think that you were more likely to vote 289 00:14:08.919 --> 00:14:10.440 for Trump the more you could you watch. 290 00:14:10.519 --> 00:14:11.399 Yeah, exactly. 291 00:14:11.519 --> 00:14:14.559 So basically the crosstab was that men, men who are 292 00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:16.519 watching more than three hours of YouTube have some of 293 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:18.799 the highest swing of any other you know, cross tab 294 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:21.039 that we were looking at, and that it also applies 295 00:14:21.039 --> 00:14:23.360 to people who are listening to podcasts, It also applies 296 00:14:23.399 --> 00:14:25.799 to women. It's it's just it's pretty consistent that your 297 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:29.679 Internet consumption patterns are very predictive of how much you swung. 298 00:14:30.279 --> 00:14:33.879 From a persuasion standpoint, sour our team, you know, took 299 00:14:33.879 --> 00:14:36.279 that information and said Okay, like we got to be 300 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:39.399 media consultants for the twenty first century because if no 301 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:40.919 one else is going to do it, like, let's let 302 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:43.679 us step up and play that role. And so we 303 00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:46.000 basically have this project that our team has been working 304 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:48.039 on that really takes a look at We have an 305 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:50.000 always on survey operation. 306 00:14:49.799 --> 00:14:51.399 Where it's actually really cool. 307 00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:55.120 We actually, in a normal kind of survey environment, we 308 00:14:55.159 --> 00:14:58.159 pay people to send us a screenshot of their screen 309 00:14:58.200 --> 00:15:01.039 time apps. I'm sure you guys have like logged in 310 00:15:01.080 --> 00:15:03.200 to see like how much time you spend on Twitter 311 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:06.080 every single day, But we're actually paying people to send 312 00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:08.519 us a screenshot of that and then validating it against 313 00:15:08.519 --> 00:15:11.559 what they self report to where they spend time, and 314 00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:14.120 then using that as an understanding of what new apps 315 00:15:14.120 --> 00:15:16.559 are popping that should be on our radar. How much 316 00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:20.039 are is YouTube consumption changing over the summer. How how 317 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:23.919 much are people you know changing their subscriptions between Hulu 318 00:15:23.960 --> 00:15:27.159 and Peacock depending on you know, what reality TV show 319 00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:29.240 is on, which is very common and the thing that 320 00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:31.919 I think our team was highly surprised to see how 321 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:34.840 much people change up their subscriptions, which is very you know. 322 00:15:34.840 --> 00:15:35.519 Good information. 323 00:15:35.840 --> 00:15:38.200 So basically Part one is is an always on survey 324 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:40.600 operation to just get a baseline of like where are 325 00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:44.159 people spending time. We then do kind of quarterly sometimes 326 00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:47.360 monthly deep dives on specific topics that our team wants 327 00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:51.080 to dig into. So last summer we did a deep 328 00:15:51.159 --> 00:15:54.200 dive on audio consumption to really understand specifically, how are 329 00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:58.679 people consuming music, podcast, et cetera, what platform, What are 330 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:00.600 some patterns that that we can you know, take into 331 00:16:00.639 --> 00:16:03.360 account from a media planning perspective. 332 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:04.399 And then we also. 333 00:16:04.200 --> 00:16:07.600 Acquire you know, third party data that often is very 334 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:10.279 kind of observational and behavioral in nature, so that we 335 00:16:10.279 --> 00:16:13.759 can actually observe what people are doing. And the search 336 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:17.039 data that Peter Hanby wrote about over the weekend is 337 00:16:17.399 --> 00:16:22.360 that third category where we paid to acquire people's search data, 338 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:24.240 and then we did a really long term kind of 339 00:16:24.240 --> 00:16:26.919 study to kind of better understand what patterns we could 340 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:27.480 pick up there. 341 00:16:35.679 --> 00:16:37.679 Pase America is brought to you by HYA. 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I think it's like the single 429 00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:41.359 most interesting thing that you can do to observe where 430 00:20:41.400 --> 00:20:44.839 someone's head is at. It is literally like knocking on 431 00:20:44.839 --> 00:20:47.400 someone's door and then being able to say to you, hey, 432 00:20:47.400 --> 00:20:49.559 I'm really interested in immigration. You can then have a 433 00:20:49.599 --> 00:20:52.519 conversation with them about immigration. They're like quite literally telling 434 00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:54.960 you what they're interested in. And So for a long time, 435 00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:57.119 I've just been really interested in how can we, you know, 436 00:20:57.240 --> 00:21:01.359 do more to understand people's search behavior, how can we 437 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:03.119 use it, how can we learn from it, et cetera. 438 00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:06.119 So we worked with a third party data provider to 439 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:09.599 acquire and pay for a set of people who basically 440 00:21:09.599 --> 00:21:13.240 opted in to share their behavioral data with with this 441 00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:15.720 data provider. So basically, like you could go to your 442 00:21:15.759 --> 00:21:18.880 YouTube account right now and say download my history, you 443 00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:20.160 could do the same thing on Twitter. 444 00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:22.680 I actually highly recommend it. It's like very entertaining. 445 00:21:22.759 --> 00:21:25.079 You like, download your history, upload it to Claude, tell 446 00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:27.519 it to give you some analysis, it is like better 447 00:21:27.559 --> 00:21:29.279 than therapy in a lot of ways. 448 00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:32.000 But or release they maybe claud will tell you to 449 00:21:32.039 --> 00:21:33.160 go to therapy after reading it. 450 00:21:33.640 --> 00:21:36.599 Yeah, potentially I'll call it complimentary to therapy. 451 00:21:37.839 --> 00:21:40.640 But anyway, so we did that with a provider that 452 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:43.039 was able to send us search behavior across you know 453 00:21:43.119 --> 00:21:46.039 the major kind of traditional search engines, Google being the 454 00:21:46.039 --> 00:21:48.839 most predominant one, but also you know, Gemini, Chat, EBT, 455 00:21:49.319 --> 00:21:54.240 and then some of the major social media engines YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, 456 00:21:54.319 --> 00:21:56.680 et cetera, and so our team it was about six 457 00:21:56.759 --> 00:21:57.559 million searches. 458 00:21:58.200 --> 00:22:00.319 We did it across two different time periods. 459 00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:02.519 The first was like the last couple of months of 460 00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:04.960 twenty twenty four, and then the second time period was 461 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:07.319 like a chunk of twenty twenty five. We wanted to 462 00:22:07.359 --> 00:22:09.599 be able to kind of look at it into chunks. 463 00:22:10.039 --> 00:22:13.000 Our team spent a couple of weeks like really really 464 00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:15.240 analyzing the data. It was like a huge you know, 465 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.119 undertaking to take a look at the trends. We definitely 466 00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:21.839 would not have been able to do this project if 467 00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:24.720 our team wasn't you know, fully enabling AI to do 468 00:22:24.799 --> 00:22:26.200 a lot of the heavy lifting in the work. We 469 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:30.000 are a very let's lean into AI organization at priorities, 470 00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:33.880 and we walked away with, you know, unsurprisingly a huge 471 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:37.160 number of insights that our team is currently using to 472 00:22:37.319 --> 00:22:39.799 both run programs that we're running here in twenty six 473 00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:44.000 but also looking ahead to twenty twenty eight. So yeah, 474 00:22:44.039 --> 00:22:45.640 happy to share more about kind of what we learned 475 00:22:45.799 --> 00:22:46.119 before we. 476 00:22:46.119 --> 00:22:49.759 Get to the actual finance. With the search. The context 477 00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:51.680 of search in this day and age is very interesting 478 00:22:51.720 --> 00:22:56.599 because for most of the last twenty years, search meant 479 00:22:56.680 --> 00:22:59.000 one thing, and one thing only the. 480 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:00.599 People at the people at being would would not. 481 00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:03.599 Yes, there's a small handful of being people out there 482 00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:06.200 who use it, and you know, we had Netscape. It's 483 00:23:06.200 --> 00:23:08.039 we had some things earlier and they are It was 484 00:23:08.079 --> 00:23:08.720 actually a. 485 00:23:08.759 --> 00:23:12.920 Highly highly effective fundraising platform on the presidential campaigns that 486 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:13.440 I worked on. 487 00:23:13.559 --> 00:23:16.359 Guests, Well, there you go. I am learning something brand 488 00:23:16.359 --> 00:23:20.079 new today. But it meant it meant via Google or 489 00:23:20.279 --> 00:23:24.200 bing searching the web. That's something very very different now, 490 00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:27.559 as particularly as the social media and I'm gonna get 491 00:23:27.559 --> 00:23:30.759 to AI later on this conversation, but as the social 492 00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:34.240 media platforms become more places where people sort of live, 493 00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:38.680 particularly TikTok and Instagram, Like how are you thinking about? 494 00:23:38.839 --> 00:23:42.640 Like how does that? How many like our people? I 495 00:23:42.680 --> 00:23:44.720 assume people are are searching for the same thing that 496 00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:49.200 people used to search Google for a few years ago, 497 00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:51.880 are now searching on Instagram or TikTok or elsewhere? Or 498 00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:54.039 are their differences in those search like what did you find? 499 00:23:54.839 --> 00:23:57.759 Yeah? I think like Google is still king, Like let's 500 00:23:57.960 --> 00:23:58.920 let's just be really clear. 501 00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:02.960 Google is still huge market share, predominant market share, and 502 00:24:03.279 --> 00:24:05.240 Google makes a majority of their money off of search, 503 00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:08.119 not YouTube, Like, let's just name that they were going 504 00:24:08.160 --> 00:24:11.119 to do everything they can to not lose that spot 505 00:24:11.160 --> 00:24:15.200 in the market. But even as people are spending more 506 00:24:15.240 --> 00:24:18.119 and more time online, I like to think about it, 507 00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:20.359 and this comes into play a lot when you're putting 508 00:24:20.359 --> 00:24:23.400 together a media plan. As people spend more time online, 509 00:24:23.599 --> 00:24:25.960 they're just doing more, right, Like you are both using 510 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:29.079 Instagram and TikTok and search every day instead of picking 511 00:24:29.079 --> 00:24:29.680 between them. 512 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:30.799 And so I think what we. 513 00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:33.200 Are starting to see is that the behaviors between these 514 00:24:33.240 --> 00:24:37.559 different search engines are different, which is really helpful learning, right, 515 00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:40.559 Like people are going to Google to really fact check 516 00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:43.279 and get basic information, but then they're going to chat 517 00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:46.839 GBT to really like put together robust plans and really 518 00:24:46.839 --> 00:24:50.519 go back and forth, whereas you know Instagram, TikTok, it 519 00:24:50.519 --> 00:24:53.240 can become a little bit more entertaining in nature. So 520 00:24:53.400 --> 00:24:55.920 I like to think about it less of a binary 521 00:24:56.039 --> 00:24:59.039 choice that people are making between these different platforms. Obviously 522 00:24:59.119 --> 00:25:03.119 there are t in that direction, but it's more about 523 00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:06.279 how are people using these different platforms for different different reasons. 524 00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:08.559 The thing I will say that I think is a 525 00:25:08.759 --> 00:25:11.440 really important piece of the learning here is, like I said, 526 00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:14.200 Google is still top of the list. I think our 527 00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:18.720 party is very interested in understanding people's relationships to chatbots 528 00:25:18.759 --> 00:25:22.039 and AI As a search engine, that is incredibly important 529 00:25:22.039 --> 00:25:25.599 and it's changing rapidly. But people using YouTube as a 530 00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:30.519 search engine is incredibly underdiscussed. I think that YouTube is 531 00:25:30.559 --> 00:25:34.240 the number two search engine behind Google. Those data sets 532 00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:37.279 are obviously integrated under one umbrella, and it's a place 533 00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:39.599 that I think we definitely don't spend enough time thinking about, 534 00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:41.440 and we can actually do a lot more there than 535 00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:42.720 we can on chatbots. 536 00:25:43.319 --> 00:25:45.480 What do you when you say do more? Because you 537 00:25:45.519 --> 00:25:47.119 can you can. 538 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:50.960 Manipulate, you can manipulate and run ads and produce video 539 00:25:51.079 --> 00:25:53.640 content that appears when someone searches for a topic that 540 00:25:53.680 --> 00:25:55.759 you want to appear on, right Like, we know for 541 00:25:55.839 --> 00:25:58.839 a fact that AEO is a hot topic right now. 542 00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:01.279 People really want to understand and how they can influence 543 00:26:01.319 --> 00:26:04.079 a search result in a chatbot. But we you know, 544 00:26:04.359 --> 00:26:06.599 YouTube search has been around for for such a long time. 545 00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:09.079 It's it's a lot easier to manipulate what comes up 546 00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:12.559 when someone searches for something on YouTube in a way 547 00:26:12.559 --> 00:26:14.720 that I think the Democratic Party needs to be spending 548 00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:17.920 a lot more time producing video than they do, you know, 549 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:19.400 manipulating chatbot results. 550 00:26:19.759 --> 00:26:20.799 It's not it's not a choice. 551 00:26:20.839 --> 00:26:21.000 It's not. 552 00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:22.960 It's not it's a false choice. But I think we 553 00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:24.000 got to spend more time with it. 554 00:26:24.599 --> 00:26:27.319 I am of a certain generation because I'm old where 555 00:26:28.519 --> 00:26:30.119 YouTube is not the same to me, Like I didn't 556 00:26:30.119 --> 00:26:32.400 grow up using YouTube, obviously grow up with the Internet. 557 00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:36.519 We're gonna have to discuss that here. And but like 558 00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:38.319 I think a lot of people who are in politics, 559 00:26:38.359 --> 00:26:40.960 many of them are my age and older inn Gerontocracy, 560 00:26:41.920 --> 00:26:44.200 don't fully understand just like how big YouTube is that 561 00:26:44.279 --> 00:26:46.960 it's the biggest video platform in the world's biggest music 562 00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:48.720 platform in the world. It's bigger than Spotify on music, 563 00:26:48.759 --> 00:26:51.559 it's better than Apple podcasts or Spotify as a podcast platform. 564 00:26:51.599 --> 00:26:56.400 That it is just this gigantic thing that dominates people's lives. 565 00:26:56.400 --> 00:26:58.119 I don't think people really get that. But let's let's 566 00:26:58.119 --> 00:27:02.119 get to let's get to what you found about. Well, 567 00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:04.200 when you were analyzing this data, what are sort of 568 00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:05.839 what are the major insights you've got? 569 00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:08.960 Yeah, So I think the number one headline is that 570 00:27:09.960 --> 00:27:12.480 people are not searching for anything political. Of the six 571 00:27:12.519 --> 00:27:15.279 million searches that we acquired, less than one hundred thousand 572 00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:18.680 were political or even politically adjacent. The reality is, and 573 00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:20.440 I think the thing that you know keeps the team 574 00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:23.279 at Priorities USA up at night but also motivates our 575 00:27:23.319 --> 00:27:26.680 work is that people just aren't thinking about politics and 576 00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:29.279 we have to really if we don't understand that going 577 00:27:29.319 --> 00:27:32.039 into crafting a campaign, we're really going to miss miss 578 00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:35.480 the mark on how do we actually then reach someone. So, 579 00:27:35.599 --> 00:27:37.960 you know, I think in doing our analysis, we found 580 00:27:38.440 --> 00:27:40.720 a lot of really awesome patterns around when people do. 581 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:41.839 Search for politics. 582 00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:45.160 It's eye opening for our team around how soon out 583 00:27:45.160 --> 00:27:47.599 from the election are people starting to search for their 584 00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:50.920 pulling location? When are they searching for information about their candidates. 585 00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:53.079 Like all our team is quite literally right now, it's 586 00:27:53.160 --> 00:27:56.240 you know, a Friday afternoon. That is like literally what 587 00:27:56.279 --> 00:27:58.880 they are working on to craft our twenty twenty six campaigns. 588 00:27:59.799 --> 00:28:02.960 But you know, more importantly, it's opening our eyes. I 589 00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:06.559 think to the thing that I'm the most excited about 590 00:28:06.680 --> 00:28:09.640 and nerding out about is this category of what we're 591 00:28:09.640 --> 00:28:14.880 calling politically adjacent categories that are a really awesome entry 592 00:28:14.920 --> 00:28:18.480 point for us to be having relevant conversations with people 593 00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:21.759 when they aren't thinking about politics, but they're one step 594 00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:24.480 away from thinking about politics. And let me just give 595 00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:26.279 you an analogy on this really quick, because I think 596 00:28:26.279 --> 00:28:28.799 it's helpful at kind of landing why this is important. 597 00:28:29.319 --> 00:28:31.119 I like to I spend a lot of time thinking 598 00:28:31.119 --> 00:28:34.039 about how can we as political advertisers compare ourselves to 599 00:28:34.119 --> 00:28:37.480 corporate advertisers because it's a billion dollar industry and there's 600 00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:39.279 a lot that we can learn from people that are 601 00:28:39.319 --> 00:28:42.480 quite literally doing similar work to us. But at the 602 00:28:42.519 --> 00:28:45.359 end of the day, you know, I said this to Peter, 603 00:28:45.480 --> 00:28:48.880 but Nike knows that you're training for a marathon, and 604 00:28:49.039 --> 00:28:51.640 they're using that information to sell you shoes at that 605 00:28:51.720 --> 00:28:56.160 particular moment, target knows that you are pregnant, probably before 606 00:28:56.200 --> 00:28:57.680 you do. There was that story that came out on 607 00:28:57.720 --> 00:29:00.720 that a couple of years ago. My algorith them currently 608 00:29:00.759 --> 00:29:03.799 knows that I'm shopping for fall shoes, and it is 609 00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:06.079 quite helpful to me, and I actually really appreciate the 610 00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:09.559 algorithm for knowing exactly what I want. The reality is 611 00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:13.960 that advertising writ large is like very contextually relevant and 612 00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:17.200 like very genuinely helpful in a lot of ways, and 613 00:29:17.319 --> 00:29:21.440 that political advertising is not that political advertising is just interruptive. 614 00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:23.640 We like show up in the most random moments and 615 00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:26.680 want to like interrupt your day. And we got to 616 00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:28.680 get closer to the corporate model. We got to create 617 00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:31.559 campaigns that are actually you know, relevant to someone's day 618 00:29:32.599 --> 00:29:35.559 and you know, behaviorally, I think we can take a 619 00:29:35.599 --> 00:29:38.920 lot a closer look at where people are actually interested 620 00:29:39.759 --> 00:29:42.799 and then create those connective points between what they're interested 621 00:29:42.799 --> 00:29:44.839 in and how can we can shift the conversation to 622 00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:47.160 politics and have a million ideas of what that looks 623 00:29:47.200 --> 00:29:48.480 like that I'm happy to dive into. 624 00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:52.200 Yeah, so I want to like you raised this very 625 00:29:52.319 --> 00:29:54.319 and I was very struck by that quote from you, 626 00:29:54.559 --> 00:29:55.200 and I. 627 00:29:55.119 --> 00:29:57.359 Gotta get starting paid I gotta get paid by Nike 628 00:29:57.440 --> 00:29:57.960 at some point. 629 00:29:59.279 --> 00:29:59.720 That's right. 630 00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:03.880 No free ads. As a rule, we have everyone who 631 00:30:03.880 --> 00:30:07.200 spends any time on the Internet understands that your phone 632 00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:11.440 is tracking everything you do and then giving you serving 633 00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:15.880 you information ads about that very thing. As you point out, right, 634 00:30:16.359 --> 00:30:18.799 like you have kids. It knows you have kids. Back 635 00:30:18.839 --> 00:30:20.920 to school comes, it's back to school stuff, right, it's 636 00:30:21.319 --> 00:30:23.559 they know you've done. You've done. You've searched Disneyland on 637 00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:25.000 the internet. Now you're going to get a bunch of 638 00:30:25.039 --> 00:30:27.759 Disney content. You're going to get advertised in a million 639 00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:31.519 different ways through you know, on Instagram, through TikTok, on 640 00:30:31.559 --> 00:30:33.960 your uh, you know, in your Gmail. You're going to 641 00:30:34.039 --> 00:30:37.119 get Disneyland ads for right, or from travel crims whatever else. 642 00:30:39.400 --> 00:30:44.640 If the corporate model is behavioral based advertising, what has 643 00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:47.920 the political model been to date? What is that based on. 644 00:30:48.039 --> 00:30:49.599 It's the same conversation we just had. 645 00:30:49.640 --> 00:30:53.400 It's based on your geography and your voter file score. 646 00:30:53.759 --> 00:30:57.680 I think ninety plus percent of democratic advertising investments to 647 00:30:57.759 --> 00:30:59.079 date have been based on. 648 00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:00.200 Where you live. 649 00:31:00.720 --> 00:31:03.400 Not as a proxy for you know, you being close 650 00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:06.440 to a data center or on a user university campus, 651 00:31:06.519 --> 00:31:09.440 but just how likely am I if I were to 652 00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:11.559 throw a dart to reach a black voter or reach 653 00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:14.279 a college student like that. It is based on density 654 00:31:14.359 --> 00:31:16.039 and efficiency for the most part. 655 00:31:16.759 --> 00:31:19.880 That's like how people use geography to target. 656 00:31:19.880 --> 00:31:21.680 And then when it comes to a voter file, it's 657 00:31:21.799 --> 00:31:25.559 just you know, the ease of someone is building you 658 00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:29.000 a model. They're telling you which voter you should knock 659 00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:31.000 and which voter you shouldn't, which voter you should mail 660 00:31:31.039 --> 00:31:34.119 and which you shouldn't. And digital practitioners have been told 661 00:31:34.119 --> 00:31:36.440 for a really long time, hey, can you target this list. 662 00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:37.960 Of voters that we think is important. 663 00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:40.799 There's technology that exists to be able to upload an 664 00:31:40.799 --> 00:31:43.960 offline list and match it to the internet, but that's 665 00:31:44.039 --> 00:31:47.240 just completely you know, ignoring every online signal that you 666 00:31:47.559 --> 00:31:50.680 can add to to make sure that that you know 667 00:31:50.759 --> 00:31:53.920 becomes becomes relevant to the to the end user. 668 00:31:54.319 --> 00:31:55.759 So yeah, status quo is. 669 00:31:55.839 --> 00:31:58.240 I would say geography and voter file are like the 670 00:31:58.279 --> 00:32:02.000 primary drivers of current targeting and we're out here screaming 671 00:32:02.119 --> 00:32:03.279 there's more to it than that. 672 00:32:04.359 --> 00:32:06.359 Is identity part of that as well, at least like 673 00:32:06.359 --> 00:32:08.240 in a broad based way, like especially if you're back 674 00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:10.279 in the days when you're advertising on Facebook where you 675 00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:14.039 would be you know, targeting people of a certain demographic 676 00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:16.880 group or certain age group that you would be reaching, 677 00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:19.839 but it's not tied to any specific knowledge about what 678 00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:21.400 those people care about. Correct. 679 00:32:21.680 --> 00:32:25.319 Yeah, I would say like age and demographic come into 680 00:32:25.400 --> 00:32:29.279 play a lot, probably more rarely than you would think, right, 681 00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:31.079 Like I think when I was on the Obama campaign 682 00:32:31.319 --> 00:32:35.440 in twenty twelve, we definitely had age and gender tracks, 683 00:32:35.480 --> 00:32:38.519 we had demographic tracks layered on top of kind of 684 00:32:38.559 --> 00:32:41.599 our broadcast track, But in a small congressional race, Like, 685 00:32:41.640 --> 00:32:45.240 I think, that's a lot more rare than you might expect. 686 00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:48.000 And I'm not out here saying that age, demo, geographic 687 00:32:48.039 --> 00:32:51.680 targeting isn't important, it's it's highly critical. I think we're 688 00:32:51.759 --> 00:32:54.200 just saying that the next step beyond that of really 689 00:32:54.200 --> 00:32:56.599 trying to understand how to reach someone based on things 690 00:32:56.599 --> 00:33:00.920 that were not necessarily observing offline but instead online, we 691 00:33:00.920 --> 00:33:04.039 should be pushing ourselves to think in that category because 692 00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:05.440 it's just going to make it's going to make us 693 00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:06.640 better advertisers. 694 00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.960 Is cost prohibitive here or is that a problem? Is 695 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.400 it much more obviously much more expensive to market to 696 00:33:12.440 --> 00:33:16.839 someone based on you know, specific targeted not you know, 697 00:33:17.079 --> 00:33:21.599 information about their online presence, that just targeting a group 698 00:33:21.599 --> 00:33:23.079 who happen to live in a certain zip code. 699 00:33:23.400 --> 00:33:24.400 Not in a major way. 700 00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:28.240 I mean, you know, like I think Facebook, their CPMs 701 00:33:28.240 --> 00:33:30.039 get a lot lower when you kind of give them 702 00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:32.480 free will to pick out who you want them to reach. 703 00:33:32.599 --> 00:33:35.000 So when you're running a campaign on Facebook and you're 704 00:33:35.039 --> 00:33:38.680 saying as long as someone cares about fitness, go ahead 705 00:33:38.680 --> 00:33:40.640 and reach them, that gives them a lot more free 706 00:33:40.640 --> 00:33:43.759 will to target folks than if you were to upload 707 00:33:43.759 --> 00:33:45.400 a file and say I only want to target these 708 00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:48.240 hundred thousand people. So that does impact the CPM, but 709 00:33:48.440 --> 00:33:48.839 a in. 710 00:33:48.799 --> 00:33:49.559 A helpful way. 711 00:33:50.200 --> 00:33:52.279 We have a lot of questions and we're doing a 712 00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:54.799 lot of research aut period is around just how you 713 00:33:54.839 --> 00:33:57.720 can kind of validate that that data that you get 714 00:33:57.759 --> 00:33:59.000 on places like Facebook, YouTube. 715 00:33:59.039 --> 00:34:01.079 But no, I would say cost. 716 00:34:01.200 --> 00:34:03.960 If someone's bringing up costs as an excuse not to 717 00:34:04.039 --> 00:34:06.480 do a campaign like this, they're they're probably not fully 718 00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:09.280 grasping what we're talking about. Obviously, I think what I 719 00:34:09.320 --> 00:34:12.840 am describing here does require incremental costs. 720 00:34:12.599 --> 00:34:13.800 From a production standpoint. 721 00:34:13.840 --> 00:34:16.320 I think the model we are describing certainly requires you 722 00:34:16.360 --> 00:34:19.320 to make many, many more ads than a TV one 723 00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:22.039 size fits all program. But I also think there's a 724 00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:24.039 ton more that we can be doing on the kind 725 00:34:24.039 --> 00:34:28.000 of AI automation side to make the production process faster, easier. 726 00:34:28.199 --> 00:34:30.800 That actually has nothing to do with you know, AI slop. 727 00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:33.280 You can you can automate the back end without making 728 00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:35.480 the front end of it AI driven. 729 00:34:36.559 --> 00:34:40.239 But like, can we live in a world where using 730 00:34:40.280 --> 00:34:42.840 the voter file, we've identified a set of target voters 731 00:34:43.039 --> 00:34:46.760 in a swing state and we now know that this 732 00:34:46.840 --> 00:34:49.880 swing voter has been searching on This is creepy. A 733 00:34:49.880 --> 00:34:51.920 lot of people has been searching on the internet about 734 00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:55.880 cyclospora and food recalls. And then could you then get 735 00:34:55.920 --> 00:34:59.199 a camp, present a well funded, well run digitally forward 736 00:34:59.239 --> 00:35:03.480 presential campaign, then target that voter with an AD. In 737 00:35:03.519 --> 00:35:06.599 twenty twenty eight, that said, you know, in the Trump 738 00:35:06.679 --> 00:35:09.760 Vance administrate, presuming Chade advances ceminy and the Trump Vance administration, 739 00:35:10.360 --> 00:35:13.360 they cut all the funding which led to these Bluebird 740 00:35:13.400 --> 00:35:15.559 recalls or Leus recalls or whatever else, Like, is that 741 00:35:16.079 --> 00:35:17.719 something that can be done at scale? 742 00:35:18.039 --> 00:35:20.480 So Google doesn't allow you to use offline data to 743 00:35:20.519 --> 00:35:22.880 do targeting. They got rid of that. I think it 744 00:35:22.920 --> 00:35:25.840 was twenty nineteen. But everything else that you describe, yes, 745 00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:27.519 would would be doable. 746 00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:30.840 I think, though, the reason that I care a little 747 00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:33.199 bit less about the front end, Like here's the voters 748 00:35:33.239 --> 00:35:36.239 I particularly care about is think about how a model 749 00:35:36.280 --> 00:35:39.440 is built. Right, You take a look at someone's vote history, 750 00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:41.280 and then you ask them a bunch of questions in 751 00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:44.639 a survey to infer you know how they're going to 752 00:35:44.840 --> 00:35:47.760 you know how they're going to vote, and you you 753 00:35:47.880 --> 00:35:50.079 apply that to a broader set of voters, and you 754 00:35:50.119 --> 00:35:52.159 make predictions about how you think someone's going to vote 755 00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:55.920 based on them being male, going to church, reading books 756 00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:56.559 on the weekend. 757 00:35:56.599 --> 00:35:57.239 Whatever. It is. 758 00:35:57.239 --> 00:35:59.800 Like, there's a bunch of really smart data people out 759 00:35:59.800 --> 00:36:02.239 there that are building really smart models. I think what 760 00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:05.320 we're saying, though, is, in addition to asking someone a 761 00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:07.239 survey question to inform. 762 00:36:06.920 --> 00:36:09.840 A model, what if you just observe what they do instead? 763 00:36:10.239 --> 00:36:12.440 Right, Like, how can we get to a point where 764 00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:15.400 we are, you know, not relying on offline data to 765 00:36:15.559 --> 00:36:18.559 predict where someone is and instead just you know, if 766 00:36:18.599 --> 00:36:22.119 someone's searching for whether their lettuce is contaminated, I don't 767 00:36:22.199 --> 00:36:24.760 really care how they voted in twenty twenty. I think 768 00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:27.800 that ad is probably quite relevant to them. So, and 769 00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:29.760 you don't even pay for an ad until someone clicks 770 00:36:29.800 --> 00:36:31.960 on it. So why don't we just try and get 771 00:36:32.039 --> 00:36:35.000 rid of the kind of front end marker to begin with? 772 00:36:35.159 --> 00:36:35.800 Does that make sense? 773 00:36:36.119 --> 00:36:38.880 Okay, let's get into just sort of all right, So 774 00:36:38.880 --> 00:36:40.760 we got a bunch of these voters who are less 775 00:36:40.760 --> 00:36:43.440 politically engaged. You've looked at, you know, of the six 776 00:36:43.559 --> 00:36:47.159 million searches you had, you know, the rolling percentage of 777 00:36:47.159 --> 00:36:50.199 them were non political. What are these theoretically non political 778 00:36:50.239 --> 00:36:53.280 people doing on the internet? Where are they? What are 779 00:36:53.280 --> 00:36:53.960 they interested in? 780 00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:54.719 Yeah? 781 00:36:54.760 --> 00:36:58.239 So one of the most interesting, remarkable findings that we 782 00:36:58.320 --> 00:37:01.639 saw is just how much people are you know, searching 783 00:37:01.800 --> 00:37:05.039 for you know, what we're calling kind of public benefit programs. 784 00:37:05.079 --> 00:37:08.559 People searching for how to download a FASTA form, how 785 00:37:08.559 --> 00:37:11.920 to apply for medicaid? What is medicaid called in my state? 786 00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:16.599 Those are all I think it's a very like large 787 00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:18.840 percentage of the searches that we are seeing in that 788 00:37:18.960 --> 00:37:22.800 kind of politically adjacent field. And it's a really important 789 00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:25.119 signal to us that someone who is searching for a 790 00:37:25.119 --> 00:37:29.079 FASTA form should probably fall into a particular bucket of 791 00:37:29.079 --> 00:37:32.280 communication that looks different than someone who's searching for whether 792 00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:35.480 their lettuce is contaminated. I think that was the most 793 00:37:35.480 --> 00:37:39.039 remarkable finding that that I saw that I think we're 794 00:37:39.480 --> 00:37:40.559 eager to act on. 795 00:37:48.599 --> 00:37:50.960 Pace America is brought to you by HIMS. ED is 796 00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:53.719 more common than guys talk about. The good news. Getting 797 00:37:53.719 --> 00:37:55.800 real treatment is simple and through hymns, a's one hundred 798 00:37:55.800 --> 00:37:59.440 percent online. 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Hymns is not affiliated with or endorsed 817 00:38:55.400 --> 00:38:56.719 by Vatrice. 818 00:39:03.280 --> 00:39:05.440 The grand mystery, right, it is like, I know where 819 00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:07.039 you get your information, or you know where someone like 820 00:39:07.079 --> 00:39:11.280 me gets my information. How but all these people who 821 00:39:11.320 --> 00:39:14.320 pay no attention to politics, like you don't actively pay 822 00:39:14.360 --> 00:39:18.239 attention to politics, are forming political opinions right or that 823 00:39:18.400 --> 00:39:21.599 like or even if they're very broad, they have a 824 00:39:21.679 --> 00:39:24.920 general sense of how they feel about political figures, political issues, 825 00:39:25.559 --> 00:39:28.079 things that happen in the news. You know, what are 826 00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:30.039 you what did you learn about where those people are actually? Like, 827 00:39:30.719 --> 00:39:33.119 where is that information coming from? How are they running 828 00:39:33.159 --> 00:39:35.800 into it in this crazy meatia ecosystem? 829 00:39:36.119 --> 00:39:36.559 For sure? 830 00:39:36.679 --> 00:39:39.679 So you know, I think it's that I like to 831 00:39:39.800 --> 00:39:42.079 throw out and remind myself of every day, is that 832 00:39:42.119 --> 00:39:44.760 fifty four percent of voters writ large are just not 833 00:39:44.920 --> 00:39:48.639 paying attention to news at all. They're they're trying to 834 00:39:48.639 --> 00:39:52.360 avoid it mostly, and so if they're not paying attention 835 00:39:52.639 --> 00:39:55.800 to news, how are they experiencing politics? I think we 836 00:39:55.920 --> 00:39:58.400 like to ask ourselves that question to really shape kind 837 00:39:58.400 --> 00:40:00.440 of what are the campaigns that we're going to together 838 00:40:00.960 --> 00:40:01.599 to reach them? 839 00:40:01.719 --> 00:40:04.320 And you know, I think a lot of democratic. 840 00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:08.360 Investment over the last couple of years has has focused 841 00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:12.000 on how do we make the news sexier, easier to reach, 842 00:40:12.119 --> 00:40:16.719 easier to access. There's nothing wrong with that endeavor, but 843 00:40:16.760 --> 00:40:18.519 I think it's it's going to have its limits. If 844 00:40:18.519 --> 00:40:20.280 there's just a if there's a swath of people that 845 00:40:20.360 --> 00:40:22.639 just really don't want to payge to news at all, 846 00:40:22.960 --> 00:40:25.119 and so we want to reach those voters, we have 847 00:40:25.159 --> 00:40:26.719 to do it in a different way. We have to 848 00:40:26.719 --> 00:40:30.159 have different cultural entry points. I think you hear Democrats 849 00:40:30.159 --> 00:40:32.159 say a lot like we need to be culture first. 850 00:40:32.599 --> 00:40:34.480 I'm frustrated that I don't actually feel like we have 851 00:40:34.519 --> 00:40:37.800 a next step to that question. I've never actually heard adequate, 852 00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:40.679 you know, ideas of what that looks like. And so 853 00:40:40.719 --> 00:40:42.760 I think part of the research that parties has been 854 00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:45.800 doing over the last two years is sparking ideas of 855 00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:49.239 what does that actually look like in practice? Knowing that 856 00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:52.519 beauty and fashion, true crime, parenting. 857 00:40:53.159 --> 00:40:55.920 Those are three categories that are reaching a really. 858 00:40:55.760 --> 00:40:58.679 Large set of voters who are both swingy and you know, 859 00:40:58.719 --> 00:41:01.360 switch from party to party, but also don't pay attention 860 00:41:01.400 --> 00:41:03.320 to the news. What would it look like for us 861 00:41:03.320 --> 00:41:06.320 to create a campaign where we develop true crime content 862 00:41:06.719 --> 00:41:09.280 and then use that content to like talk about Epstein 863 00:41:09.400 --> 00:41:12.599 or whatever. It makes sense, Like it's about really using 864 00:41:12.840 --> 00:41:16.280 you know, using this data to uncover those other kind 865 00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:19.159 of non news oriented entry points for us to then 866 00:41:19.199 --> 00:41:22.400 have conversations with people on their terms. Parenting is a 867 00:41:22.760 --> 00:41:25.719 category that I think is like highly interesting and super 868 00:41:25.760 --> 00:41:28.000 relevant to what we're talking about. What would it look 869 00:41:28.039 --> 00:41:30.960 like for us to create a track of always on 870 00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:34.440 communication that targets people based on the fact that they're parents, 871 00:41:34.760 --> 00:41:37.239 that talks about issues that are you know, highly relevant 872 00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:39.639 to parents. I think when we talk about you know, 873 00:41:39.679 --> 00:41:41.639 the march to twenty twenty eight and the fact that 874 00:41:41.679 --> 00:41:43.920 we're getting going early, that doesn't mean that we need 875 00:41:43.960 --> 00:41:46.280 to be advertising all the time. We're trying to advertise 876 00:41:46.280 --> 00:41:49.719 in moments that are highly relevant. Back to school great 877 00:41:49.760 --> 00:41:53.199 opportunity to you know, talk to parents about about how 878 00:41:53.400 --> 00:41:57.159 Trump's policies advanced policies reveals policies are personally impacting them. 879 00:41:57.199 --> 00:41:59.559 I think our goal here is is to be relevant 880 00:41:59.599 --> 00:42:01.039 and not necessarily always. 881 00:42:00.760 --> 00:42:04.119 On when people are whether they're like they're interested in 882 00:42:04.199 --> 00:42:08.760 true crime or gaming or fitness or whatever else. Like 883 00:42:09.679 --> 00:42:11.880 where are those voters hanging out? Right, It's like we're 884 00:42:11.880 --> 00:42:14.119 not in a world where they're going to true crime 885 00:42:14.159 --> 00:42:16.480 dot com on the web to read about So it 886 00:42:16.519 --> 00:42:19.159 was that they are in social media apps and they 887 00:42:19.159 --> 00:42:22.159 have both followed and are being fed that sort of content, 888 00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:24.119 you know, Like just I want to try to like 889 00:42:24.159 --> 00:42:27.159 get a little granular about where these people are hanging out. 890 00:42:27.199 --> 00:42:30.960 And I think why it's particularly relevant is, you know, 891 00:42:31.159 --> 00:42:33.039 as we have been absent in these spaces. Obviously that's 892 00:42:33.039 --> 00:42:34.480 why you're doing the work you're doing. But if you 893 00:42:34.519 --> 00:42:37.280 look at like health and beauty for instance, or wellness 894 00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:39.559 as a space, like we were absent. But it's some 895 00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:44.599 course of time since you know, twenty sixteen, twenty twelve, 896 00:42:45.119 --> 00:42:48.360 that category, which would have seemed demographical to be very 897 00:42:48.400 --> 00:42:51.079 much ours, you know, a very you know, you know, 898 00:42:51.519 --> 00:42:56.000 young mom, younger women category became like the birthplace of Maha. 899 00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:58.960 So I'm just trying to understand, like where these people are, 900 00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:00.760 like where they actually hang out when they say they're 901 00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:03.239 like they're into fitness or true crime or whatever else. 902 00:43:03.639 --> 00:43:05.599 Yeah, I mean a lot of this research is very 903 00:43:05.679 --> 00:43:08.079 baked in YouTube, Like let's just name that. I think 904 00:43:08.360 --> 00:43:11.880 there's priorities to spending a disproportionate amount of time and 905 00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:15.199 money really trying to understand YouTube behavior because we know 906 00:43:15.239 --> 00:43:17.320 how easy it is to just light money on fire 907 00:43:17.719 --> 00:43:20.239 on that platform, and there's a ton of upside and 908 00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:23.440 better understanding, you know, how people are using the platform. 909 00:43:23.719 --> 00:43:25.280 Let me give you an example of a program that 910 00:43:25.320 --> 00:43:27.320 we ran earlier this summer that I think will help 911 00:43:27.440 --> 00:43:28.519 answer the questions. 912 00:43:28.639 --> 00:43:31.920 So we from our research, as we talked about. 913 00:43:31.679 --> 00:43:35.639 Young men super online super swing their swing voters, they 914 00:43:36.039 --> 00:43:38.880 you know, swung from from Trump, away from Trump, away 915 00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:43.280 from Biden in from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four. 916 00:43:44.039 --> 00:43:46.599 From our research, we knew that young men are interested 917 00:43:46.679 --> 00:43:49.639 in podcasts, finance, gaming, fitness. 918 00:43:50.039 --> 00:43:51.639 I think those were the categories. 919 00:43:51.960 --> 00:43:53.800 What our team did is we ran this campaign in 920 00:43:53.840 --> 00:43:57.519 Ohio earlier this summer where all of the ads were 921 00:43:57.519 --> 00:44:02.440 about John Housted, but the ads was highly relevant to 922 00:44:02.679 --> 00:44:04.920 those categories that I just laid out. So you had 923 00:44:04.960 --> 00:44:08.159 like a guy lifting weights talking about John Houston running, 924 00:44:08.280 --> 00:44:11.480 you know, next to game to fitness content. You had 925 00:44:11.559 --> 00:44:15.559 someone who was an actual gaming creator talk about same 926 00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:18.159 topic in the context of you know, what a normal 927 00:44:18.239 --> 00:44:20.880 kind of gaming piece of content on YouTube might look like. 928 00:44:22.360 --> 00:44:25.079 Part of the theory here it's it was actually twofold. 929 00:44:25.159 --> 00:44:28.079 It was one our ads should natively look like the 930 00:44:28.599 --> 00:44:32.920 content that someone is otherwise watching on YouTube ads. Actually, 931 00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:35.599 you know, in today's world, it's actually better for an 932 00:44:35.599 --> 00:44:37.800 AD to blend in than to stand out. You kind 933 00:44:37.800 --> 00:44:40.480 of want that nativity. There's there's benefit there, and I 934 00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:43.440 think we had we had some research from previous cycles 935 00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:45.719 that that proved to us that that was that was 936 00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:46.400 a good theory. 937 00:44:47.119 --> 00:44:50.679 But then also, I think more importantly, anyone on. 938 00:44:50.599 --> 00:44:53.639 YouTube is kind of, especially a young man, is kind 939 00:44:53.719 --> 00:44:56.119 of like two clicks away from right leaning content and 940 00:44:56.159 --> 00:44:58.880 any given point, in part because of how much the 941 00:44:58.960 --> 00:45:01.360 right has invested in and just like having an always 942 00:45:01.360 --> 00:45:04.119 on content machine and being present in all the places 943 00:45:04.119 --> 00:45:07.199 that we are not such that if you're watching fitness 944 00:45:07.239 --> 00:45:10.360 content and then you skip past the next two videos, 945 00:45:10.400 --> 00:45:12.079 you're probably going to be on a piece of content 946 00:45:12.159 --> 00:45:14.880 that's a little bit Maha in nature. And so we 947 00:45:14.960 --> 00:45:18.159 had run a campaign a couple of cycles ago where 948 00:45:18.360 --> 00:45:20.159 we just had this theory of what would it look 949 00:45:20.239 --> 00:45:22.440 like to just run ads on the most right leaning 950 00:45:22.480 --> 00:45:25.400 content that exists and see what kind of persuasion effect 951 00:45:25.440 --> 00:45:28.360 we can have, assuming that just because someone's on Breitbart 952 00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:30.480 doesn't mean they probably chose to be there. They may 953 00:45:30.519 --> 00:45:33.400 have just ended up there because of the algorithms, and 954 00:45:33.559 --> 00:45:35.800 our theory proved out like we were able to keep, 955 00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:38.039 you know, retain these voters at a pretty high rate 956 00:45:38.760 --> 00:45:41.480 just by running positive pre roll ads before someone you know, 957 00:45:41.679 --> 00:45:44.039 was watching that brightbart content. And so the team was 958 00:45:44.079 --> 00:45:45.760 kind of like, how do we do this in a 959 00:45:45.800 --> 00:45:50.679 slightly more expanded way, not necessarily explicitly right wing, but 960 00:45:50.760 --> 00:45:54.199 these kind of right leaning places that you might not 961 00:45:54.440 --> 00:45:58.159 you know, expect on on the front end. So those 962 00:45:58.199 --> 00:46:00.199 those five categories are the ones that the team kind 963 00:46:00.199 --> 00:46:04.639 of proposed as let's interrupt these let's interrupt this user's 964 00:46:04.679 --> 00:46:07.400 journey with ads and see what happens. And the theory 965 00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:10.559 proved out right like we were able to effectively you know, 966 00:46:10.719 --> 00:46:13.480 stop from once from you know, getting to that right 967 00:46:13.559 --> 00:46:16.199 leaning content. A lot of the times someone was like 968 00:46:16.239 --> 00:46:18.599 opening up a new tab on Google and searching for 969 00:46:18.639 --> 00:46:21.599 more information about John Houston, which you know, it did 970 00:46:21.639 --> 00:46:25.199 the job of interrupting that that person's flow. So anyway, 971 00:46:25.239 --> 00:46:27.800 all of that to say, I think we are disproportionately 972 00:46:27.840 --> 00:46:30.239 spending a lot of time thinking about how to find 973 00:46:30.239 --> 00:46:33.320 people on YouTube, in particular, just because it is such 974 00:46:33.360 --> 00:46:37.559 a it's a high it's a high density, very efficient 975 00:46:37.559 --> 00:46:39.760 place to reach people, but it's a very easy place 976 00:46:39.800 --> 00:46:42.920 to to. 977 00:46:40.480 --> 00:46:42.280 To burn money. 978 00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:45.280 And it's important to note that we talked about TikTok 979 00:46:45.320 --> 00:46:47.239 all the time, but at last I checked, you still 980 00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:48.920 cannot run political ads on TikTok. 981 00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:51.639 Correct, You cannot run political ads on TikTok. 982 00:46:51.679 --> 00:46:54.440 That is true, yes, And so it's just out there 983 00:46:54.480 --> 00:46:57.480 destroying the world that we can't intervene. 984 00:46:57.719 --> 00:47:00.599 There's certainly interventions that you can you can do that 985 00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:04.559 are not you know, explicitly renting attention. Was that I 986 00:47:04.920 --> 00:47:07.280 liked my like nerdy way to talk about advertising, as 987 00:47:07.320 --> 00:47:11.519 you're you're renting someone's attention. We can earn attention on TikTok, 988 00:47:11.599 --> 00:47:13.440 but it's not something that we're going to be able to, 989 00:47:13.519 --> 00:47:14.760 you know, get in a short window. 990 00:47:16.480 --> 00:47:18.519 Let's talk a little bit about AI chatbots because in 991 00:47:18.559 --> 00:47:20.719 your survey I saw that just about half of voters 992 00:47:20.760 --> 00:47:24.599 are using an AI chatbot once a week. And you know, 993 00:47:24.639 --> 00:47:28.719 obviously Google is still king you pointed that out, but 994 00:47:29.320 --> 00:47:31.199 even Google is changing in the way a lot of 995 00:47:31.199 --> 00:47:33.400 people are getting their search results because they are coming 996 00:47:33.440 --> 00:47:37.119 in these AI summaries, which is interrupting the search ads 997 00:47:37.159 --> 00:47:41.079 that we've been spending gazillion dollars on for decades. And 998 00:47:41.239 --> 00:47:44.960 but so as we think as AI chatbots grow as 999 00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.480 a search engine for people, how should democrats be thinking 1000 00:47:49.679 --> 00:47:54.519 about influencing those results? Like, we had a playbook, We 1001 00:47:54.559 --> 00:47:58.599 had a both a. We had a advertising playbook for 1002 00:47:58.679 --> 00:48:02.800 Google Search and we had an organic search SEO playbook 1003 00:48:02.800 --> 00:48:04.760 for how to get our content near the top of 1004 00:48:04.760 --> 00:48:07.480 the results. What the hell do you do when it's 1005 00:48:08.079 --> 00:48:11.519 you know, a handful of very different, very independent AI 1006 00:48:11.599 --> 00:48:12.639 chat bots. 1007 00:48:13.039 --> 00:48:15.519 Yeah, first of all, there's a lot of really smart 1008 00:48:15.519 --> 00:48:17.920 people who are tackling this head on. I think the 1009 00:48:17.960 --> 00:48:21.639 folks that run for something coccai are thinking really extensively 1010 00:48:21.679 --> 00:48:25.400 about how do you a understand and then be manipulate 1011 00:48:26.199 --> 00:48:28.880 a chat bot result. It's really you know, AEO is 1012 00:48:28.880 --> 00:48:30.920 just se O two point oh right, it's just understand 1013 00:48:31.239 --> 00:48:33.559 what is just so people know, Yeah, it stands for 1014 00:48:33.719 --> 00:48:37.159 answer engine optimization, and it's basically, what how do you 1015 00:48:37.239 --> 00:48:40.320 manipulate what is going to show up in a chatbot result. 1016 00:48:41.280 --> 00:48:43.239 There's a lot of really smart people out there who 1017 00:48:43.320 --> 00:48:46.719 are thinking about, how do you, you know, understand what's 1018 00:48:46.760 --> 00:48:48.280 showing up in a chatbot result? 1019 00:48:48.280 --> 00:48:50.239 And then be how do you actually, you know, change it? 1020 00:48:50.559 --> 00:48:52.159 You change it by updating your website. 1021 00:48:52.199 --> 00:48:54.599 You change it by pitching stories to the AP, You're 1022 00:48:55.239 --> 00:48:57.440 posting shit on Reddit because that's a place that's often 1023 00:48:57.480 --> 00:48:58.159 getting picked. 1024 00:48:58.039 --> 00:48:59.239 Up by by chat bots. 1025 00:49:00.559 --> 00:49:03.239 All of this is going to change incredibly fast, and 1026 00:49:03.480 --> 00:49:05.639 anyone who is kind of going out there with best 1027 00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:09.559 practices today, the best practices are going to change two 1028 00:49:09.599 --> 00:49:11.880 months from now, six months from now. And so I 1029 00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:15.199 think it does require a lot of urgency and a 1030 00:49:15.239 --> 00:49:19.559 shift in conversation across our party that if we always 1031 00:49:19.599 --> 00:49:22.480 had to invest in digital infrastructure, now is the time 1032 00:49:22.599 --> 00:49:26.679 to like double triple, quadruple down on that effort for 1033 00:49:26.880 --> 00:49:29.519 us to like really understand how quickly the Internet is changing, 1034 00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:32.719 like we have to be investing in innovation to make 1035 00:49:32.760 --> 00:49:34.639 sure that we're able to stay on top of these trends. 1036 00:49:35.039 --> 00:49:37.559 I think the work that Priorities is doing, though, in 1037 00:49:37.679 --> 00:49:40.760 the kind of chatbot space beyond just you know, understanding 1038 00:49:40.800 --> 00:49:43.760 what a result is, an understanding how you might manipulate 1039 00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:47.039 that result, is really understanding when and why are people 1040 00:49:47.119 --> 00:49:49.920 turning to chatbots, what is the kind of driver of 1041 00:49:50.199 --> 00:49:52.559 why someone's using it, and how does that, you know, 1042 00:49:52.960 --> 00:49:56.960 change how we should be thinking about intervening and better 1043 00:49:57.079 --> 00:49:59.800 understanding their their media journey. And so I think, you know, 1044 00:50:00.079 --> 00:50:03.000 the result the research that we did over the summer 1045 00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:06.719 I think was highly It was incredibly helpful at uncovering 1046 00:50:06.840 --> 00:50:10.760 that people are not necessarily searching for information about a 1047 00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:13.320 candidate as much as they are searching for information about 1048 00:50:13.400 --> 00:50:17.159 policies and issues in a much more granular way. You know, 1049 00:50:17.239 --> 00:50:20.039 I think, as you know, Ai Con, I don't know 1050 00:50:20.119 --> 00:50:22.320 if you feel this personally, but I think as I'm 1051 00:50:22.400 --> 00:50:25.719 you know, scrolling TikTok and on YouTube and seeing content 1052 00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:28.119 in my feed that feels a little like is this real? 1053 00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:31.800 Is this not like I am personally opening up JGBT 1054 00:50:32.280 --> 00:50:34.280 claude and saying, hey, can you fact check this for me? 1055 00:50:35.039 --> 00:50:37.280 There's a I think a ton of it almost feels 1056 00:50:37.320 --> 00:50:39.440 like the Spider Man meme. Where we're because of the 1057 00:50:39.639 --> 00:50:42.360 insurgence of AI. People are using AI to check if 1058 00:50:42.400 --> 00:50:43.000 things are AI. 1059 00:50:44.199 --> 00:50:46.400 It's it doesn't seem great for the world, but yes, 1060 00:50:46.440 --> 00:50:47.039 that's where we are. 1061 00:50:55.719 --> 00:50:58.440 Good Dave America is brought to you by Helix. I 1062 00:50:58.559 --> 00:51:01.039 love my heats mattress. I have a dawn Lux I took. 1063 00:51:01.079 --> 00:51:04.000 I actually took the quiz because I am a stomach sleeper. 1064 00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:06.239 I'm trying to become a side sleeper and kind of rotating. 1065 00:51:06.280 --> 00:51:09.119 But I love the bed. It's really comfortable. It helps 1066 00:51:09.159 --> 00:51:12.119 make sure you get a good night's sleep. 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You know. 1088 00:51:59.400 --> 00:52:01.159 But I just think it's a greattress and should get one. 1089 00:52:01.159 --> 00:52:02.960 He loiks sleep dot com slash cricket for twenty seven 1090 00:52:02.960 --> 00:52:05.599 percent off site wide. This offer is exclusive to Podsave 1091 00:52:05.599 --> 00:52:08.400 America listeners. That's helix Sleep dot com slash Cricket for 1092 00:52:08.440 --> 00:52:12.280 twenty seven percent off site wide heliicsleep dot com slash Crooked. 1093 00:52:17.559 --> 00:52:19.159 We're in the MIDI twenty twenty sixth section. You guys 1094 00:52:19.159 --> 00:52:23.360 are focused on, among other things, trying to define the 1095 00:52:23.440 --> 00:52:27.679 twenty twenty eight potential nominees, most notably Jade Vans and 1096 00:52:27.719 --> 00:52:31.360 Marco Rubio. Talk to me about why start that process now? 1097 00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:33.480 Yeah, absolutely so. 1098 00:52:33.679 --> 00:52:36.760 I've been working at a superPAC for almost a decade now, 1099 00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:39.440 which is crazy, and I am very much of the 1100 00:52:39.519 --> 00:52:43.400 opinion that the way that our party uses superpacks is 1101 00:52:43.800 --> 00:52:46.920 outdated and not to the maximum that we can and 1102 00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:49.760 certainly not to the maximum that Republicans do. And the 1103 00:52:49.800 --> 00:52:52.199 way I would describe that as quite simple. I think, 1104 00:52:52.360 --> 00:52:54.800 as much as this role of a superpack is to 1105 00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:57.679 raise money that a campaign cannot raise, aka we are 1106 00:52:57.719 --> 00:53:00.719 able to raise beyond the contribution limit that campaign has, 1107 00:53:01.400 --> 00:53:04.599 we also have time that a campaign doesn't have, and 1108 00:53:04.679 --> 00:53:07.599 I think really leaning into that time element is a 1109 00:53:07.679 --> 00:53:11.679 thing that I feel really important as the role that 1110 00:53:11.719 --> 00:53:13.960 a super pac can can play in today's world. And 1111 00:53:14.039 --> 00:53:16.159 so I I think in the aftermath of twenty twenty four, 1112 00:53:16.559 --> 00:53:18.800 when we're sitting around asking ourselves, why the hell did 1113 00:53:18.840 --> 00:53:20.519 we just lose that election and what can we do 1114 00:53:20.639 --> 00:53:23.239 differently next time, our team got to work on a 1115 00:53:23.280 --> 00:53:26.840 couple of things including, you know, at a high level, 1116 00:53:27.960 --> 00:53:30.199 how can we do a better job of listening to 1117 00:53:30.280 --> 00:53:33.920 the internet to be able to drive decision making. We 1118 00:53:33.960 --> 00:53:36.239 can talk about polling and all the reasons why polling 1119 00:53:36.320 --> 00:53:38.519 is flawed, but you know, priorities is very much of 1120 00:53:38.599 --> 00:53:41.840 the opinion that with the you know, availability of AI, 1121 00:53:42.840 --> 00:53:46.360 we can we can observe qualitative data at such a 1122 00:53:46.440 --> 00:53:49.400 larger scale in today's world that we might as well 1123 00:53:49.639 --> 00:53:52.199 lean into it. It's exactly how the Republicans are making 1124 00:53:52.239 --> 00:53:54.599 their decisions, right Like we like to look at the 1125 00:53:54.679 --> 00:53:57.039 Kamma is for they them AD, I think is a 1126 00:53:57.079 --> 00:54:00.960 perfect example of how the Republicans said that has likes 1127 00:54:01.039 --> 00:54:03.760 to it, it's sticky, it's doing really well online, let's 1128 00:54:03.760 --> 00:54:06.400 put money behind it, Whereas on the Democratic side we 1129 00:54:06.679 --> 00:54:08.440 have to like let an AD go through an entire 1130 00:54:08.559 --> 00:54:12.159 polling brigamarole in order to take it seriously. Anyway, all 1131 00:54:12.199 --> 00:54:14.159 of that to say, priorities got to work after twenty 1132 00:54:14.280 --> 00:54:16.599 twenty four to build a tech stack and do research 1133 00:54:16.679 --> 00:54:19.760 to really understand how can we be leaning into listening 1134 00:54:19.800 --> 00:54:21.840 to the internet to understand what's going to resonate and 1135 00:54:21.880 --> 00:54:24.960 what's going to break through. At the same time, you know, 1136 00:54:25.320 --> 00:54:28.159 we recognize that the march to twenty twenty eight is 1137 00:54:28.320 --> 00:54:31.880 going to be long, and it's going to include a lot. 1138 00:54:31.840 --> 00:54:33.079 Of Democrats fighting each other. 1139 00:54:33.119 --> 00:54:35.679 I think if this summer was indicative of anything, it's 1140 00:54:35.719 --> 00:54:40.000 that primaries are challenging and they can be really helpful, 1141 00:54:40.119 --> 00:54:44.320 but ultimately they're tough, and we are about we're about 1142 00:54:44.360 --> 00:54:46.119 to face that on a level that is going to 1143 00:54:46.119 --> 00:54:46.800 be different than what we. 1144 00:54:46.920 --> 00:54:50.199 Just experienced over the summer. And I'm really worried that 1145 00:54:50.679 --> 00:54:51.519 our party. 1146 00:54:51.280 --> 00:54:54.920 Has not been you know, we have not gone through 1147 00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:57.440 an election without Trump on the ballot in quite some time. 1148 00:54:57.920 --> 00:55:00.559 I think our muscle memory there is quite We're going 1149 00:55:00.599 --> 00:55:02.760 to be running against someone new no matter what happens, 1150 00:55:03.639 --> 00:55:05.280 and the Democrats are going to be fighting each other. 1151 00:55:05.400 --> 00:55:07.360 So the team at Priorities was like, what can we 1152 00:55:07.480 --> 00:55:10.039 do to be the most value ad heading into twenty 1153 00:55:10.079 --> 00:55:12.320 eight Let's get going now, Let's actually start to think 1154 00:55:12.360 --> 00:55:15.360 about what it looks like to define our eventual opposition 1155 00:55:15.920 --> 00:55:18.199 so that by the time we have a nominee, they 1156 00:55:18.280 --> 00:55:20.920 have a slightly less uphill climb to be able to 1157 00:55:21.440 --> 00:55:25.159 go after and you know, compare theirselves to the Republican. 1158 00:55:25.360 --> 00:55:27.800 So that's the work of Prologue. We're really excited about it. 1159 00:55:27.880 --> 00:55:30.400 Our tech stack all feeds into kind of what we're doing. 1160 00:55:30.480 --> 00:55:32.800 It's not going to look like a traditional advertising campaign. 1161 00:55:33.159 --> 00:55:34.679 It's going to be always on, but that doesn't mean 1162 00:55:34.719 --> 00:55:36.440 we're all on all the time. And we have a 1163 00:55:36.519 --> 00:55:39.360 million ideas that we're excited to dive into. 1164 00:55:40.119 --> 00:55:45.760 So the I am in after twenty seventeen, sorry, after 1165 00:55:45.800 --> 00:55:49.519 twenty sixteen. In twenty seventeen, one of my strong views 1166 00:55:49.719 --> 00:55:51.679 was that we should take a lot of the money 1167 00:55:51.719 --> 00:55:55.400 that was flowing into democratic politics and make of Trump 1168 00:55:55.920 --> 00:55:59.440 and be always right into like not as you say, 1169 00:55:59.480 --> 00:56:01.599 not always on like we're going to run ads for 1170 00:56:01.719 --> 00:56:05.280 the rest of time, but in moments, high leverage moments, 1171 00:56:05.320 --> 00:56:09.960 you would run advertising to shape that impression, to shape 1172 00:56:09.960 --> 00:56:12.119 that moment where people paying attention in their minds in 1173 00:56:12.199 --> 00:56:15.199 our favor. And I was I liked that idea because 1174 00:56:15.239 --> 00:56:18.599 I believed correctly. I think that we were just so 1175 00:56:18.719 --> 00:56:21.719 outgunned in the media space that we were competing with Trump, 1176 00:56:21.800 --> 00:56:23.719 being with Fox News, being with Facebook at the time, 1177 00:56:23.840 --> 00:56:26.199 this is this very powerful entity that was a sort 1178 00:56:26.239 --> 00:56:31.239 of conduit for MAGA adjacent messaging, like we needed to, 1179 00:56:31.639 --> 00:56:34.840 you know, put some like messaging thrust behind the things 1180 00:56:34.880 --> 00:56:37.280 that happening. I went around, I sold this lots of people, 1181 00:56:37.360 --> 00:56:39.079 and the thing that everyone came back to me to 1182 00:56:39.159 --> 00:56:43.719 say was and smart people was there is no evidence 1183 00:56:43.800 --> 00:56:46.559 that early ads work. And then you're basically recommending that 1184 00:56:46.599 --> 00:56:50.880 we were lighting money on fire. I was never fully 1185 00:56:50.920 --> 00:56:52.320 convinced of that, but I also was in capble of 1186 00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:54.320 convincing the people who said that to do something different. 1187 00:56:54.840 --> 00:56:57.480 What is your response to that, I mean, does that 1188 00:56:57.639 --> 00:56:58.599 logically make sense? 1189 00:56:59.039 --> 00:57:01.239 It doesn't make sense? Well, I mean there's they will 1190 00:57:01.280 --> 00:57:05.199 throw a bunch of political science research issue that people 1191 00:57:05.239 --> 00:57:07.719 have very short memories or are not paying attention at 1192 00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:10.119 the time, and so it doesn't the impressions are not 1193 00:57:10.239 --> 00:57:11.199 worth the money, I guess. 1194 00:57:11.599 --> 00:57:14.559 I mean, research also didn't show that smoking caused cancer 1195 00:57:14.880 --> 00:57:20.119 until recently. No, I just I think that I really 1196 00:57:20.199 --> 00:57:22.679 appreciate the folks in the academic space for pushing us 1197 00:57:22.760 --> 00:57:25.519 to be rigorous. But at the end of the day, 1198 00:57:25.800 --> 00:57:29.960 like I think it's really important to name that political 1199 00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:32.159 advertisers and what we were trying to do when we 1200 00:57:32.239 --> 00:57:35.320 are trying to win elections is fundamentally different than any 1201 00:57:35.480 --> 00:57:39.400 other you know, communication challenge, marketing challenge. 1202 00:57:39.280 --> 00:57:41.119 In the broader world. 1203 00:57:41.320 --> 00:57:43.440 Right at the end of the day, Not to bring 1204 00:57:43.559 --> 00:57:45.760 Nike back into it, but like Nike spends millions of 1205 00:57:45.840 --> 00:57:47.840 dollars a year to think they're a really cool brand. 1206 00:57:48.079 --> 00:57:50.559 They run ads up around every sporting event to make 1207 00:57:50.599 --> 00:57:53.400 you like them, but ultimately they're trying to sell you shoes, 1208 00:57:53.480 --> 00:57:55.960 and they get to use shoe sales as a proxy 1209 00:57:56.440 --> 00:57:58.519 for whether they're just do it ads are working or not. 1210 00:57:59.079 --> 00:57:59.760 We don't have that. 1211 00:58:00.039 --> 00:58:03.000 We do not have proxies that we get to use 1212 00:58:03.079 --> 00:58:06.280 to understand whether someone's mind is being changed. Right, Like, 1213 00:58:06.639 --> 00:58:09.039 that's why surveys are you know, we invest so much 1214 00:58:09.079 --> 00:58:11.239 in surveys because it's the it's the closest we can 1215 00:58:11.360 --> 00:58:14.000 get to be able to get being able to ask someone. 1216 00:58:13.920 --> 00:58:16.400 Were you persuaded by this? Did we did we sell 1217 00:58:16.440 --> 00:58:17.000 you the shoe? 1218 00:58:18.119 --> 00:58:21.559 And you know that I've spent a huge chunk of 1219 00:58:21.599 --> 00:58:23.599 my career trying to get to a point where we 1220 00:58:23.679 --> 00:58:25.760 can like zero in and understand how to you know, 1221 00:58:25.880 --> 00:58:29.159 properly measure a persuasion effect. And it is it is 1222 00:58:29.239 --> 00:58:32.280 quite challenging, and it is probably the hardest thing that 1223 00:58:32.360 --> 00:58:36.320 I've had to you know, face in my career. But 1224 00:58:36.440 --> 00:58:40.920 the reality is, you know, the Republicans are investing close 1225 00:58:40.960 --> 00:58:44.159 to a billion dollars over the last decade in always 1226 00:58:44.199 --> 00:58:47.039 on infrastructure and communication, and I think it is quite 1227 00:58:47.079 --> 00:58:48.599 obvious that it has paid off. 1228 00:58:48.719 --> 00:58:50.960 Right you look at you know, the example I like 1229 00:58:51.039 --> 00:58:53.119 to give is Trump. 1230 00:58:53.480 --> 00:58:56.199 After the shooting, you know, within an hour he had 1231 00:58:56.320 --> 00:58:59.239 people on the internet talking about the ballroom and how 1232 00:58:59.280 --> 00:59:01.840 the shootings has the hated that the need to build 1233 00:59:01.840 --> 00:59:05.960 a ballroom. We don't have that amplification you know program 1234 00:59:06.079 --> 00:59:07.440 on our site. There's a lot of folks that are 1235 00:59:07.480 --> 00:59:09.639 working really hard to build it. But it just shows 1236 00:59:09.760 --> 00:59:14.480 the long term payoff of what always on infrastructure looks like. Meanwhile, 1237 00:59:14.559 --> 00:59:17.119 you know, Democrats sit around and our amplification is like 1238 00:59:17.199 --> 00:59:19.599 crossing your fingers in toe hoping for a retweet from 1239 00:59:19.639 --> 00:59:22.119 Barack Obama. If you want to look at that and 1240 00:59:22.280 --> 00:59:26.239 say that our situation is work is better, I just 1241 00:59:26.280 --> 00:59:28.280 don't buy that. I think that's at the end of 1242 00:59:28.280 --> 00:59:30.519 the day, like our and science have to have to 1243 00:59:30.599 --> 00:59:32.679 come into play, and we have to be able to 1244 00:59:32.800 --> 00:59:35.239 use our judgment and be able to say that, you know, 1245 00:59:35.559 --> 00:59:39.840 always on communication it has to matter, right, like we 1246 00:59:40.079 --> 00:59:41.639 can see it playing out in front of our eyes. 1247 00:59:42.360 --> 00:59:44.639 But I think a critical reason that we are doing 1248 00:59:44.719 --> 00:59:49.400 things differently, and I empathize with the criticism of always 1249 00:59:49.480 --> 00:59:51.840 on and that sometimes you can look at the way 1250 00:59:51.880 --> 00:59:53.960 it plays out in a budget and just think, well, 1251 00:59:54.000 --> 00:59:55.679 there's no way in home we can afford that you 1252 00:59:55.760 --> 00:59:58.679 can't afford to like be at the impression levels. 1253 00:59:58.960 --> 01:00:00.519 Now that we would want to be, yeah, in the 1254 01:00:00.599 --> 01:00:03.360 fall of twenty twenty eight. But that's why the. 1255 01:00:03.400 --> 01:00:07.400 Priorities approach of really using behavioral targeting as an entry 1256 01:00:07.480 --> 01:00:11.159 point to have these conversations is I'm so excited about 1257 01:00:11.199 --> 01:00:13.079 this program because it's the first time that I've really 1258 01:00:13.119 --> 01:00:15.760 looked at a program through the lens of how do 1259 01:00:15.880 --> 01:00:19.039 we reach people not necessarily during a time when they're 1260 01:00:19.079 --> 01:00:21.440 registering to vote or when news is breaking, kind of 1261 01:00:21.480 --> 01:00:24.440 those natural political moments, but instead during the moments of 1262 01:00:25.119 --> 01:00:27.679 case I'm googling whether my lettuce is safe, Like, that's 1263 01:00:27.719 --> 01:00:29.599 the perfect time to have a political conversation. 1264 01:00:29.840 --> 01:00:31.280 It doesn't mean we're going to be on all the time. 1265 01:00:31.360 --> 01:00:33.639 In fact, we're not on right now, but like the 1266 01:00:33.760 --> 01:00:37.199 next time something you know, politically relevant happens, you'll. 1267 01:00:37.000 --> 01:00:37.679 See us go up. 1268 01:00:38.440 --> 01:00:39.760 All right, I'm going to look at some of your 1269 01:00:39.800 --> 01:00:43.000 ads because they are they look nothing like a typical 1270 01:00:43.519 --> 01:00:44.360 democratic ad. 1271 01:00:44.880 --> 01:00:45.119 Love it. 1272 01:00:45.360 --> 01:00:50.039 Let's start with one about jd Vance. Let's plan it. Hi, 1273 01:00:50.239 --> 01:00:52.199 I'm jd Vance as Vice president. 1274 01:00:52.360 --> 01:00:54.800 I cast the time breaking vote to cut your healthcare 1275 01:00:55.000 --> 01:00:58.760 and I've been helping our great leader create tremendous wealth, 1276 01:00:59.400 --> 01:01:00.840 which has been trickling. 1277 01:01:00.519 --> 01:01:02.960 Down to you. 1278 01:01:03.599 --> 01:01:06.760 Rome wasn't built in a day, of course, but ultimately 1279 01:01:07.000 --> 01:01:09.519 you're gonna feel the benefits and you're medicating. 1280 01:01:10.039 --> 01:01:12.800 Don't worry, that's just in material minute show. 1281 01:01:12.840 --> 01:01:15.760 Anyway, get back to work. You're almost like your second job. 1282 01:01:15.800 --> 01:01:17.920 And President Trump and I have to get back to 1283 01:01:18.000 --> 01:01:22.519 redecorate it. Okay, I believe that was Donald Trump taking 1284 01:01:22.559 --> 01:01:24.159 a leak on Jada Vance's head to make a point 1285 01:01:24.159 --> 01:01:27.719 about Tracadan economics. I love it. Yeah, so go ahead, Yeah, 1286 01:01:27.719 --> 01:01:29.639 talks to me. Just talk to me about the concept 1287 01:01:29.719 --> 01:01:32.960 of the ad, who who you showed the ad to, 1288 01:01:33.400 --> 01:01:34.559 and what the reaction to it was. 1289 01:01:35.320 --> 01:01:35.519 Yeah. 1290 01:01:35.679 --> 01:01:37.320 So, you know, my friends at home think being an 1291 01:01:37.360 --> 01:01:39.880 executive director is like out there talking to you know, 1292 01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:42.519 rich people. It's actually just getting a slack from your 1293 01:01:42.599 --> 01:01:44.320 CMO that says, hey, how do you feel about an 1294 01:01:44.320 --> 01:01:45.280 ad with some piss in it? 1295 01:01:45.960 --> 01:01:48.440 That's quite literally the reality of this job. 1296 01:01:49.239 --> 01:01:53.880 But you know, I think this ad is about recognizing 1297 01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:56.320 that if you can't actually get someone to watch your ad, 1298 01:01:56.599 --> 01:01:58.559 it doesn't matter how well it tested. Right. 1299 01:01:58.639 --> 01:02:00.239 The number one thing that we need to be aware 1300 01:02:00.280 --> 01:02:01.000 of is the. 1301 01:02:01.039 --> 01:02:04.320 Skip button and the second screen that exists in the 1302 01:02:04.360 --> 01:02:06.280 fact that people are just naturally going to tune out 1303 01:02:06.320 --> 01:02:08.159 of what we were saying. So if we want to 1304 01:02:08.199 --> 01:02:11.199 be able to actually get our message across about gas prices, 1305 01:02:11.519 --> 01:02:13.360 we need to deliver it in a format that's going 1306 01:02:13.400 --> 01:02:16.119 to capture people's attention. This is just one ad, right, 1307 01:02:16.159 --> 01:02:19.039 I think it's it's really you know, the media responds 1308 01:02:19.079 --> 01:02:20.960 really well to Hey, look at this one ad and 1309 01:02:21.400 --> 01:02:24.199 cover it and get some media attention on it. The 1310 01:02:24.280 --> 01:02:26.559 reality is, like Prologue is going to be thousands of 1311 01:02:26.599 --> 01:02:28.679 ads over the next two years. We're going to throw 1312 01:02:28.760 --> 01:02:30.840 shit at the wall, see what sticks, and then move 1313 01:02:30.920 --> 01:02:33.719 on with our lives. This ad is one example of 1314 01:02:33.800 --> 01:02:36.000 something that we tried. It actually did get a ton 1315 01:02:36.079 --> 01:02:38.000 of attention. People watched it all the way through. I 1316 01:02:38.039 --> 01:02:40.440 think we were really excited about the metrics that we saw. 1317 01:02:41.400 --> 01:02:43.880 People want humor, they want things, they want the po 1318 01:02:44.079 --> 01:02:45.559 they want politics to be a little bit less a 1319 01:02:45.559 --> 01:02:48.000 little bit less serious, and so that was our attempt 1320 01:02:48.039 --> 01:02:49.760 to kind of play around with those insights. 1321 01:02:50.400 --> 01:02:54.239 So, you know, the typical way we have been measuring 1322 01:02:54.239 --> 01:02:57.039 the efficacy of ads and messaging and over the last 1323 01:02:57.719 --> 01:02:59.920 you know, decade. Here is persuasion effects? 1324 01:03:00.119 --> 01:03:00.199 Right? 1325 01:03:00.599 --> 01:03:03.400 How much does it based on a We're testing the 1326 01:03:03.440 --> 01:03:06.199 AD in front of tens of thousands of people and 1327 01:03:06.320 --> 01:03:09.559 to what how many points did this take off of 1328 01:03:09.639 --> 01:03:11.840 Trump's approval? Or how much did it move vote choice 1329 01:03:11.960 --> 01:03:14.960 in our favor? And these are all in polarized environment, 1330 01:03:15.199 --> 01:03:18.400 very small numbers that you know, we're like an AD 1331 01:03:18.480 --> 01:03:20.119 it could be three times as effective as another AD, 1332 01:03:20.119 --> 01:03:22.480 and it's because it's moving approval three times that three 1333 01:03:22.519 --> 01:03:25.440 points at one point. Yeah, what is your metric of 1334 01:03:25.519 --> 01:03:27.800 success here? Is it completion rate? Are you? Are you 1335 01:03:27.880 --> 01:03:29.559 testing persuason effects? How are you thinking about it? 1336 01:03:30.239 --> 01:03:30.880 All of the above. 1337 01:03:31.000 --> 01:03:33.079 I think we're of the opinion that there's no singular 1338 01:03:33.159 --> 01:03:35.199 metric that's ever going to tell you your AD is working. 1339 01:03:35.360 --> 01:03:37.239 You have to take a really wide lens and like 1340 01:03:37.360 --> 01:03:39.840 take it all in. You know, we didn't do creative 1341 01:03:39.880 --> 01:03:42.519 testing in twenty sixteen. I think in the aftermath I 1342 01:03:42.639 --> 01:03:44.880 was really excited when the idea of creative testing kind 1343 01:03:44.880 --> 01:03:47.519 of came into the ecosystem because I was like, okay, 1344 01:03:47.599 --> 01:03:49.840 like we can finally like understand before we put money 1345 01:03:49.880 --> 01:03:52.039 behind an AD, how is it going to do. And 1346 01:03:52.119 --> 01:03:54.239 I don't know if you guys remember like twenty sixteen, 1347 01:03:54.280 --> 01:03:55.840 the biggest thing was like so many of our ads 1348 01:03:55.880 --> 01:03:58.239 were causing backlash. They were actually like moving people in 1349 01:03:58.320 --> 01:04:00.400 the wrong direction. And I was like such an eye 1350 01:04:00.440 --> 01:04:03.280 opening thing. And so I was always of the opinion 1351 01:04:03.400 --> 01:04:05.280 that you know, you can take a look at a 1352 01:04:05.320 --> 01:04:07.719 creative test result and weed out the ads they're going 1353 01:04:07.800 --> 01:04:09.840 to do harm and actually move people in the wrong direction. 1354 01:04:10.000 --> 01:04:11.599 And then if you have five ads at the end 1355 01:04:11.599 --> 01:04:14.320 of the day that move people in the right direction, 1356 01:04:14.559 --> 01:04:16.679 put them all online and see how they do. Right, Like, 1357 01:04:16.800 --> 01:04:19.599 let's let's compare offline and online metrics against each other 1358 01:04:20.480 --> 01:04:22.639 to really understand, you know, how how they're going to 1359 01:04:22.679 --> 01:04:25.760 both be complementary and maybe disagree with each other. Not 1360 01:04:25.920 --> 01:04:28.960 to to to shout out the team at on the 1361 01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:32.079 Newsom campaign, but they did this really well during during 1362 01:04:32.119 --> 01:04:34.440 the PROF fifty campaign. I think their whole theory was 1363 01:04:34.679 --> 01:04:37.000 we're going to test our ads. We are going to 1364 01:04:37.320 --> 01:04:39.480 see what works in a kind of lab environment, and 1365 01:04:39.480 --> 01:04:41.280 we're going to see what horse race looks like. But 1366 01:04:41.440 --> 01:04:43.599 instead of you know, picking the top ad that has 1367 01:04:43.639 --> 01:04:45.840 the highest horse race effect, we're just going to put 1368 01:04:45.880 --> 01:04:48.000 everything out there that doesn't do harm and then see 1369 01:04:48.400 --> 01:04:51.079 you know on YouTube which audience does which which ad move. 1370 01:04:51.280 --> 01:04:53.039 I just give them a lot of props for kind 1371 01:04:53.079 --> 01:04:56.119 of taking that that theory. It's in strong alignment with 1372 01:04:56.239 --> 01:04:58.199 kind of the priority theory of the case, and it 1373 01:04:58.280 --> 01:05:02.280 obviously had a really awesome impat in that race. But yeah, 1374 01:05:02.320 --> 01:05:05.760 I think part of our theory, and this is one 1375 01:05:05.800 --> 01:05:07.760 of the other tools that we're actually in development on 1376 01:05:08.239 --> 01:05:11.000 right now, is what does it look like to amass 1377 01:05:11.519 --> 01:05:14.519 a much larger set of signals to understand how something. 1378 01:05:14.360 --> 01:05:17.239 Might resonate online beyond just you know. 1379 01:05:17.320 --> 01:05:20.320 How something tests in a creative test and how something polls, 1380 01:05:21.000 --> 01:05:22.960 How is an issue being talked about on a podcast, 1381 01:05:23.039 --> 01:05:24.800 how is it being talked about in a comment section 1382 01:05:24.960 --> 01:05:27.960 and a search trend At the doors. There's a million 1383 01:05:28.039 --> 01:05:30.039 different data sets that we have available to us that 1384 01:05:30.119 --> 01:05:32.639 we can be listening to, and part of what Priorities 1385 01:05:32.719 --> 01:05:35.079 is doing is amassing all of those into a centralized 1386 01:05:35.159 --> 01:05:37.360 view so that we can take everything in and make 1387 01:05:37.400 --> 01:05:38.840 strategic judgments accordingly. 1388 01:05:39.599 --> 01:05:42.159 All right, let's look at a ad about Marco Rubio 1389 01:05:43.039 --> 01:05:44.840 and now let's discuss Okay. 1390 01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:47.840 I think America can't get any more expensive that we 1391 01:05:47.920 --> 01:05:51.280 can't afford another pointless war. Well, the call isn't yours 1392 01:05:51.360 --> 01:05:55.679 to me? Kids with a little Marco Invasion action place 1393 01:05:55.719 --> 01:05:59.119 at the boots that are too big promises, He can't 1394 01:05:59.239 --> 01:06:03.719 keep you cont He starts the wars. We pay for 1395 01:06:03.880 --> 01:06:08.960 its social security not anymore medicare Bye bye the toy, 1396 01:06:09.079 --> 01:06:12.079 the tends your boys off to war, the little Marco 1397 01:06:12.239 --> 01:06:13.599 Invasion action place at. 1398 01:06:13.719 --> 01:06:14.079 I love it. 1399 01:06:14.159 --> 01:06:17.800 I love little Marcoup similar vibe to They all have 1400 01:06:17.840 --> 01:06:19.800 a south parking and south parking and I guess the 1401 01:06:19.880 --> 01:06:21.519 their term vibe to them, which which I do? 1402 01:06:21.679 --> 01:06:21.719 Like? 1403 01:06:23.239 --> 01:06:25.039 Who is the target audience for this ad and how 1404 01:06:25.079 --> 01:06:25.400 did it do? 1405 01:06:26.320 --> 01:06:26.519 Yeah? 1406 01:06:26.559 --> 01:06:28.840 So, generally speaking, Priorities is always kind of trying to 1407 01:06:28.920 --> 01:06:30.960 go after the young voters and voters of color as 1408 01:06:30.960 --> 01:06:34.239 our primary audience. Looking ahead to twenty twenty eight, our 1409 01:06:34.239 --> 01:06:37.280 team has identified just over ten just under ten million 1410 01:06:37.360 --> 01:06:39.639 voters across the battleground states that kind of fit into 1411 01:06:39.719 --> 01:06:40.440 that category. 1412 01:06:41.639 --> 01:06:43.440 So that is, you know, the primary audience for this. 1413 01:06:43.559 --> 01:06:46.039 I think for this particular creative brief, we were also 1414 01:06:46.159 --> 01:06:49.320 quite interested in having an effect with young man in. 1415 01:06:49.360 --> 01:06:53.480 Particular, just because those those are that's a tough audience 1416 01:06:53.519 --> 01:06:53.760 for us. 1417 01:06:56.280 --> 01:06:59.440 You know you I heard you say to you mentioned 1418 01:06:59.480 --> 01:07:01.360 the YouTube that's earlier that you read them, and that 1419 01:07:01.400 --> 01:07:04.400 they're actually sort of influencing some of the creative decisions 1420 01:07:04.400 --> 01:07:08.360 you're making, which is a far cry from which is 1421 01:07:08.559 --> 01:07:11.880 probably causing data nerds within the party to lose their 1422 01:07:11.960 --> 01:07:14.559 mind that we would look at YouTube comments. But one 1423 01:07:14.599 --> 01:07:19.000 thing you said to Peter Hanby was that the YouTube 1424 01:07:19.000 --> 01:07:23.840 comments about JD Vance and Marco Rubio were different in 1425 01:07:23.960 --> 01:07:25.840 one very notable respect. Could you say what that was? 1426 01:07:25.960 --> 01:07:27.000 Yeah, for sure. 1427 01:07:27.119 --> 01:07:29.840 So let me explain quickly why we care so much 1428 01:07:29.880 --> 01:07:32.559 about comment sections at parties, because it does cause a 1429 01:07:32.559 --> 01:07:34.599 lot of stress, but I do think it's it's super valid. 1430 01:07:34.719 --> 01:07:37.239 So we did a research project last summer where we 1431 01:07:37.320 --> 01:07:39.760 interviewed a bunch of young men on how they watch YouTube, 1432 01:07:39.840 --> 01:07:41.960 and by far and away, the biggest takeaway from that 1433 01:07:42.039 --> 01:07:46.440 research project was just how reliable these young men are 1434 01:07:46.599 --> 01:07:48.800 on comment sections. They watch a video, they jump to 1435 01:07:48.840 --> 01:07:51.079 the comment section. They really want to understand what their 1436 01:07:51.079 --> 01:07:53.559 peers think. They really want to understand if there's agreement 1437 01:07:53.679 --> 01:07:56.519 or disagreement. It is like peer validation that is like 1438 01:07:56.639 --> 01:07:58.679 happening in front of our eyes. And it is like, 1439 01:07:59.239 --> 01:08:00.880 you know, people like to say the Internet is not 1440 01:08:00.960 --> 01:08:03.320 real life. Comment sections are not real life. I'm not 1441 01:08:03.440 --> 01:08:05.679 here to say that people who are commenting on videos 1442 01:08:05.760 --> 01:08:08.840 are representative of voters, but it is an environment where 1443 01:08:08.880 --> 01:08:11.559 conversations are happening and we need to take it seriously 1444 01:08:11.679 --> 01:08:14.039 and learn from it. So that is why we care 1445 01:08:14.119 --> 01:08:16.399 so much about observing what is going on in these 1446 01:08:16.439 --> 01:08:18.399 comment sections and what we saw when. 1447 01:08:18.279 --> 01:08:20.600 We were crafting you know, initials. 1448 01:08:20.600 --> 01:08:23.239 Stead of pulling on on Vans and Rubio in particular, 1449 01:08:23.680 --> 01:08:25.560 you know, our team was going about, you know, picking 1450 01:08:25.560 --> 01:08:27.880 out the messages that you would you know, pull out 1451 01:08:27.920 --> 01:08:30.960 when you're pulling together a pole. But we also spent 1452 01:08:31.000 --> 01:08:33.119 a lot of time kind of scouring the Internet to 1453 01:08:33.239 --> 01:08:35.520 understand what are the narratives that are kind of naturally 1454 01:08:35.560 --> 01:08:39.399 occurring around these guys, What are the late night hosts 1455 01:08:39.399 --> 01:08:41.479 saying about these guys, what are comment sections, what are 1456 01:08:41.520 --> 01:08:43.880 podcasts saying about them, so that we could you know, 1457 01:08:44.039 --> 01:08:45.920 have a little bit of an Internet first lens to 1458 01:08:46.000 --> 01:08:48.119 the narratives that are appearing in our polling. And we 1459 01:08:48.279 --> 01:08:52.399 found that while comment sections about JD Vans were often 1460 01:08:52.520 --> 01:08:54.840 you know, quite negative, definitely poking fun at him. People 1461 01:08:54.840 --> 01:08:58.279 are not afraid to poke fun at Jdvans. Mark Rubio's 1462 01:08:58.319 --> 01:08:58.880 comments were. 1463 01:08:58.800 --> 01:08:59.600 A lot more positive. 1464 01:08:59.640 --> 01:09:02.560 There's just not a lot of criticism happening organically about 1465 01:09:02.600 --> 01:09:05.920 him online. And it's actually why in rolling out this program, 1466 01:09:06.319 --> 01:09:08.640 I think our team walked away feeling a lot more 1467 01:09:08.680 --> 01:09:10.560 anxious about kind of what we have in front of 1468 01:09:10.680 --> 01:09:14.399 us to define Marco Rubio just because A he's super undefined. B. 1469 01:09:14.640 --> 01:09:17.479 People are not willing to, you know, go super negative 1470 01:09:17.560 --> 01:09:21.079 on him online. And see, like in rolling out this 1471 01:09:21.279 --> 01:09:24.439 program to the press, the only person anyone wants to 1472 01:09:24.479 --> 01:09:25.439 talk about right now is JD. 1473 01:09:25.560 --> 01:09:25.800 Vance. 1474 01:09:26.239 --> 01:09:28.640 People don't want to talk about Mark Rubio, and that's 1475 01:09:28.680 --> 01:09:29.119 a problem. 1476 01:09:30.199 --> 01:09:34.960 The Jdvans thing is interesting because, like I think a 1477 01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:37.279 lot about political messaging, when you're trying to define a person, 1478 01:09:37.359 --> 01:09:39.840 if you kind of want to memify him, and you 1479 01:09:39.920 --> 01:09:41.920 can either be memified in a cool way or in 1480 01:09:41.960 --> 01:09:45.039 a bad way. Trump maybe the Trump may actually be 1481 01:09:45.079 --> 01:09:46.880 the one person who resists meming because he kind of 1482 01:09:46.960 --> 01:09:49.079 is a meme of himself, developed his own meme in 1483 01:09:49.119 --> 01:09:50.640 the eighties and just like live with a sense, But 1484 01:09:51.199 --> 01:09:53.399 you know it is what it's like, this is even 1485 01:09:53.439 --> 01:09:55.119 before we even talked about memes, like that's what happened 1486 01:09:55.119 --> 01:09:59.279 to John Carey with the windsurfing and the you know, 1487 01:09:59.600 --> 01:10:01.359 the you know I was for before it was against. 1488 01:10:01.359 --> 01:10:03.720 So like they he was mumified. He lost al Gore 1489 01:10:03.880 --> 01:10:06.840 even before that, you know who, a man who was 1490 01:10:08.720 --> 01:10:10.680 a let chosen by Bill Clinton to be on the 1491 01:10:10.720 --> 01:10:12.760 ticket because he was thought to be the most ethical 1492 01:10:12.920 --> 01:10:15.840 and moral person in the Senate. Then by by the 1493 01:10:15.960 --> 01:10:17.800 end was turned into a giant liar who claimed that 1494 01:10:17.800 --> 01:10:20.720 he invented the Internet and was so boring. He got memified, right, 1495 01:10:20.760 --> 01:10:24.159 and so like Vance seems like like I always think 1496 01:10:24.199 --> 01:10:26.439 about when we like you can I'm sure if we 1497 01:10:26.520 --> 01:10:28.640 do message testing and we asked a million voters made 1498 01:10:28.720 --> 01:10:31.279 focus groups, like like he would want to say they're 1499 01:10:31.319 --> 01:10:33.760 bad on affordability, but that's not like it's not a 1500 01:10:33.840 --> 01:10:37.000 culturally relevant message or cultural irrelevant message. Is that the 1501 01:10:37.079 --> 01:10:38.079 JD Vance is a goober? 1502 01:10:38.479 --> 01:10:40.199 I actually looked at the creative brief right before we 1503 01:10:40.279 --> 01:10:43.479 got on because I wanted to remember our our create 1504 01:10:43.479 --> 01:10:45.439 de brief literally describes like what we think the meme 1505 01:10:45.600 --> 01:10:46.520 of these guys should be. 1506 01:10:47.279 --> 01:10:47.600 For JD. 1507 01:10:47.760 --> 01:10:51.119 Vance, it's the flannel shirt, doesn't fit him anymore. Right, 1508 01:10:51.239 --> 01:10:54.560 he grew up seemingly middle class. He's now in the 1509 01:10:54.600 --> 01:10:57.359 Trump administration, and like unfortunately the flannel shirt that he 1510 01:10:57.439 --> 01:11:00.239 once wanted to wear no longer zips up. It's he's 1511 01:11:00.279 --> 01:11:02.159 grown out of it because he's spent the last couple 1512 01:11:02.159 --> 01:11:04.840 of years catering to the Trump administration. So what you 1513 01:11:04.920 --> 01:11:07.479 thought you knew about him before, it's not so true anymore. 1514 01:11:07.760 --> 01:11:09.520 So everything you're going to see us put out over 1515 01:11:09.560 --> 01:11:11.319 the next couple of years, like for now, like I 1516 01:11:11.359 --> 01:11:13.399 think the meme could evolve, and part of our our 1517 01:11:13.439 --> 01:11:15.600 research is going to be to try to understand, you know, 1518 01:11:15.680 --> 01:11:18.600 poke holes in that theory. But that's kind of the 1519 01:11:18.680 --> 01:11:20.920 story that we're trying to tell about Vance And it 1520 01:11:21.000 --> 01:11:23.439 also allows us to you know, tell that story through 1521 01:11:23.479 --> 01:11:25.640 a climate change lens or an abortion lens or an 1522 01:11:25.680 --> 01:11:26.359 economic lens. 1523 01:11:26.399 --> 01:11:29.520 It doesn't require us to you know, pit issues against 1524 01:11:29.520 --> 01:11:29.840 each other. 1525 01:11:29.840 --> 01:11:31.800 I think every time as a party we're pitting issues 1526 01:11:31.840 --> 01:11:34.640 against each other, we're losing. The meme I think that 1527 01:11:34.680 --> 01:11:36.760 our team has picked out for Rubio is he's a 1528 01:11:36.840 --> 01:11:39.000 chicken hawk. He's all talked, but when it actually comes 1529 01:11:39.039 --> 01:11:41.119 to it, like he's never served in the military. He's 1530 01:11:41.119 --> 01:11:43.439 actually nowhere to be found right now despite everything that's 1531 01:11:43.479 --> 01:11:46.439 going on in Iran. So those like, like I said, 1532 01:11:46.560 --> 01:11:48.960 like our team and putting together this creative brief and 1533 01:11:49.000 --> 01:11:52.680 really distilling the research. It was less about what are 1534 01:11:52.720 --> 01:11:55.920 the top issues and more what's the one sentence that 1535 01:11:55.960 --> 01:11:58.079 you want someone to describe them as when they walk away? 1536 01:11:58.600 --> 01:12:00.680 And I think that's really our theory on on narrative 1537 01:12:00.720 --> 01:12:03.840 and messaging priorities before I. 1538 01:12:03.920 --> 01:12:07.399 Let you go, Like, as we are sitting here today, 1539 01:12:07.680 --> 01:12:11.039 there's somewhere between a dozen and four hundred people who 1540 01:12:11.119 --> 01:12:14.399 are planning to run for president very soon. In those 1541 01:12:14.520 --> 01:12:17.640 campaign headquarters, there are already people you and I have 1542 01:12:17.680 --> 01:12:19.239 been these people in humans in the past, who are 1543 01:12:19.399 --> 01:12:23.159 charting out at memos and slide decks what the campaign 1544 01:12:23.159 --> 01:12:25.039 should look like, what the strategy would be, what the 1545 01:12:25.119 --> 01:12:28.640 campaign structure would be. What advice do you have for 1546 01:12:28.760 --> 01:12:32.640 these campaigns to you know, learn from what you guys 1547 01:12:32.680 --> 01:12:35.000 have done and to avoid making some of the mistakes 1548 01:12:35.000 --> 01:12:37.000 we've made in recent campaigns, where I think some of 1549 01:12:37.119 --> 01:12:41.319 our structure and strategies have been anachronistic at best. 1550 01:12:41.960 --> 01:12:45.079 Yeah, I mean I would be remiss not to say that, 1551 01:12:45.199 --> 01:12:47.560 like digital has to be at the table, like if 1552 01:12:47.640 --> 01:12:51.319 you are not bringing the table. Yes, right, there's all 1553 01:12:51.359 --> 01:12:53.920 the debate of digital as a team versus a tactic. Yes, 1554 01:12:54.560 --> 01:12:56.359 Like I hope we are past that, but I have 1555 01:12:56.520 --> 01:12:59.920 to say it, right. I mean. The other thing is, 1556 01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:03.359 it's just like, you know, I think that if I 1557 01:13:04.399 --> 01:13:05.800 get asked all the time, well, how are you guys 1558 01:13:05.800 --> 01:13:08.600 actually acting on this research? It's really smart, it's really insightful, 1559 01:13:08.680 --> 01:13:10.880 but like, how should it change my strategy? 1560 01:13:11.079 --> 01:13:11.600 And I think my. 1561 01:13:11.880 --> 01:13:15.399 Singular answer to that question is more is more and 1562 01:13:15.520 --> 01:13:16.000 more video. 1563 01:13:17.600 --> 01:13:20.319 You are never going to regret making more video for 1564 01:13:20.479 --> 01:13:23.880 today the way today's Internet operates. I think Kyle Thlart 1565 01:13:23.920 --> 01:13:25.880 put this study out a couple weeks or last week 1566 01:13:25.920 --> 01:13:28.720 around just how much Corey Booker is just churning out 1567 01:13:28.800 --> 01:13:31.600 video and constantly putting things out, and it's like earning 1568 01:13:31.680 --> 01:13:34.720 him a ton of awesome, you know, goodwill on the Internet. 1569 01:13:35.319 --> 01:13:39.079 You are never going to regret doing more. But I 1570 01:13:39.119 --> 01:13:42.239 think that requires a fundamental shift in We need to 1571 01:13:42.319 --> 01:13:44.359 stop editing ourselves on the front end. We need to 1572 01:13:44.399 --> 01:13:50.279 stop putting things through twenty rounds of legal compliance, research review, 1573 01:13:50.399 --> 01:13:53.439 and just start putting things on the Internet and seeing 1574 01:13:53.479 --> 01:13:55.720 what sticks. The Internet is a place where we have 1575 01:13:55.800 --> 01:13:58.399 a lot to learn. We need to stop thinking about 1576 01:13:58.439 --> 01:14:01.239 it as just a distribution chann and instead think about 1577 01:14:01.239 --> 01:14:02.800 it as a place where we can do a lot 1578 01:14:02.960 --> 01:14:06.800 of good in listening and observing how people are responding 1579 01:14:06.840 --> 01:14:07.399 to our content. 1580 01:14:08.439 --> 01:14:10.920 Daniel Butterfield, thank you so much for joining us. Thank 1581 01:14:10.920 --> 01:14:12.880 you for nerding out with me on my favorite topic 1582 01:14:12.920 --> 01:14:15.319 in the world. This has been so much fun. We 1583 01:14:15.399 --> 01:14:17.159 will be watching what you guys are doing to the 1584 01:14:17.199 --> 01:14:18.880 rest of this selection of the next Thank you so much. 1585 01:14:19.159 --> 01:14:20.319 Thank you Talk soon. 1586 01:14:21.039 --> 01:14:23.199 Positive America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is 1587 01:14:23.239 --> 01:14:25.760 produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Ruben, McKenna Roberts, and Faris 1588 01:14:25.800 --> 01:14:28.279 Safari with re Jerland, Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill. Our 1589 01:14:28.279 --> 01:14:31.119 team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hepcoat, Jordan Canter, Charlotte Landis, 1590 01:14:31.159 --> 01:14:33.439 David Toles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our 1591 01:14:33.439 --> 01:14:35.520 staff is probably unionized with the Writers Guild of America 1592 01:14:35.640 --> 01:14:35.840 East