The campaign to defeat Amendment W used Cetera Services for social media implantation and graphics to explain our reasons why “W was Wrong.” Dirk and Angela were brilliant and were a major reason this campaign was successful in defeating Amendment W. At the start of the campaign Amendment W had 60% support of South Dakota voters. After months of targeted, poll tested and researched messages, strategically placed using various methods, the final result saw Amendment W support had shrunk to 44% and it was defeated.
Campaigns live and die on their ability to stay on message, to use the researched arguments and sound bites, to be creative and get noticed while not flailing around with a different focus every week. Cetera Services “gets” how to push creative approaches and keep message discipline.
One sign of how effective Cetera Services is at their grasp of social media is the fact that as we ran the “W is Wrong” campaign the leadership team heard over and over how our messages was “everywhere,” and “all over the place” — which was key because the campaign couldn’t afford to purchase paid media until the very last minute.
Here are the reasons why Amendment W was defeated in spite of being outspent by proponents by nearly 3-to-1.
- Active coalition of 41 groups – all them sending messages all of the time
- Political Leaders willing to tell voters that W was Wrong
- Business Leaders funding the campaign to tell voters W was Wrong
- Cetera Services – Media company, guiding the social media campaign — which was “everywhere.”