I'm pleased to report to you that thanks to our fundraising efforts last weekend, our 'Thank John McCain' ad is going on the air in Colorado & Nevada tomorrow! We've secured a full week run in the Las Vegas Valley area, which covers 1.5 Million voters, as well as the Denver Interconnect with another 2.5 Million voters. We're airing 225 spots between the two, which averages a $46/ per run cost.
We are also running the 'Judgment' ad in Michigan now, and it will continue to rotate through the election with the 'Thank John McCain' spot. The Michigan buy was already initiated well before McCain pulled out and ends today, so unless something drastic changes we will not air in that state going forward.
We have recorded a Spanish Language version of this ad which will be ready for airing in the next 48 hours!
Another exciting opportunity has come about in the mean time. I've been contacted by Lee Hirsch, a double Sundance & Emmy award winning producer/director regarding his vision for a series of ads entitled Local Voices.
Central to the success of Local Voices is recognition-in these short films Americans in communities that are often overlooked will see their own towns and neighbors conceptualizing their support of Obama through the lens of that particular region's struggles. For example, in the aptly-named Pennsylvania town of Coaldale, where earlier this year a man plummeted 500 feet down one of the many strip mines decimating this area, we talk to a mine employee about his own battles with health insurance companies over a work-related injury, set against the backdrop of the school where he is dropping off his daughter before his shift begins. In Goldsboro, North Carolina, home to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, we will talk to a young fighter pilot on his evening off, out at a local bar, about his support of Obama's phased withdrawal plan from Iraq. In central Ohio, a state with the eighth-highest foreclosure rate in the nation, we speak with a family vacating their home, who wonder how a man who cannot remember how many houses he owns can lead this country out of its current mortgage crisis. Though Local Voices brings us too many different towns, we see they all share high prices at gas pumps, boarded up homes and business and the yellow ribbons wrapped around trees showing that while these problems effect us all on a personal level, the challenges must be met by strong national leadership and unity.
Each segment of Local Voices will be structured similarly in terms of introducing small towns averaging a population of 30-50,000 in swing states like Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia, but the content will vary depending on what the people in those areas are most concerned with. Each episode will be shot over a two-day time period with a four-day total edit turnaround. The content will aesthetically reflect the candid, unrehearsed, sometimes humorous nature of the interviews, and the honesty of the sentiments expressed therein. Key to this project is Lee's capacity, as a filmmaker, to quickly find amazing characters and to create a space for my subjects in interviews in which they feel at ease and safe to speak from the heart, enunciating very personal experiences in terms that make their realities accessible and urgent. The feel of Local Voices promises to be authentic and almost user-generated, not slick but organic, honest and moving while delivering clear and on-point messaging. Learn more about Lee at his website.
Lee is flying to Missouri today for the first ad in this series. After reviewing the most recent polling data cross referenced with towns that fit Lee's vision, we have decided on Joplin, Missouri as the first town in which to shoot a Local Voices ad. Joplin is population 49,000 with an average income of $30,000. It's also in SW Missouri, considered to be the most contested area of the state & the area where Missouri's electoral vote winner will be decided. Lee will be shooting through Wednesday & we anticipate having a final version of this ad ready by Saturday.
We're preparing for the next buy right now for 'Thank John McCain' and 'Judgment.' We will review polls, budget & our micro targeting data along with rate of return figures to decide where to place this next buy, but are considering VA, PA, IN, NH, WI, MN in particular. If you can help with this special project or our drive to spread 'Thank John McCain' and Judgment to other swing states, please contribute at our website. To tag you contribution specifically toward the new project, please type 'Local Voices' in the comment line & choose split as the ad preference. Otherwise to fund airing of our current ads, just choose either or both as normal.
Thank you for all that you do,
Eugene Hedlund
Founder/Chair
TruthandHope.Org PAC