There is a significant gap in outreach of young Latino voters, young men in particular. In 2022 United We Dream Action worked to close this gap with a creative 15 second ad styled after a video game that was developed using deep research into this audience. The ad, called Get In The Game, features a character who has to jump through obstacles to get to their polling location and cast their ballot. The ad invites the viewer to take charge, telling them it is up to them and their friends. The 15 second ad ran on YouTube in the weeks leading up to the 2022 midterm elections and directed viewers to a website to help plan their vote. In order to reach this specific demographic the ad was run on YouTube targeting men 18-25, and it ran in zip codes with over 70% hispanic identification from the 2020 census in order to ensure we reached our target audience. This included states like Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, and Texas.
In 2022 United We Dream Action conducted research on Latino Media Consumption and encounters with media on immigration. One of the key findings from this intensive research (which included opt-in internet and television panel data) was that young Latino Males aged 18-35 were spending much of their time online engaging with gaming. We also learned that this population was more politically apathetic and got little to no political content around immigration. That inspired an individual research project led by José Muñoz, UWDA's Deputy Communications Director which included a language analysis which posed the question: How do gamers perceive and make judgements around belonging and community?
This language analysis came from significant insight into gamers, with hours reviewing platforms like Twitch, YouTube, Stream, and Discord to understand how gamers communicate. This resulted in three main communication frames to leverage when communicating with this population.
Or, as this research further argues, rearrange their order and they become mobilization steps to engage this audience. Give gamers something hard to do (Challenge Accepted), allow them to work on it together (All In This Together) and then let them celebrate the hell out of it (We Did It).
One of the main challenges to make this all come together was budget and timeline. Making an ad stylized like a video game was expensive, and it also would take a long time to get it done right with animation. One of the ways we tried to circumvent this challenge was by running a static test of this content before making the ad in its entirety. We worked with Grow Progress to conduct a test of different styles of animation to see which would test best with the audience. From that testing we learned that the 8-bit tested best, which was also the cheapest and fastest to produce. By doing this testing it allowed us to more comfortably move forward with production.
This project was truly unique because in a midterm election cycle that saw million and millions of dollars spent, this ad was focused on un-tested, or understated, methods of reaching out to a niche audience. Our main objective was to meet a specific audience where they hang out, and to speak authentically to them in order to move them to vote. But more broadly than this, this is the beginning of more engagement with this audience, and taking our learning into future election cycles.
We wanted to use the insightful research into gamers to connect with young Latino men in a meaningful way and reach as many of them as possible to encourage them to vote in the 2022 midterms. During its initial run in November, this ad reached over 1.2 million young men aged 18-25 years in zip codes that were over 70 percent Latino with a video completion rate of 89 percent. What we learned from this was that this audience was significantly engaged with this content.
Given the amount we spent on this digital ad-buy each person who got the ad saw it on average less than twice. In future iterations we’d want to have more funding to get people seeing the ad more than times. Regardless of if they saw the ad or were in the control group however, less that 30 percent of young men 18-25 in heavily Latino zip codes said they were “likely to vote.” This speaks to the need to further engage this audience by trying
creative methods that go beyond the ways campaigns and non-profits traditionally reach this audience.
In a static content test before developing the final video we found that the 8-bit design made the audience 10% more likely to report an interest in voting. But a finding that backed the use of the language was that This is a breakdown of movement for people who have a low turnout score - probably our most critical group to break through with. When using the same language “sometimes it's not enough to watch, if you’ve got the skills it’s time to engage,” has a persuasive impact in moving someone to being either "Likely" or "Very likely" to vote.