Case StudyCampaigns

Finding Video Ads to Move Voters

How Change Research helped Ned Lamont win the Connecticut governorship in a race that kept tightening to Election Day.

0.5 ptsprediction accuracy
Real timefeedback on TV ads
Chart showing prediction accuracy in the Connecticut governor race
The Challenge

Connecticut was supposed to be safely Democratic. By the final weeks of the 2018 race, it was anything but. Republican Bob Stefanowski was closing fast, public polling was mixed, and Ned Lamont’s campaign had a compressed window to make the most important paid media decisions of the cycle.

The outgoing Democratic governor was leaving office deeply unpopular, and Stefanowski was working to tie Lamont to that record. The campaign needed to know what was actually moving voters, what wasn’t, and which television creative deserved the remaining ad budget.

They needed research that was fast enough to keep up with a shifting race, granular enough to test specific video spots, and affordable enough to run repeatedly in the final stretch.

The Approach

Change Research partnered with Ned for CT in the closing weeks of the campaign to test television ads and sharpen the final messaging strategy. Change Research’s methodology let voters watch actual video creative and respond in real time, giving the campaign a level of feedback traditional phone polling could not deliver, at a fraction of the cost and turnaround time.

The research identified that a Lamont ad connecting Stefanowski to Donald Trump proved extremely effective at mobilizing voters against Stefanowski. Change Research advised the campaign to highlight that message in the final weeks of the campaign.

The Results

A closing strategy that held through a race that narrowed to the wire.

0.5 ptsPrediction accuracy
Real timeFeedback on TV ads

Ned Lamont defeated Bob Stefanowski 49% to 46% on Election Day, holding the governorship for Democrats and becoming the 89th Governor of Connecticut. Change Research’s polling predicted the result within 0.5 percentage points, and the closing paid media strategy, built around the creative that tested strongest in real-time voter feedback, held through a race that narrowed to the wire.

Change Research successfully predicted victory within 0.5 percentage points. Change allowed us the ability to actually show voters the videos and get their real-time feedback. In addition to the poll being increasingly time & cost efficient, the ability to test TV ads was critical.
Emily Lamont
Senior Advisor, Ned for CT
Success

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