WINNER OF BEST BARE-KNUCKLED STREET FIGHT
Chris Ekstrom was running for a congressional seat in Texas. After weeks of being attacked for being a wealthy carpetbagger, Ekstrom’s polling revealed that he was well behind the front runner, barely making third place.
He called us to fix the problem, hiring us as General Consultant 5 days before the primary.
We knew that we had to inoculate the attack, going negative as quickly as possible to create “a pox on both our houses”.
That night we created a hard-hitting digital ad, putting it all on the line, and had it on the air the next morning. Ekstrom’s opponent Ronny Jackson was accused of handing out prescription drugs to anyone who needed them during his role as a doctor in the Obama administration. In response, we created the candyman ad. The digital ad was so effective that his opponent called our firm after election day explaining how terrified he was when he saw the ad and complimenting its quality. The goal was to move numbers as quickly as possible in Chris Ekstrom’s favor. And we did.
Chris Ekstrom said, “In what would have taken most consulting firms a week to produce a quality ad and opposition research, only took you 24 hours. I am really impressed with the work they did in such a short period of time.”
Chris Ekstrom’s previous consultant hadn’t wanted to go negative, so with five days to go, slipping further every day, we had to do the opposition research, and write, produce and place the ad over the course of 24 hours to get it out on time. Most firms could not have produced an ad and have it placed on such short notice, but we managed to create the ad and get it placed in time for the attack on Ronny Jackson. It’s rare in politics you have your opponent call you to tell you how effective you were, but in our case, that’s precisely what happened. The level of creativity and quality put into the ad in such a short time frame shows the effort we will go for any client, and I feel this ad shows how far we will go as a firm for our clients.