A freshly launched Democratic media shop is looking to carve out a niche with entertaining creative designed to persuade low-information voters.
Adwell Group was founded at the start of the year, although the name was settled on last month. Kevin McKeon, Cayce McCabe and Megan Nashban Kenney are partners at the shop. EVPs include Jenna Kruse and Boo Yuen. Other executives on the shingle are SVP Christina González and VP Isaac Walker. Christina Jansen is serving as an advisor.
McKeon, McCabe, Kruse, Yuen, Gonzalez and Walker are veterans of Mark Putnam’s media shop.
“The big, overall philosophy is we’re not reaching people who are heavy news consumers — those are not usually your swing voters,” McKeon told C&E. “The people that we need to persuade are the people who are working until 6 o’clock, 7 o’clock, feed their kids and then try to relax. And it’s trying to make sure that we reach them … in an entertaining way that is memorable.”
He added: “The creative has to be seen through the prism of who’s watching it and how to reach those voters. We start grounded in research and who we actually need to reach and persuade and what mediums we’re going to use to reach them.”
The shop did a “silent launch” in January, but this week started to announce its presence. “We wanted to build a firm for the next 15-20 years as the landscape of political advertising changes,” McKeon said.
For now, that looks like readying clients, some of which are sitting members of Congress, for a new-look electorate in 2024. Plus, there are new platforms and other existing ones that have seen their audiences mature, like Paramount Plus, which McKeon notes is good for reaching 50-plus voters.
“There are some new opportunities that everyone’s going to have to figure out,” he said. “You’ve got to find ways to break through and be seen in what’s going to be a very crowded environment.”
That means voters, especially low-information voters, are going to need to see ads repeatedly. “In a presidential year, there are a whole bunch of information avoiders, and you do need to get repetition to them because they have a lot of distractions,” he said. “Even really good creative has to be burned in.”
