Boston City Councilmember Reverend Miniard Culpepper

The Challenge: Filling A Gap In Digital Advertising. Boston City Council candidates have rarely prioritized digital advertising in their campaigns. This pattern of lack of digital advertising continued in the open Boston City Council District 7 campaign. Our preferred candidate, Reverend Miniard Culpepper, ran no digital advertising in the September 9th preliminary election in which he finished second (of which the top two candidates moved onto a general election on November 4, 2024).

Seeing that Reverend Culpepper had not placed any digital advertising in the preliminary election, we worked alongside 1866 Action Fund (of which the Fund’s name came from the first year that African-Americans had been elected to the Massachusetts legislature) to ensure digital advertising in support of Reverend Culpepper’s candidacy.

Our Solution: Strategically Geofencing Digital. Spending less than $5,000 on Meta and YouTube placement throughout the district as well as geofenced buys around in-district African-American churches on the Sunday prior to the election, 1866 Action Fund ensured a positive 30 second video ad saturated African-American voters throughout the district. That the 1866 Action Fund program was essential became clear after the campaign when, through research, the 1866 Action Fund was able to see that the campaign ran non-strategically placed Facebook ads that far exceeded the district limits and even ran two days beyond Election Day. There was also no sign that the campaign ran Google or Youtube ads at all.

The Result: Earning The Win. Despite finishing second in the preliminary election on September 9th, Reverend Culpepper won the November general election by a margin of 8 points.