NAACP

The first assignment was just to test the waters. SKDK knew we could prove that targeted advertising on radio stations popular with Black listeners could help mobilize voters to the polls. Even for smaller, off-season races. We began with a little race for District Attorney in Shelby County, Tennessee in the summer of 2022. The district had been overseen by unfair, Republican DAs for years — overloading their local prisons with mostly Black inmates.

Each DA term lasts 8 years in Shelby County, and another 8 years was not in the best interest of Memphis’s Black community. We created a radio campaign featuring a matronly-but-active character who explained why it was important to show up for this August election.

Steve Mulroy won with 56% of the vote, making him the first Democrat to win in Shelby County in decades.

However, about 100 days after Mulroy took office, Tyre Nichols was beaten and killed by five police officers in Memphis. In so many cases like these, DAs across the country played politics and didn’t take action in defense of black lives. However, Mulroy moved quickly and with transparancy, charging the officers responsible.

The NAACP saw the impact radio advertising had on getting out the vote. They entrusted us to work on a number of races for them, producing dozens of ads, and the outcomes have been repeatedly successful. Here are just a few of our favorites.