The narrative was easy to craft. Sean Duffy — known for starring in MTV’s reality show “The Real World,” and as a father of six, professional lumberjack, and four-term District Attorney. When you look at Duffy, you just think fresh and approachable. Our task was to create a web design that would achieve that same gut reaction from potential voters and donors: This guy is different.
We decided to create a completely different experience on Duffy’s campaign website by integrating social media and site functionality. On Duffy’s homepage, the reader is brought into the website with a large Flash video of Duffy speaking candidly, in a simple dress shirt and tie, about how to navigate the page. Instead of a newsfeed on the main page, one finds a Facebook feed showing off his nearly 6,000 fans. We have even created “climbing to the top” lumberjack widgets during fundraising pushes, a symbolic image of the young guy trying to take on David Obey, the 40-year incumbent.
But we didn’t stop at a clever, hip website design. To maximize the success of Duffy’s campaign, we “engaged” in aggressive blogger outreach to position this race in the national consciousness. In the fall of 2009, we wanted insiders to see this race as the race — the archetype of the fresh-faced Republican taking on the Democratic machine.
Legwork done in the fall of 2009, including a Red State endorsement, ignited into big returns in early 2010. Duffy received coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post, was named the next Scott Brown in TIME, and received the Palin endorsement at the culmination of a large moneybomb in February. In May, Obey dropped out of the race after 21 consecutive victories in his district. It wasn’t just about Duffy’s website design, though that was important to the image. We were able to create the buzz necessary to ensure that Duffy became the campaign star that could earn votes, not just MTV ratings.
