Illinois Governor Pat Quinn

During the 2010 election, the use of low-cost digital media promotion was still relatively new territory in politics. I jumped on the opportunity to create content for non-traditional outlets. This allowed me to capture an audience who might otherwise ignore what’s on TV or in a newspaper; work within the new format to produce several short documentaries; and tell deeper stories about our candidate than I could with traditional advertisements. The results: Pat Quinn was elected as governor of Illinois despite, according to statistician Nate Silver, only having a 9.4% chance of winning.

Strategy

"Everybody in, nobody left out" has been the Quinn family philosophy ever since the first Patrick Quinn, Governor Quinn's grandfather, arrived in America in 1900. It was a sentiment we felt everybody could stand behind.
Branding

Pat Quinn's brand identity is a testament to consistency and evolution. Throughout his career, he maintained a uniform presentation, employing the same font, color, and branding. Retaining the trademarked Q, the team seamlessly combined it with the modern Gotham font, representing both continuity and a forward-looking approach. The in-house team crafted various campaign materials, including walk literature, podium signs, graphics for social media, online ads, flyers, tickets, and invitations.
Video Campaigns

Our digital campaigns received widespread attention from other media outlets. Our Glee parody, which ran during an actual broadcast of the show on Fox, went viral a week before the election and was critically acclaimed as one of the year’s funniest political ads. Brady’s Dog Plan was described as “America’s nastiest political ad” by The Guardian, but we stand by it: killing dogs isn’t cool.
Photography

With the Blagojevich scandal still fresh in residents’ minds during the 2010 election, we needed to assure the public Pat Quinn would not carry his predecessor’s corruption with him into office. During the 2014 election, Governor Quinn was still working through the mess he inherited, so we needed to focus on his accomplishments while in office. Our goal during both campaigns was to highlight his values and commitment to everyday people while painting him as more down-to-earth than his opponents.