Insights

February 28, 2024

How Well Do Political Practitioners Actually Persuade the Public?

But even among those who are testing regularly, if we don’t have great intuition about which messages change minds, writing persuasive messages to test is also likely to be a challenge! We should aim to diversify the messages we test, even writing some that our intuitions tell us won’t be effective.

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October 11, 2023

Case Study: Can AI Voices Persuade Voters?

Grow Progress and Trilogy Interactive partnered to test both conventional wisdom and largely uncharted territory by showing 8 ads on the issues of prescription drugs and abortion to a national audience. Half of the voiceovers were recorded by human men and women, while the other half were AI-generated male and female voices. The results in both persuasiveness and gender matching are a promising springboard for further testing.

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October 2, 2023

The Engagement Illusion: When Likes Lie and Shares Deceive

Are your campaigns getting plenty of likes, shares, and comments but not changing anyone’s mind? You’re not alone. In the digital age, it’s easy to mistake online engagement for effective…

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August 16, 2023

Case Study: Optimizing Campaign Messaging with Key Voting Demographics

How Precision Strategies Used Grow Progress’ Tools To Optimize Campaign Messaging

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May 22, 2023

Republicans’ “Defund the IRS” bill

An editorial by the Washington Post was highly effective at increasing net opposition to Republicans’ “Defund the IRS” bill, while the political messages we tested had no net effects.

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January 20, 2023

Case Study: Innovation Ohio and Message Development

The Grow Progress Team Summary: Innovation Ohio used Audience Understanding surveys to inspire their team to create more persuasive messages.  In early 2022, Innovation Ohio was looking for a new…

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October 6, 2022

Case Study: Flavored Tobacco Ban Ballot Measure

Summary: A message highlighting the tobacco companies that are funding the campaign to oppose California’s Proposition 31 was highly effective at increasing support for the measure. 

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September 27, 2022

Case Study: Climate Messaging

Summary: Language from a news article that linked recent storms to climate change was clearly effective at increasing respondents’ sense of urgency around climate change.

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September 14, 2022

Case Study: Student Loan Cancellation

While none of the messages tested increased support for the policy to cancel student loans, President Biden’s message persuaded people that Democrats were the party to trust on the issue of student debt and college affordability.

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May 25, 2022

The effects of Steve Kerr’s remarks on gun violence

Summary: Steve Kerr’s pre-game speech about the need for federal action on gun violence prevention had dramatic effects on support for new gun violence prevention laws.

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January 14, 2022

Voting Rights

A message based in the values of Merit and Patriotism increased support for the Freedom to Vote Act among Republicans and white people.

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December 17, 2021

Workers’ rights and protections

Support for increased workers’ rights is high, but much lower when pitted against concerns about inflation. Two messages show promise at increasing support for new workers’ rights and protections.

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