Moffo Co is a creative strategy consultancy that provides bespoke communications for campaigns, causes and brands.
Unite the Country | 2020
In 2018, I served as a senior advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren while she ran for re-election and laid the groundwork for a national campaign. In early 2019, I returned to Scotland.
In 2020, COVID lockdowns created an unexpected opportunity to play a meaningful role in the General Election from across the Atlantic. I teamed up with my childhood friend and Obama campaign colleague, BRAD JENKINS, at Joe Biden's primary Super PAC, Unite the Country — leading strategy, creative production, and distribution of content targeting young voters, voters of color, and others disillusioned after the primary.
We were the only producers at Unite the Country to spend zero dollars in paid advertising — redirecting that money entirely toward more content. Lean team. 100% "found footage." Cheap music licensing. We seeded every spot through our own network of influencers, artists, athletes, and politicos — many of whom appeared in the content. The vast majority hit ~2M views within 48 hours. In multiple cases, Unite the Country then allocated paid media budgets to put our spots on the air — the ultimate validation of a zero-paid strategy.
I generated the creative concepts, wrote the scripts, and oversaw editing from The Shack™ on my terrace in Edinburgh.
In collaboration with Enfranchisement Productions
STAND UP
This video, narrated by legendary MC BLACK THOUGHT, was the flagship of our series targeting young, disillusioned voters. The Summer and Fall of 2020 was a difficult time for many.
Our prevailing strategy was to validate genuine cynicism — even when directed at the entire system or Biden himself. If voters needed to hold their noses, we weren't going to tell them to feel differently. We were going to empower them to act.
VOTE UNITED
Our creative mission was to acknowledge the real issues that animated young voters before reminding them of the stakes of Biden vs. Trump. Inspired by our creative partners at HUMAN, we collected original audio from real young voters prompted by a few provocative questions. We took direction from their sentiments and committed to including honesty that other political videos would have scrubbed.
TOGETHER
Democratic voters selected Biden as their standard-bearer just as COVID-19 shut down the nation. Trump's inability or unwillingness to address the pandemic was shocking.
Most of our target voters had supported other candidates in the primary, threatening to disillusion them further. We needed to address this head on. "Together" was inspired by the grassroots organizers who had placed their faith in other candidates.
THE DREAM
By October 2020, the internet was flooded with campaign content. As a Super PAC we couldn't coordinate with Biden-Harris, but we observed that little attention was being paid to the historic nature of Kamala Harris's candidacy.
For our target audience especially, this was a story worth telling — and we wanted to tell it generationally, in a deeply personal way. So we had Kamala's niece Meena Harris and Meena's young daughter do the voiceover.
REBUILD
With disillusioned young voters in mind, we approached climate change differently. We wanted to celebrate the fact that Biden's Climate Plan was already a victory for the new generation of climate activists — and to frame climate action as a path toward economic recovery in the COVID era.
To represent our UNITE theme across generations, I enlisted my old boss, former Secretary of State JOHN KERRY, to share voiceover duties with a young climate activist.
WITH LOVE
Another collaboration with our partners at HUMAN — but this time, to close the campaign on a loftier note, we replaced real audio of disillusionment with real audio of genuine, action-oriented hope. Who better to provide that voice than civil rights organizer and US Representative John Lewis.
THE REAL WORK
The grassroots energy of a winning campaign should be channeled directly into governing. In a polarized landscape, elected officials need to increase direct communication about promises made and kept. So even before Biden took the oath of office, we convinced Unite the Country to let us produce a message providing immediate evidence of change in action — and imploring citizens to remain engaged in a national unifying effort.
We got Grammy-, Emmy-, and Oscar-winning artist COMMON to deliver the voiceover. Soon after, I became an advisor to Common and his nonprofit, IMAGINE JUSTICE, dedicated to criminal justice reform.
RUN AAPI | 2020
The following videos were not part of our Biden Super PAC work, but came from the same partnership and similar strategic approach. These are two examples of campaigns we produced during the General Election to mobilize the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community. We also played a significant role in the Georgia Senate runoffs, where Asian-American voters — particularly South Asian communities in the Atlanta metro — helped deliver both victories and swing the balance of the United States Senate.
In collaboration with Enfranchisement Productions
#THENEW
In Fall 2020, the fastest-growing demographic in America was also the least politically active. Our work with RUN AAPI began by commissioning the first-ever political poll focused on young Asian-Americans. The results convinced us that cultural pride and influence could be a forerunner to political action.
We developed an influencer-driven content campaign called #TheNew. Simple Scott created a visual identity we brought to life across a movie trailer video, website, street posters, and a limited edition sweatshirt. Actress CHLOE BENNET co-wrote and delivered the voiceover.
I created the name and strategy for #TheNew campaign and served as consulting producer on this and other videos.
#MYNAMEIS
When Senator David Perdue insulted Kamala Harris, we worked with the AAPI community to respond swiftly. Within hours, the #MyNameIs campaign we created went viral.
We wanted to highlight one particularly odious aspect of Perdue's insult: the dog whistle. So we called out the "implausible deniability" historically used against candidates of color and minority groups.