You Are Not Your Audience

The Most Expensive Mistake in a High-Stakes Issues Campaign

Picture this: It’s just been confirmed that your industry is the target of a ballot initiative to change regulations that make it nearly impossible for you to make your product. Overnight, it’s become a high-stakes campaign where Jane and John Voter - hundreds of thousands of people who know nothing about what you do or how you do it - will decide your business’s fate.

So you’ve pulled together a dream team and filled your conference room with the brightest minds money can buy. Lawyers who've argued before the State Supreme Court. Policy experts who've crafted legislation that changed entire industries. Engineers who can design and explain complex systems in their sleep. Everyone in this room is passionate, highly intelligent and absolutely committed to winning a make or break campaign.

And that's the problem.

This deep expertise, while invaluable, creates a dangerous blind spot that leads to the single most expensive mistake a campaign can make: assuming the public thinks like you do.

When Expert Logic Meets Voter Reality

Let me tell you about an issue campaign we worked on some years ago. During one of our strategy sessions, a key member on the team made what seemed like a perfectly logical observation: "If people could just understand the multilayered compliance requirements in this initiative, they would never vote for it!"

He wasn't wrong about the technical details. The science was solid, the analysis was sound, and his conclusion was rational—for someone who thinks like an engineer. But here's the thing: voters aren't engineers. They don't make decisions based on multilayered compliance requirements, and they certainly don't have the time or inclination to parse through complex policy between doing loads of laundry.

This engineer's comment perfectly illustrates "You Are Not Your Audience.” It wasn't a bad idea—it was a logical conclusion for an expert to draw. But it was also completely disconnected from how real people think and make decisions.

The Brilliant Way: Meeting Voters Where They Are

During times of economic uncertainty – which, let's be honest, feels like most of the time in Alaska – the public isn't lying awake at night worried about complicated policy and regulations. They're worried about kitchen-table issues: "Will I keep my job?," "Will I be able to afford groceries?,” and “Can my tires last one more winter?"

These aren't abstract policy concerns. They're immediate and personal. And if your campaign messaging doesn't speak to these real-world anxieties, you may as well be speaking a foreign language.

How We Map the Battlefield with Data

So how did we know this? We didn't guess. We used data to find the answers.

Our first step was to conduct focus groups. We brought together real Alaskans – not policy experts, not political insiders, just regular people trying to make ends meet. We listened as they talked about their concerns, their hopes, and what kept them up at night. This qualitative research uncovered the 'why' behind people's feelings – their anxieties about job security, rising costs, and economic stability.

Next, we validated these qualitative findings with a statewide survey. We tested a battery of messages and messengers, measuring what was "convincing" or "very convincing" to a broad, representative sample of voters. We didn't just ask what people thought – we measured how different approaches actually moved opinion.

The data was unequivocal. The most persuasive messengers weren't corporate spokespeople or policy experts—they were real people sharing real concerns. Messages about jobs, the economy, and the cost of living dramatically outperformed any technical arguments about regulations or fiscal policy.

The engineer's multilayered compliance requirements argument? It tested poorly across every demographic we surveyed. Not because it was wrong, but because it wasn't relevant to voters' actual decision-making process.

The Critical Investment: Know Before You Tell

If you're managing a high-stakes campaign, the single most critical investment you can make is in understanding the battlefield before you step onto it. Before you craft a single message, before you spend a dollar on advertising, you must conduct professional research with a solid partner.

You can't just poll your colleagues or ask your friends what they think. As much as you believe you're a normal person, you're not. By virtue of your position – your education, your political sophistication, your business connections – you're already operating from a different reality than the average voter you need to persuade.

This isn't a criticism; it's just a fact. The same expertise that makes you valuable in crafting policy or strategy can blind you to how regular people actually process information and make decisions.

The Bottom Line

To win, you have to cut through that expert noise and speak directly to the real concerns of average voters. You have to understand not just what they think, but why they think it. You need to know what motivates them, what scares them, and what gives them hope.

Data is the only map that can reliably guide you there. Without it, you're not running a campaign – you're just having an expensive conversation with yourself.

And in Alaska, where every vote counts and margins are often razor-thin, that's a conversation you can't afford to have.

P.S. Does your campaign messaging pass the "kitchen-table" test? To help you find out, we created a free strategic tool, Brilliant’s Campaign Compass. Use it to self-assess your campaign's health, diagnose potential blind spots, and identify your highest-impact opportunities. Download the compass here and get a clear picture of your path forward.