In the Know with Executive Director of Women For The Win, Jordan Zaslow
When you think of a political campaign what comes to mind? Is it the candidate? What about where they stand on a certain issue? And when you do think of the candidate, what is the context that you see them in? Perhaps a visual of the candidate surrounded by supporters comes to mind. Maybe, you recall an image of the candidate kissing babies with an American Flag behind them. There’s a context for you (and me!) to visualize each candidate within. And this is no accident, this is called effective marketing. The tools to create these lasting images, and more importantly impressions, are the work of a team of experts that harness a candidate's message and adapt it to a screen near you. A make or break for candidates trying to get their message out, running a successful campaign goes hand-in-hand with a marketing budget (my bank account just screamed in agony thinking about this). But what if a candidate doesn’t have a big budget? What if a candidate isn’t sure where to start or what tools they need? Cue Women For The Win, a coalition of media professionals who want to see more women in office, and are down to help create the content to make it happen. To learn more, we sat down virtually with Executive Director, Jordan Zaslow. Read what we learned here:
GIVE US THE SCOOP. WHAT IS WOMEN FOR THE WIN?
Women for the Win is a coalition of media professionals who believe that the people elected to represent us in our government should actually represent all of us. We’re working with female candidates running for public offices at every level, in every state, across the country in an effort to make that representation happen.
We have a robust team of volunteers from all corners of the media industry (film, television, advertising, and digital content) who are donating their time and talents to create campaign content for Democratic women running for office.
WHAT IS THE GOAL OF WOMEN FOR THE WIN? AND HOW ARE YOU AND YOUR TEAM TACKLING THEM?
The larger goal is to set the stage for more women to run for office so that we can eventually (hopefully, someday very soon) achieve equity. We’d really like to create a world in which women feel as confident about the idea of running for office as their male counterparts do.
We want to give more women a seat in a governing body that is disproportionately run by men. We think we can start to achieve that by helping female candidates introduce themselves to voters through premium content builds and storytelling.
I should also mention another goal that we don’t talk about enough -- and that is to give these remarkable female candidates a strong support system. We’re able to tackle our goals thanks to more than 1,000 passionate and engaged volunteers from every corner of the country.
DO YOU FEEL LIKE THE BARRIERS FOR WOMEN IN PRODUCTION IMPACT THE TOOLS THAT WOMEN CANDIDATES HAVE AT THEIR DISPOSAL WHEN THEY RUN?
It actually hasn’t been an issue and that’s largely because we’ve built such a supportive space. Our production volunteers are unbelievably talented, experienced, and well-regarded in their industry. I will say, one of the most encouraging trends I’ve noticed, has been the amount of male volunteers that have signed on to work with us. People have been very eager to get involved.
HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT SELECTING WHICH CANDIDATES TO WORK WITH?
There is a form all candidates must fill out to make sure they meet our criteria. We also have an initial intake call with each candidate to confirm that they plan on taking women’s issues seriously if elected, that’s big for us.
But ultimately, we want to help as many female candidates as our bandwidth allows. We approach all of this with the knowledge that the rest of the world jumps at an opportunity to scrutinize women – especially women running for office. We don’t want to add to that noise. We want to be a space where women can come to us and feel secure in knowing that we’re here to be supportive. We never want to serve as an added layer of scrutiny, we want to be an added layer of support.
HOW DO YOU DIAGNOSE WHAT EACH CANDIDATE NEEDS?
We have a team of amazing political and communications experts who are in constant touch with the campaigns. We familiarize ourselves with each candidate’s district to identify what voters in those areas want to see from a candidate. Then we can begin the fun part of crafting a strategy to ultimately showcase the pieces of a candidate’s story that will resonate.
But it’s also a matter of identifying the deficits and where our candidates need the most help. For example, like phone banking or rounding up volunteers at the last minute, we jump into helping right away.
THIS IS ALL SO AMAZING AND SO CREATIVE. ARE THERE ANY TAKEAWAYS YOU HOPE READERS WILL COME AWAY WITH AFTER LEARNING ABOUT WOMEN FOR THE WIN?
I hope women (and men, too) will emulate the unapologetically supportive nature of our work. If more people committed to being champions for female candidates rather than critics, doubters, or (worst of all) haters, the world would be a safer place for more female leaders to enter the political arena.
