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AI Misinformation in a Critical Election Year

Project Info
ai misinformation thumbnail featuring ai generated images of George Washington, Rosie the Riveter and Abraham Lincoln

The Challenge:

On the eve of a hotly contested presidential election, powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tools like Chat-GPT were rapidly advancing, making it possible to create convincing deep-fake photo, video, and audio content with the push of a button. 

The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office sought to raise awareness of the potential for these AI-created deepfakes to spread misinformation in the lead-up to the election. 

Key challenges included: 

  • A wide target audience that spanned the entire state 
  • A highly fractured media landscape with different demographics getting their information from different sources 
  • Record high spending by the campaigns, driving up paid media costs

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Combating AI Misinformation in a Critical Election Year

New Mexico Secretary of State Campaign

The Analysis:

Surprisingly, research showed that the majority of Americans were aware of AI and the potential for misinformation in the 2024 election cycle. 

STAT: 58% of adults believe AI tools will contribute to spreading false and misleading information during the 2024 elections. 

Source: University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Associated Press poll  

However, while most adults were aware of the potential for AI misinformation in the election cycle, they likely wouldn’t recognize it when they came across it. It’s an amorphous enemy that you only see when you know what to look for. 

STAT: Across all demographic groups, respondents can only identify AI-generated content about 54.64 percent of the time.   

Source: nexcess.net

The Insight: Seeing Isn’t Believing

Our analysis clearly showed that while most Americans were aware of AI and of the potential for misinformation in the election cycle, the average voter also had little idea of what AI could look or sound like. 

Additionally, AI was rapidly advancing in 2024. Most people had no idea just how powerful it had become and just how “good” the deepfakes out there were. We needed to show our audience that seeing was no longer believing.

The Strategy:

Our Seeing is No Longer Believing insight led us to a strategy built on the foundation of showing people AI videos, images, and audio. Throughout the creative campaign and on the website, we pared back the language and focused on visuals that highlighted the power of AI tools. 

All campaign materials drove to a campaign landing page on the New Mexico Secretary of State’s website. The landing page offered engaging content, voter registration information, and a place to report suspected AI misinformation.

The Campaign

We focused on four key areas to build awareness and educate the public about the potential dangers of AI. 

  • CREATIVE: The creative campaign focused on showing AI in action and on capturing voters’ imaginations with a little bit of levity in a heavy campaign cycle. 
  • MEDIA: The media plan needed to cut through the noise in a year of record-high ad spending by political campaigns. We focused on targeted digital ads and key traditional media types designed to reach older audiences in more rural areas of the state. These included radio, print, outdoor, and linear television. 
  • CONTENT: The website landing page hosted a quiz that challenged voters to spot the AI image. The quiz content quickly walked people through how to spot AI in an engaging way. Additional shareable content pieces were developed to encourage people to start a conversation about AI and the election on social media and with their friends and family. 
  • EARNED MEDIA: The PR campaign focused on obtaining one-on-one interviews with high-profile news outlets, the Secretary of State, and key members of her staff.

The Results:

The campaign drove nearly 40,000 people to the landing page in the months leading up to the election. These individuals engaged with a variety of educational content. More than 3,500 people took the on-site quiz designed to walk them through how to identify AI misinformation in the wild. An additional 2,914 people downloaded the guide to identifying AI misinformation in the election cycle. 

Overall, the digital campaign saw high engagement from the audience. The paid social campaign achieved an overall CTR of more than 3%, far surpassing the industry average of .85%.  The display campaign saw an overall CTR of 1.31%, again far surpassing the industry average of 0.59%. 

On the PR side, more than 60 one-on-one media interviews were conducted with the Secretary of State or members, including interviews with all of the major television stations in New Mexico. Additionally, more than 50 articles were written based on the press releases and media packets in the months leading up to the election. 

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