34. How to work with Celebrity Advocates with guest Earl Dos Santos

[00:00:00] Kristina Bas Hamilton: You're listening to the Blueprint for California Advocates podcast. My name is Christina Bass Hamilton. I'm your host. I'm also the founder of KPH Advocacy, a lobbying and political consulting firm based in Sacramento, California. If you're an advocate in the work for justice, equity, sustainability, you're in the right spot.

[00:00:21] In each episode, I bring on special guests who share their insight and tactical advice on what it really takes. For your political and legislative campaigns to succeed. If you enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to leave a review on your podcast player and also share the episode with your network so we can spread the word and share this important information with as many advocates as we can.

[00:00:48] Now let's get into it.

[00:00:50] Hello and welcome Earl Dos Santos to the Blueprint for California Advocates podcast. I am thrilled to have you on today because we are going to be talking about something I've never talked about before, but I think is a really valuable conversation for grassroots advocates in California and beyond. Before we launch into it, I would love if you took a moment to introduce yourself and where you started and how you landed where you are right now.

[00:01:19] Earl Dos Santos: Hey, Kristina, first of all, thanks so much for having me. It's exciting to be here. This actually is the first podcast I've ever recorded, so, so thanks for being that milestone along with me. So yeah, basically I. I have had a varied career. I started in finance. I did some social impact work and more recently since moving to the Bay Area over a decade ago, I did product management and digital marketing.

[00:01:48] And I was part of the wave of people who came to political advocacy after Trump was elected, you know, where. In, in my mind, I pretty much couldn't think about anything else,

[00:02:01] both at, at my job and, and outside of it. Since Trump got elected, it was at first doing a lot of things on the side, trying to see since my background was in, in digital marketing and, and that appeared to be a gap, I was doing things like running ads for state legd candidates, you know, on the side during nights and weekends to help them get elected and things like that.

[00:02:26] And then finally, in 2018 is when I decided to make the leap and say, hey, can I piece together a living here with the goal of maximizing my impact?

[00:02:36] So I tried to proactively find organizations that I thought were doing good work that could use someone who had that digital expertise, and at first it was mainly helping people run paid ad programs and helping them perhaps automate part of their systems. And then it evolved over time, I think 1 of the beautiful things about working in political advocacy is that that things change, needs change, and you change along with it.

[00:03:06] So the, the journey has taken me. in directions that I never really thought they would go. In 2018, one of the organizations that I helped, the leader of the org happened to go to college with Julia Louis Dreyfus and her husband, Brad Hall. They were trying to, on their own Create a campaign for getting volunteers for the 2018 election, and I think to their credit, they knew that they couldn't completely go about it the normal way.

[00:03:35] I mean, it started out that way. They were filming this 20, 000 commercial basically for, for volunteers and doing the normal exclusive in a magazine. But they asked for my help in thinking about how can we frame it for digital? How can we track the results and so on? And we were able to see pretty quickly that the initial release, the traditional way fell flat, mostly in terms of getting people to actually go through a complete flow of signing up, actually volunteering, things like that.

[00:04:08] And so that kind of began my journey in helping celebrities and influencers as well in figuring out the best ways to use their platforms to drive strategic action.

[00:04:21] And so what started with experimenting with selfie videos where she would record something at key moments, for example, when Cavinaugh was confirmed in 2018, there was a big rapid response moment. And by filming a video saying, Hey, you know, you're angry. Here's something you can do right now.

[00:04:40] They're these different types of volunteer activities you can do. We can funnel you right to the organization. That's where we saw the power of using a platform in the more modern ways would be much more effective.

[00:04:56] And so from there, opportunistically, I would help people like her and, you know, if they had an idea for a campaign and if I had an idea for a campaign, for example, in 2019 when Virginia had the opportunity to flip their state legislature,

[00:05:14] I had this idea of creating a slate of 10 candidates that were in close races.

[00:05:19] At the time, if you remember, Virginia could have been the final state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, so we titled it the Equal Rights Amendment Slate. And Julia created a great video around it. We pushed it on her social channels. We pushed it on paid ad channels where we saw we could raise 5 for every dollar we spent.

[00:05:41] We were able to raise 150, 000 for 10 candidates, which, you know, on the state leg level was a big deal.

[00:05:47] So through those kinds of experiments, we've grown what we do over time. I've, I've helped a number of different people, which we, you know, could potentially go into some more.

[00:05:57] I continue to here and there do paid ads work as well. But primarily now I try and help people like Julia proactively figure out, okay, where's their need? How can we distill down the need, create a campaign that fits time constraints and availability and the types of content that they like to do, and then, work with partners to put it out there and see what happens.

[00:06:22] Kristina Bas Hamilton: That is so brilliant, Earl. Honestly, what a niche to fall into. Or not that you fell into it, you created it. And I think that's just fabulous. And I love that you come at it with the digital marketing background. Because that is sorely needed in the advocacy world.

[00:06:40] I actually just did another interview recently with a guest and we just sort of talked about that a lot of advocates come at it from the, like, the heart feel the, like, idealism, the philosophy that this is the right thing to do. But there's so much more that's involved in winning any kind of campaign. Right? We're talking a political campaign, a legislative campaign, whatever.

[00:07:05] Advocates need to think about their ideas, their bills, their proposals as a product in a marketplace and apply the same principles to market the product as, as any other seller selling something which can sound a little bit ghoulish, I guess, and maybe rub people the wrong way, but I think it's the missing element here. So I really appreciate the background that you bring into it.

[00:07:34] Earl Dos Santos: I obviously didn't come at it with all this strategy baked in or anything like that. I feel that it's been a journey. You know, at first, like anyone, I, I came at it thinking, oh, it's all about the federal government and can we switch the presidency or the Senate or so on?

[00:07:51] I think we talked about before. It's been a journey of continually learning how important down ballot races are, how important What happens in your state and local government is for your everyday life and how, you know, we frankly have a better chance at affecting change at those levels where we're closer to where we live.

[00:08:12] And so at first, did I know that, oh, I was going to do work on the state legislative level and things like that? Definitely not, but over time, maybe the 1 thing I can be. Proud of is that I'm able to kind of take information in and adjust what my strategy is and what I think can work.

[00:08:30] And that's, like I said, led me more down ballot. And, you know, when one of the reasons why we linked up was. One area that I think hasn't been explored as much is how beyond elections. Can you have impact by influencing what your state and local government does? And so that's why I think a lot of what what you're sharing is so fascinating.

[00:08:54] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Thank you, Earl I feel like we need to just trumpet that from the rooftops that people have a much better chance of Changing things the closer to their home the better. Washington is just a hot mess. There's gridlock. There's no chance for so many things to happen just based on the politics and the chance of doing things at the state level in Sacramento, especially with the 2 3rd supermajority. We can't let that go because guess what? Other people aren't letting that go. There's been a lot of coverage recently about. Artificial intelligence and the amount of attention that is going to start getting in the Capitol the next session starting January 3rd, because the legislature is increasingly getting concerned about the impact. And so we can expect a lot of legislation being introduced, and that is not lost on big tech and the people who don't want to see regulation or protections enacted who are very happy with the status quo. They are putting a lot of firepower into Sacramento this year for that reason. Because as we like to say, often as California goes, so goes the nation, especially in a vacuum at the federal level.

[00:10:10] So the listeners of this podcast are advocates, community leaders, folks trying to learn how to be more effective. And the idea of linking up with a celebrity or a big influencer is not lost on anybody. Somebody said recently Sacramento loves a celebrity and that's the truth. There's a lot of value potentially there because these people can get the ear of the governor. Unless you're, you know, in Gavin Newsom's inner circle, it's really hard to have a private conversation with him. This is something that I think folks think about, but they don't know how to penetrate that wall. How to even taking a step back, start the process of trying to find a celebrity or influencer to work with.

[00:10:59] I know that there's firms out there that specialize in that. People like yourself who sort of do that. I would love if you very big picture just shared advice. So we have an organization that is trying to let me think about this get more stringent, clean air standards, more stringent groundwater protection, pollution standards .

[00:11:22] And obviously what jumps to mind is the The bill that was passed last year that provides finally for an offset from people's houses and homes and schools in terms of oil drilling locations, which is a no brainer 1 of those things that can't believe it's not already the law, but here we are.

[00:11:39] And now of course, it's being held up in court because the big oil folks sued to stop it. So, I'm a local person, you know, maybe I'm an advocate in Sacramento or nearby. Where do I even start with that?

[00:11:53] Earl Dos Santos: Yeah, I think that's a great question. It's something that that definitely takes work. I mean, this is this is organizing just like it's organizing people to vote or other things. You're trying to organize other celebrities or influencers. So I'd say a couple things.

[00:12:09] 1. Internally, you know, getting your story right in terms of why what you're doing actually matters. In the, in the case of the oil legislation, I know that there's a ballot initiative coming up next year and so on. So say what you're doing is helping with the ballot initiative so that we defeat big oil for that.

[00:12:31] Why is what you're doing going to change votes or help persuade people or other things? I mean, the more evidence based you can get, the better. I mean, I know that's something that we always look for is some something where, I mean, there's always, especially in the influencer and celebrity world, it's there's always a little bit of cynicism that, that they can make a difference.

[00:12:52] And, after being in the space, there are plenty of studies, even that show especially with persuasion, sometimes the opposite happens for what you, you want. So you just have to be really careful there.

[00:13:03] And so any evidence that you have that can support why what you're doing is Going to make a difference even beyond just the fact that, you know, whatever tactic you're using, say it's billboards or something is cool.

[00:13:15] And, you know,

[00:13:16] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Right. Mm

[00:13:17] Earl Dos Santos: witty or whatever can you, can you go a little bit deeper to show that impact? That's, you know, getting your pitch better.

[00:13:24] The next step is figuring out who to reach out to. I think this is where social media or any of those type of listening tools might be of help where you can search who's use certain language.

[00:13:37] Maybe they've they've talked about big oil before. Maybe they've talked about the climate crisis. Maybe they've been involved in in 1 of the previous climate battles that we've had in the past. Maybe it was like with the willow project or something. So, you know, you can like, look for that.

[00:13:52] And those are the types of people you want to put in your universe of people you might reach out to.

[00:13:58] And then I would say. The key is to your best ability. Don't try to go in cold if you can. See, maybe, maybe one of them follows one of your social media accounts, or maybe it's one degree away.

[00:14:12] Someone who follows you is followed by someone who is is a good target. And so you just try and find at least, you know, maybe within if it's not within one degree, two degrees, just like how people network and in other professional ways.

[00:14:28] Can can you get that kind of warm lead so that trust, which is, , a big part of this can be established because at the end of the day, the two main things are that the person I think already has to care about the issue if you're going to be realistic about their chance of actually acting. And then they need to trust you and the solution that you're bringing.

[00:14:51] Nailing those 2 elements is, is really important. So, you know, it's not, like I said, it's not something where you just send an email and you can expect something

[00:15:02] Kristina Bas Hamilton: together, right?

[00:15:03] Earl Dos Santos: it's something that you probably need to have a three month plan on and say, okay, in this month, we're going to really figure out what's the story that's going to resonate. And then the next month can be okay let's figure out who would be interested.

[00:15:18] Who have we seen? Maybe someone's engaged with our content, maybe we've seen them engage with the peer organization that would be interested. And then, then it can be the type of outreach and, and that type of thing.

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[00:16:16] So in your experience has cold outreach ever worked?

[00:16:19] Earl Dos Santos: Honestly, I can't think of an example where someone completely cold who I hadn't heard of you know, it, I, let me revise that to say, like, perhaps if it came in cold and it was enough evidence of some kind of need and that they were a great solution. What I would do is have a call with them. Then I can maybe establish that trust that wasn't there with that cold outreach.

[00:16:44] So I think I think it's possible, but you probably need to have a really good pitch in terms of, hey, this is why we need action.

[00:16:52] And this is why our action is going to have an impact.

[00:16:56] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Going back to the marketing lens is, it's also I would imagine about the brand of the organization. Like, you may not know anyone in the organization, but you've heard of the organization and you know that they do good work, right? So it's not trust for the person so much as for the organization because, and I'm not saying like, oh, it's Amnesty International or the Red Cross, right?

[00:17:19] I'm not talking about that at all. But at the regional level organizations that are known and trusted in the community among lawmakers, for example, the folks that are not getting visibility outside of their region, but do good work and have been doing it for a long time.

[00:17:39] It has to be helpful too. Right? Rather than like, oh, we just started this organization 2 weeks ago and just trust that we know what we're doing or whatever.

[00:17:48] Earl Dos Santos: Yeah, that's a good point. The brand, the brand matters. I will caveat that to say that in our, in our work, and maybe just in the space in general, I think that like one big gap is helping smaller organizations that don't have someone on staff whose job it is to reach out to celebrities and influencers.

[00:18:10] You know, they, they really struggle to get their name out, their brand out. I think that that's just a gap right now. We really do strive to more often than not the smaller organizations. Because of course it's not just helping smaller organizations just to help them but a lot of times they're the ones doing innovative on the ground work.

[00:18:31] Or, not just following not, not that all big orgs do this, but. But but not just following whatever can raise the most money and that type of thing. So so, yeah, I would say that there's still very much a need and an appetite from people like me to find organizations that are smaller that are doing good work.

[00:18:52] But again, the key is having a good proof point, or at least a great theory of change on why what you're doing matters and why it's different.

[00:19:01] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Thank you for that, because that is a huge need that is largely going on met. So the fact that this is a conscious choice of yours is to focus on finding those smaller organizations is invaluable.

[00:19:14] Then also a question of the relationships and the networking that folks are doing to build their networks of people to be able to find those 1 or 2 degrees of separation also to find that trusted messenger who went to college with Julia Louis Dreyfus . It's just a networking thing too.

[00:19:33] And I would, I mean, that applies to everything right? So and so might know so and so. Who you've been trying to get in touch with for, you know, ever you got to just get your name and your people out there and meet some people also. It's almost like this ecosystem, right?

[00:19:47] Creating a thriving, live, up to date ecosystem of who's doing what and getting your name and your voice out there.

[00:19:55] Earl Dos Santos: Yeah, I think just like you're saying, it's just like other, other types of networking or sales or whatever. I didn't know when I was helping an org that was doing Virginia state legislative work that it would lead me down this path to get connected to celebrities and influencers.

[00:20:11] I mean, it wasn't my intent, but for an organization where it is your intent, the same thing applies. I mean, it's like, yeah. Most of it is just putting in the effort to, to put your name out there, have those conversations with people who might be able to connect to you and then you need a little bit of luck that, that will happen if you put in the work over time.

[00:20:30] Kristina Bas Hamilton: You're right. You got to be active you got to be out there and as much as people Rightfully despise social media for all the bad things that it does to society The flip side of that is the connections and the visibility and stuff that otherwise would not have been possible at all.

[00:20:48] And creating content as scary as that is, as an organization just creating content around what you do and putting that out there into the universe. And making yourself find-able in a way.

[00:21:00] what would you say is a lost opportunity for advocates when they do work with influencers, they are able to make an, a connection and engagement. What would you say is, is a, a really productive relationship that goes beyond whatever the original product was.

[00:21:20] Earl Dos Santos: Yeah, that's, that's such a good question. It's one of these things that I'm really hopeful that we can all be smarter about how we, we use these relationships.

[00:21:31] One celebrity told me that, Hey, I'm just so bummed that every time an organization reaches out, it's just for money, you know, there's so much more that I can do.

[00:21:42] And I think, I think that's really true. What's really important is that you, you engage this person and then really talk to them and learn from them about all the different ways they might be able to engage and probably as part of that, you should think ahead about, okay, what are the, in a dream scenario?

[00:22:01] What are the different things that they can do? I mean, and take into account. Like you said, I mean, I'm I'm not either a huge fan of social media, but we cannot deny that it can shine a spotlight like few other things can and it can drive action as well. We usually try to find actions where we can both drive awareness and action.

[00:22:23] And I think Yeah. Those are the types of things I would, I would look for. Say this celebrity came, I would, I would talk to them and ask them, okay, how do you feel about posting about us? How do you feel about doing a video that could be in a paid ad? How do you feel about some kind of it giveaway item, is in person on the table? There's so many different things that you can ask. And then from there, you can devise different campaigns based on that. Both creating some kind of organic campaign and, and testing out paid ads using videos of celebrities or someone well known I think is, is really underutilized. A lot of the time you can raise far more from that than even an in person event with them, much less just, you know, a post or something.

[00:23:17] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Thank you so much. What I want to bookend this conversation with is that Maybe it's not a Hollywood A lister, maybe it's a B lister or C lister, or maybe it's a regional influencer, like a radio host .People pay attention, listen to them every day. So ultimately casting a wide net too it's not like, oh, Angelina Jolie is not coming. We might as well give up on this influencer strategy, but you can still get tremendous amount of action and value that comes out of relationships and influencers at all different levels.

[00:23:50] Earl Dos Santos: Oh, absolutely.

[00:23:51] Kristina Bas Hamilton: to say too, because I don't want to be like, Oh no, if you're not hanging out with Matt Damon, then sorry, this doesn't work for you.

[00:23:57] Earl Dos Santos: No, there's a reason why micro influencers are a hot commodity and influencer marketing, right? I mean, all, all these type of people, even if you have a few thousand or 10, 000 followers, you have a lot of true fans, probably who really trust you on some Type of information and, you know, it doesn't even matter sometimes if that's like their niche.

[00:24:21] It could be someone who is a beauty influence or some other type of influencer. But if whatever issue, if they have a personal connection to whatever issue you're doing. They can make that into a really powerful campaign that, yeah, I mean, maybe it's not going to reach millions and millions of people, but there, there's still many people who will act and do something and their ways to make that even more engaging, creating a community out of it. It could be that that person, instead of just donating to your org directly, you make it into a match where that person is thanking people as they donate and things like that. I've seen great campaigns that way.

[00:25:03] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Takeaways from us talking right now are find and build relationships with influencers, trusted influencers in the community and become a trusted Influencer in your community or not influencer so much as a messenger, but the importance of becoming also that trusted messenger, because you represent that organization and your reputation means a lot to that. And frankly, when you come to Sacramento to lobby, your reputation as a person representing an organization means a huge amount because, and I've talked about this on other episodes these lawmakers are looking at 2000 bills plus bills.

[00:25:46] It is not humanly possible for them to read and, you know, do the type of background research on every bill that is presented to them for consideration. And so being that trusted messenger. It's like, anybody who's inundated with information.

[00:26:03] We're looking for symbols. We're looking for people that represent. Okay, if this organization's on board, it's helping me vet this idea, because it's even so consciously signaling to me that it's something that I should trust and look into further. This is just human psychology, but becoming a organization or a person that when people see, they know that you're bringing them good stuff. They know what you're doing is good in general, even if they don't completely understand it. They trust that. That's huge in Sacramento.

[00:26:35] Earl Dos Santos: It's a really good point. And I think part of also having your own platform is that like, like I just mentioned, you're creating a bit of community. You can learn from your audience. You can learn what, what type of your message resonates. It's overall a positive thing as long as you're, you're able to be okay with some of the negatives that come with social media.

[00:26:57] Do you mind if I ask you a question?

[00:27:00] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Oh, of course.

[00:27:00] Earl Dos Santos: As I mentioned 1 of the things I think is underutilized in terms of organizations, or maybe advocates who have the type of influencer or celebrity contact, is how to go beyond elections in terms of you know, helping pass legislation that can be meaningful.

[00:27:21] One example, and I don't, you may know more about this than me, but as we know, SAG just went on strike. A big contention was AI. And part of what came to mind for me is how much advocating are they doing in Sacramento about this? Because it seems like a clear A clear winner for whoever in the legislature wants to like champion this yeah, you know, obviously it goes beyond some things in the entertainment industry, but where do you think there's fertile ground for really making an impact, but not just focusing on elections, but doing the work, even if it takes 3 months, a year, multiple years to inform legislation.

[00:28:04] Kristina Bas Hamilton: That's a great question. That's the vast majority of what the podcast episodes talk about is how to do that. I would say that it's an investment of time and resources. And as I said earlier, the merit of what policy you're trying to pass is generally not enough by itself. So it's a question of bringing to the table, credibility research, well, documented evidence, but also relationships and, you know, finding a legislator just to be your author of your legislation takes a considerable amount of work. But I think for organizations that have that credibility, it is absolutely a lost opportunity to not be doing that, especially in an issue where there's no action being taken federally.

[00:28:52] Or even if you're trying to get something done federally, you just know that because of all the things we talked about, it's not going to happen anytime soon and your chances of moving policy at the state level. I mean, California is what the 5th largest economy in the world. You can do a tremendous, huge amount of impact in Sacramento by passing state legislation and you're totally right. Especially for Hollywood folks. God, you're not going to have a problem finding somebody who wants to work with you. So I highly encourage anyone who's listening, if you have leverage, if you have resources, if you have name recognition, or, or something that you can bring to the table, do not gloss over what's possible in the beautiful city of Sacramento at our beautiful state Capitol. I think people are always looking for good policy ideas that make big impact.

[00:29:50] Thank you so much for saying that Earl because I could just preach that up and down all around.

[00:29:54] Earl Dos Santos: I'm definitely, maybe we got to collaborate on something like that in the future.

[00:29:58] Kristina Bas Hamilton: let's do yes.

[00:30:00] Final words of advice that you would like to share with advocates listening who want to make big impact.

[00:30:09] Earl Dos Santos: We are increasingly coming to a world where trusted messengers are more important than ever, especially when an AI can, can write text and make it so easy to send emails and all that other stuff. I think people are going to more and more want to look for trusted messengers who are educated on a certain topic.

[00:30:29] So like you said, Kristina, one option is to become that trusted messenger. So over time, build up your platform. And another option is creating a relationship with. Another person who has a platform, but it's connected to your, your issue in some way. And and again, if you, you put in the work of identifying who that is and identifying a good path to create that trust, it can definitely be part of your portfolio and should probably be something to aspire to.

[00:31:00] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Thank you, Earl. And I want to say that in this day also of social media and content creation, that a lot of this you can learn by reading just people's stuff that they post online, like you do on LinkedIn and I'm not sure if you're on other platforms, but how can people find you and follow you to learn more about this?

[00:31:23] Earl Dos Santos: I'm mainly posting weekly on LinkedIn, some of the learnings that I've had, and I'm so grateful. That's one of the ways in which we connected. And yeah, feel free to reach out if I can be helpful.

[00:31:36] Kristina Bas Hamilton: I'll put your link in the show notes so that folks can find you and I want to say, thank you for being available and sharing your insight.

[00:31:45] Earl Dos Santos: Thanks again for having me. Congrats on your book. So I can't wait, I can't wait to read that myself.

[00:31:50] Kristina Bas Hamilton: Thank you. Thanks, Earl.

[00:31:52] If you're filing this show to be valuable, please go ahead, hit that subscribe button, share episodes with your networks and send me your feedback. I really appreciate that. I will link to my socials in the show notes. Thank you very much and I will talk with you soon.