by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
Election season is approaching and Charlie Barth and Lou DiGiusto are already working to extinguish what will be the first of many political brushfires before voters go to the polls in November.
In this case, their client David Gooding, who is running for circuit court judge, has been getting heat for his website, www.judgegooding.com. One of his opponents thinks the site is a little presumptuous because he isn’t a judge. Barth and DiGiusto think Gooding’s opponent should brush up on the anything goes law of the Internet.
Barth and DiGiusto run White Hawk Pictures, a one-stop production studio which creates many of the local campaign commercials.
“The problem with politics,” said Barth, White Hawk’s CEO and founder, “is that it’s so political.”
White Hawk is an “integrated communications” company, meaning it handles everything from marketing and public relations to production and consulting.
“How entrenched we get depends on the candidate and whether he or she is hands-on or not,” said DiGiusto, the company’s director of marketing. And of course it also depends on budget.
Usually the candidate’s research staff will do the preliminary polling to get a picture of where the candidate stands among the competition and what issues are most important to the voters.
That’s when White Hawk becomes involved.
First, the candidate is asked to state his or her purpose. Then a “kitchen cabinet” team is assembled with all the key players so that everyone is on the same page. After analyzing the candidate’s purpose, the polling numbers, the political climate in the district, the candidate’s history and the level of competition, White Hawk devises a media plan.
“They’ve got a choice of media,” said Barth. “We can do cable. Or we can knock on doors.”
“It’s an evolving process,” said DiGiusto. “The most important part is that the candidate’s purpose is authentic and that they stay on message.”
The door knocking strategy worked quite well for State Rep. Dick Kravitz.
“We made about 6,000 VHS tapes — about 10 minutes long — and went door-to-door in his district handing them out to registered voters. It’s very cost effective and it works,” said Barth.
Kravitz won his state house seat in a landslide.
White Hawk likes the VCR method because the pass-along rate is high; people give it to their friends.
Hand-delivered videotapes also have a big advantage over other techniques: they don’t fall under regulatory scrutiny. In Kravitz’s case, the tape method was also integrated with cable spots.
“That doesn’t mean we apply the same template to every situation,” said DiGiusto. “We figure out what works best for each individual candidate.”
Barth and DiGiusto said the local electorate mirrors that of major markets around the country: it’s smart and knows the issues. That’s why White Hawk tells its clients to be authentic, stay on message and take the high road.
“We steer our clients away from smear campaigns all the time,” said DiGiusto. “It’s a difficult argument when their opponent is throwing mud, but it has never let us down.”
White Hawk Pictures has been around 15 years and Barth worked on former Gov. Lawton Chiles’ campaign for the U.S. Senate, the “Walkin’ Lawton” campaign.
DiGiusto started at William Cook Advertising and met Barth when both were working on local campaigns. DiGiusto has been with the company for about a year. His resume includes serving as a consultant to Gov. Bob Graham and spending time in New York and Los Angeles studying the most current techniques in campaign film production.
Barth was the first chair of former mayor Jake Godbold’s film commission, which has been responsible for bringing several major movie productions to the area.
In addition to politicians, White Hawk clients include Blue Cross Blue Shield, Xomed, Nova Southeastern University and the State Comptroller’s Office. They also do work for political action committees, like ones seeking tort reform, and the Associated Industries of Florida, which wants to keep health care affordable.
White Hawk has also done campaign spots for former U.S. Rep. Tillie Fowler, Judge Tyrie Boyer, Judge Lance Day, General Master Kathy Sands and City Council member Warren Alvarez. Currently, they are working on a documentary on homeless children for the Better Home Funds, a nonprofit group out of Boston.
Barth recently opened an office, Coming Attractions, in Orlando and another in Tallahassee. And White Hawk has the local franchise on a leading edge technology called Vivex, which is a fiber optic system that feeds a digital video signal to a satellite for transmission to a TV network.