Top California Female Media Operatives Join Force to help Women Candidates (as appearing in ELECT WOMEN magazine)
Fran McInerney has built a lot of muscle directing targeted political advertising campaigns. While heading Comcast’s political efforts in the region for many years, Fran logged countless hours overseeing ad placement and compliancy for over 150 races including statewide props, advocacy/organization campaigns, independent expenditures and local measures.
This knowledge combined with strong working relationships with independent political consultants was paramount when Fran decided to form her own firm, (CPM) Campaign Political Media in 2010. Based in Northern California, CPM is a strategic media planning and placement firm specializing in broadcast, cable, radio and online for candidates, issue and advocacy groups.
Recently, Fran added credence to CPM’s high level of blue-chip expertise by bringing in a new woman partner, Evelyn Grewal. Evelyn joined CPM with solid media credentials in both traditional and new media. She spent the past few years in tech and digital strategies including web and mobile-based initiatives. Prior to that, she served as VP Media for Macy’s West, a division of Federated with over $134B in revenues and a California-focused ad budget of over $300M. In an earlier life she managed a multitude of national political campaigns in the broadcast television arena for Blair Television Sales.
While working on their slate of candidates for the 2012 election cycle, Fran and Evelyn were reminded once again of the lack of women running for office. They cite the alarming statistics from the Woman’s Campaign Fund: “The United States trails behind much of the world, ranking 90th in the number of women in the national legislature. Only 17% of the seats in the current US Congress are held by women, and women make up only 24% of individual state legislatures combined.”
As part of their focus, the newly aligned partners at CPM have decided to direct part of their efforts towards helping women across the country achieve positions of power in legislative bodies.
“It’s time women achieve our ‘share of voice’ in government,” says Fran. “Consider this fact: 50% fewer women than men ever consider running for office, and of those, less than 30% actually run with only a fraction seeking higher office.” She adds “We at CPM would like to offer help and professional advice to female candidates seeking office.”
Evelyn chimes in: “Women must be empowered to stand guard over issues that are important to all women – whether they are stay-at-home moms, working women or retired. We know, first hand, a woman’s role as caregiver and the difficulties and issues women face in caring for their families and elderly parents. We are also passionate about women’s rights and the distorted balance of power with men forming 83% of the sitting US Congress.”
As part of their initiative, Fran and Evelyn will be sharing their media knowledge by participating in training boot camps for female candidates. The first, in partnership with Sacramento’s Fem Dems will be held on March 3rd (www.femdems.org).
Fran says, “Our goal, regardless of political affiliation, is to help qualified female candidates successfully navigate the media landscape for optimum ROI on media spend.”
CPM specializes in all media, including Broadcast TV, Cable, Radio, Print, Out of Home, and Online. In addition, they provide services for website and mobile application development and a multitude of web-based digital applications for campaign fundraising and social sentiment monitoring.
Interested parties can visit their website at www.campaignpoliticalmedia.com and can email them for advice or answers to questions.
