EQUITY & ACCESSIBILITY
Get Out the Vote
Los Angeles County
The 2020 election occurred in the midst of a global pandemic, civil unrest, massive voter suppression efforts and aggressive distribution of misinformation. These were the substantial barriers that had to be overcome in the Los Angeles County Get Out the Vote campaign. The main objective –inspire, inform and get voters to make a radical shift in their behavior – from going to the polls, to voting early by mail, dropping ballots off in an official drop box or going to a designated voting center.
Young Communications Group was contracted to develop a comprehensive and multi-layered social marketing campaign that would reach African American first-time voters 18 to 24 and African Americans with a propensity to vote in person, aged 30 to 64.
Our first step was to conduct research. We developed the discussion guide for focus groups, conducted primary research and secondary research and analyzed numerous social marketing campaigns. Based on the findings, the agency team created customized and culturally nuanced messages focused on developing a vote plan.
Our approach was to prominently feature real people sharing their stories, and execute using targeted paid media, digital, earned media and community outreach.
The result was the highest African American voter turnout recorded in recent history; with more than 80 percent of those voters doing so by mail; thus successfully overcoming hesitancy or resistance to changing the way “things have always been done.”