Bond Referendum
Creativity, disciplined message helps public agency gain voter approval for long-term transportation plan

The situation

The public transportation agency of one of America's largest cities needed help educating voters about a bond referendum to move forward with the first 10-year phase of the agency's 20-year public-transportation plan.

Public Strategies' solution

Public Strategies developed a highly intense, fully integrated campaign designed to gain the public's attention — despite mayoral and full city elections being held the same day, and well-funded opposition to the bond.

• One of the most complex challenges of the campaign were laws prohibiting the agency from advocating a position, while the opposition faced no such constraints. Working with legal counsel, Public Strategies developed messaging and presentation carefully crafted to educate legally and ethically, while also being creative enough to cut through the clutter of other elections that were going on at the same time.

• Public Strategies conducted a public-opinion poll — again, deftly constructed to be apolitical — which illustrated that the public was uninformed and unclear about the transportation plan. Based upon our research findings, we developed four key message points that the public needed to be educated on regarding the plan: 72 miles of rail; 50% more buses; zero tax increase; and more road repair. Our message had to be simple, repeated and ubiquitous.

• Public Strategies worked daily and exhaustively to build an education campaign that was urgent, precise and extremely responsive. We worked with the agency to place their education messages in the middle of the public debate — in the press, on the airwaves and in the community — and trained them extensively on message discipline: how to stay on message and not weaken communications with too much detail.

• Public Strategies worked with the agency to saturate the city and surrounding communities with the agency's message. Within a nine-week period, we executed a complete integration of all available channels — creating, producing and distributing an immense volume of communications at real-time speed: collateral; direct mail; print advertisements; radio and television commercials; Web site content; e-mail messages; town hall-type meetings; and media relations.

Client benefits

Public Strategies' full-court-press campaign to pass the bond measure was successful. The ten-year, $640-million bond measure was approved by a close but decisive vote of 52% to 48%.