Every election matters (FOR REAL). But, as we enter into a presidential election year, it is a particular honor to support clients who are hard at work engaging citizens to join the political process. To help prepare voters in the second-largest county in the nation, our team worked with the Harris County Clerk’s Office to build awareness for their new Countywide Polling Place Program through our Vote Your Way campaign. 

The launch of this new polling place program means that Harris County voters are no longer limited to voting at an assigned voting precinct on Election Day, an exciting improvement for the voter experience. With 700+ polling locations to choose from, our campaign was designed to not only convey this greater ease of voting but also to celebrate the rich diversity of Houston in culture, language, political perspectives and community interests. Voters can vote where, when, how, with whom and for whom they choose—our communities are strengthened when all voices are heard.

This multi-channel community activation campaign was built with a special focus on younger, hard-to-reach and historically disenfranchised voters who live within our diverse county. Translated into four languages (English, Chinese, Spanish and Vietnamese), Black Sheep built creative messaging and design assets that resonated across communication platforms and cultures. Channel diversity was critical, as our audiences had varied access to and trust in technology and social media, so we created a very intentional blend of digital, in-person and outdoor campaign experiences. 

In the digital realm, we helped the Harris County Clerk’s web team transform their website into a Vote Your Way content hub with an embedded map, educational dashboard and a landing page that featured downloadable digital voter resource toolkits for students, community groups and the media. We drove traffic to this content via Twitter, Spotify and digital display ads to help inform voters and recruit election clerks and translators amongst targeted communities.

The social strategy for this campaign was vibrant and informative, leaning heavily on campaign creative to ensure the County stood out from the sea of political campaign marketing. Black Sheep launched a “Bring Your [BLANK] to the Polls” content campaign that allowed the county to feature aspects of voting that are new (bring your abuela, since anyone can vote anywhere!) or misunderstood (bring your sample ballot to ensure you vote for all the candidates you selected while doing research!). Our team also kicked off student outreach with student engagement activations that added clarity and excitement around on-campus voting centers and a ‘Dress Your Vote’ Election Day moment. 

Technology at large played an important role in helping voters find the most convenient polling locations. We partnered with the data scientists at January Advisors to build a set of digital voter support tools that made it easy to get election updates and to find a nearby polling location. Ease of use was key here, and the immediate adoption of voters finding nearby poll locations by texting VOTE to 1-833-YES-0700 to our textbot showed that folks appreciate getting driving, walking and public transportation directions sent to their mobile device while out and about.

With our great partners, we were also able to launch an embeddable syndicated ‘Harris County Poll Finder’ map to make sure that the latest polling place updates were easy to find in a format that media outlets and community partners could easily embed on their own web platforms. Finally, the ‘Your Vote Counts’ dashboard served to help extra curious voters understand just how their vote matters by showing them interesting stats about average voter turnout in their neighborhood and important information about what they would find on their ballots to help them prepare.

Smart community connection was at the heart of this campaign—we built a suite of digital and printed toolkits to give community groups the materials they need to for their events and door-knocking initiatives. We were also able to support the County Clerk’s team spread their message through webinar training with the Houston in Action coalition and League of Women Voters. The Vote Your Way message also lived outdoors, giving visibility to millions of commuters and shoppers. Our street team activation distributed 250 posters across targeted, key neighborhoods and a Clear Channel partnership allowed us to place 58 billboards across the city. 

It was exciting to see the Vote Your Way campaign unfold within Houston and even more exciting to see its impact (for additional analysis, be sure to also read January Advisor’s top 5 takeaways post).

Exit polls conducted by Rice University found that 75% of voters were aware of the countywide polling place program and over half of voters “voted their way” by casting their ballots at a voting location outside of their previously assigned voting precinct. Other compelling metrics:

• The #voteYOURway hashtag reached 1 million people, received over 4,600 engagements and was used by nearly 1,200 civic-minded community members
• Spotify ads reach 33,000 people
• Twitter ads reached 170,000 users with over 9,300 engagements
• Digital display generated 412,000 impressions with nearly 600 click to Vote Your Way content
• Over 2,000 unique voters used the textbot for polling place directions with over 20,000 sessions
• Over 80,000 voters used the ‘Harris County Poll Finder’ map