In Michigan many young adults, especially those in underrepresented communities, don’t vote. Research says they think it is confusing to register and inconvenient to wait in line on election day. To increase voter turnout for all Michiganders, state government passed new voter access laws that would take effect for the 2024 elections. This paid media campaign was designed to ensure that a lack of voting option awareness was not a barrier to participation.
To reach and educate our targets, it was important to speak in fresh, relevant and unexpected ways. Our “Vote. It’s Sooo Simple.” tagline was designed as platform to highlight all the voting options. The campaign used vibrant, eye-catching colors that stood out from the deluge of political ads and wouldn’t be construed as partisan.
To reach and educate our digital-native audiences, we partnered with local influencers to create social and digital content and spoke in a way that did not feel governmental. Many communications, including landing pages, were translated to Arabic and Spanish.
And then we brought in the wolf.
At every step of the campaign, we paid close attention to social trends and saw a rise in interest in an “I Voted” sticker contest the state was holding. One sticker, designed by a local middle-schooler that featured a shirt-ripping werewolf, was generating buzz online and we made it a focus of our messaging. To leverage the shout-outs the wolf was getting from the likes of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight show and the pages of the New York Times, we created snapchat filters, memes, swag, and sent a live werewolf out on to Michigan streets to promote voting.
In addition to an anecdotal rise in werewolf sighting on election day, from a baseline study conducted at the beginning of our eight-week campaign, awareness among 18-29 year olds of all the ways you could vote in Michigan increased by 56% and led to a new state record for voter turnout, much of this driven by young adult participation.
