GDRpr Blackburn with Darwen Council election video

GDRpr Background: The council wanted to raise the profile of the 2009 European elections as well as encouraging people to vote in the inaugural elections for the new Darwen Town Council, both being held on the same day.

Objective: To target potential voters across a range of hard-to-reach audiences with a message informing them about the elections and encouraging them to vote and also create opportunities across conventional and social media for the council to get its message across.

What we did: We came up with the idea, scripted, filmed and edited a two-minute video clip encouraging people to vote. The clip engaged council staff in coming up with ideas for how to make the shape of an X (similar to the X on a ballot paper) and featured the staff themselves as well as people who used council facilities and services. The clip was uploaded onto YouTube to highlight the councils voting message as well as being shown on a loop on town hall public information screens.
An edited-down 30-second version of the clip was then used for a Bluetooth project in Blackburn and Darwen town centres on election day. The clip was transmitted out to peoples mobile phones in key hotspot areas to get the voting message across believed to be the first time in the UK that a council has used Bluetooth technology to encourage voter turnout.

Result: The project generated major national and regional media coverage. One council employee who took to walking to and from work with an X on his back as a result of the video clip was interviewed on regional TV and the council chief executive and some of the stars of the video were interviewed on Rock FM and Radio Lancashire. Stories also appeared in the local print press and regional and national public sector/PR media.
The Bluetooth clip was received by 1,631 people on election day again generating another batch of positive publicity.

Category:

News & Politics

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