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From the 11th Annual Shorty Awards

#MarchForOurLives

Gold Honor in Social Activism

Entered in Social Good Campaign

Objectives

On March 24, 2018, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School organized a massive global protest, delivering a single message to leaders who had refused to take action on gun violence prevention: We call B.S. They formed March For Our Lives, a youth-led activist organization charged with turning a moment into an enduring movement. Precision Strategies was brought on to help transform excitement into activism, keeping supporters passionately engaged through the midterms and mobilizing as many young people as possible to vote.

Strategy and Execution

Understanding the core audience - young voters - Precision started by developing a brand identity that captured the courage and urgency of the Parkland students. We implemented that across all of our channels - Short Message Service (SMS), Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, email, and the website - and transformed each of those into powerful list-building tools.

We kicked off with the Road To Change campaign, an online campaign to drive offline activism. The Parkland students and other young gun violence prevention activists embarked on a 24-state bus tour to talk to Americans about how gun violence affects all our lives and register young people to vote. In addition to using social media, SMS, and email to drive people to the in-person town hall events, we brought the experience to a larger audience online, publishing a series of short video explainers on different policy points. These explainers were delivered by the students, using first-person voices in email and SMS. We culminated the campaign with a wrap-up video, Behind The Scenes On The Road To Change, that captured the experience of inspiring change in a new generation.

In the run up to the midterms, we led two major campaigns to register people to vote. First, we launched Mayors For Our Lives, an initiative with local leaders across the country committing to increase youth voter registration on National Voter Registration Day. We equipped supporters to encourage their local mayors to be part of the initiative, and turned the day into an online day of action. Mayors shared photos and videos online of people registering to vote at high schools and college campuses.

Second, we launched Vote For Our Lives, an online campaign to complement the student-led, in-person voter registration tour at college campuses across the country. For this effort, we used a paid media strategy and influencer strategy to drive young voters to register to vote online, or make a plan to vote. Using SMS, we sent personal video messages from students like Emma González and David Hogg directly to the cell phones' of young people asking them to vote and share selfies of themselves at the polls. We received hundreds of selfies in reply, deepening supporters' connection to the movement and personalizing their voting experience.

The centerpiece of the campaign was Moment Of Silence, a video Precision produced highlighting the moments of silence Congress has held for victims of gun violence contrasted with the lack of direct action Congress has taken to address gun violence.

Results

Throughout the Road To Change, Mayors For Our Lives, and Vote For Our Lives campaigns, we drove over 100,000 people to attend in-person events and registered over 50,000 voters to date. Over 200 mayors participated in Mayors For Our Lives, who combined helped get 800,000 people registered on National Voter Registration Day, an all-time record. The Moment Of Silence video drove over 1.4 million impressions.

According to US News and World Report, 40% of voters were inspired to vote because of the March For Our Lives movement. Ultimately, there was a 47% increase in youth turnout during the 2018 midterm elections -- the highest in a midterm election ever.

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

Precision Strategies, March For Our Lives

Links