Challenge
Of the 30 largest cities in the United States, Dallas ranked 30th in voter turnout for their municipal elections. Our challenge was to create a memorable and actionable campaign for The Dallas Morning News’ voting-related initiatives from local municipal elections through the national 2020 presidential election. From getting Dallas citizens to register to vote, to getting them show up at the polling stations, to announcing the paper’s endorsements, we needed to create a campaign that covers all of these voting initiatives.
Discovery
Like much of our country, Dallas has a very divided voter base, and when it comes to the municipal elections, the median age for Dallas voters is 62 years old. So our campaign needed to not only strike a chord with our younger generations, but also not alienate the sector that is already engaged.
Activation
We first created a slogan that is as much a call-to-action as it is a campaign moniker. With politics so many people are quick to argue, tweet or post about it, so we’re calling people to Vote About It! Our visual approach was to use a three-pronged visual identity. We combined the classic Dallas Morning News typeface with the legacy sans-serif and serif fonts that are historically relevant to the newspaper industry. We intentionally chose three fonts to challenge the idea that there are only two points of view (ie. two parties) and all people are welcome in the voting process.
When it came to our color palette, we also wanted to challenge the expected red and blue colors that are over-used in political advertising. We again leaned on the historical elements of the newspaper industry and intentionally chose cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) to bring our message to the city of Dallas.
Impact
We rolled out the campaign at a local voter registration event where we’re encouraging citizens to register and, ultimately, vote in the upcoming Dallas mayoral election. We successfully registered new voters and were able to push them (and those who were already registered) to The Dallas Morning News’ online Voter Guide. The campaign has also garnered unprecedented alignment and adoption throughout the editorial, marketing and online segments of The Dallas Morning News. Be sure to check back as the campaign grows from local to national elections and see how Dallas is Voting About It!
Results
In the previous mayoral election, only 6% of eligible Dallasites voted.
In 2019’s municipal election, Dallas voter turnout was at 9.83% (of 1.3M registered voters).
• Dallas County saw more early voters (74,400) than voters on
Election Day (54,900).
• Digital banners and newsletters garnered 11.6M impressions and 7.8k
ad clicks via DMN distribution.
• Billboards generated an average of 1.4M impressions.
• Television spots (KERA & NBC5) generated 409,430 impressions.
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