Public Relations Campaign

‘Politics…NO JOKE!!’

Campaign Created By:

Katy Marshall, Gillian Littler, Alice Lyons and Emma McCormick
December 2005

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CONTENTS

Page Contents
1. Title
2. Contents
3. Executive Summary
4. Introduction
5. Communications Objectives and Strategy
6. Target Audience
7. Research
8. Research Continued
9. Methods, Tactics and Creative Concepts
10. Methods, Tactics and Creative Concepts Continued
11. Methods, Tactics and Creative Concepts Continued
12. Key Messages
13. Timescale
14. Budget
15. Sponsorship
16. SWOT Analysis of Campaign
17. Evaluation

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Executive Summary

We hope this political campaign for Lancashire county council will increase the
number of 18-24 years voting in the local election by informing them why they should
vote and what local MP’s have to say.
Raising awareness within this age group will increase not only the amount of young
people registering to vote but also taking an active interest in politics and voting.
Creating a politically educated future democratic society in general.

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Introduction

Local government is split between county council and district council. County councils
cover larger areas like Lancashire, Kent and Devon, and provide about 80% of services
for that area. It covers services like educational services, libraries, social services,
streets and roads, local transport and waste disposal.
District councils however cover smaller areas and provide more locally based services.
They cover matters like electoral registration, environmental health and council
housing.
Candidates are elected in local elections and local council elections are held every four
years.
Lancashire is a large county, made up of areas including Salford and Preston.
Lancashire county council want us to create a Public relations campaign to increase
the number of 18-24 year olds who vote by the next local election in May.

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Communications Objectives

• To raise awareness that only 15% of 18-24 year olds voted in the last general
election. (According to census figures)
• To promote democratic participation in 18-24 year olds through the use of our
‘Politics…No Joke’ campaign.

Strategy

• To explain the importance of 18-24 year olds voting

• To encourage 18-24 year olds to take an interest in politics so they know what
policies they are voting for.
• Help 18-24 year olds understand what different political parties have to say i.e.
what policies they have.

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Target audience

• The target audience is 18-24 year olds as Lancashire county council

commissioned that 18-24 only 15% of 18-24 year olds voted out of a variety of
different socio-economic groups.
• We want to target students and also those in full time occupations from all socio-
economic groups.
• Therefore we wanted to use a theme for the campaign that would not alienate
anybody’s background. We decided people from all social backgrounds
universally accepted comedy.

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Research

• We researched past campaigns to see which ones had succeeded in the past. We
looked at a variety of local, international and national campaigns that had worked
and those that had failed.

• We found that campaigns targeted at universities worked to increase numbers of

18-24 year olds voting. However we feel to achieve our objectives we need to
broaden the campaign to create significant impact on all 18-24 year olds without
alienated any groups.

• We also found that more successful campaigns tended to be those that were
celebrity endorsed. For example Rock the vote.

• Rock the vote was a huge celebrity campaign in America during the 2004 election
of either George.W Bush or Al Gore. They used celebrities such as Justin
Timberlake and P Diddy to encourage the young to vote. This was a hugely

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 successful campaign as it enabled younger voters to gain an understanding of why
voting was important and what they would gain from having their say. Rock the
vote targeted the audience through identification of the celebrities and the instant
appeal of the celebrity lifestyle to the younger voters.

• We want to research further into our audience by creating a survey that will be
sent to all 18-24 year olds in Lancashire and will ask them if they intend on voting
and reasons why they think 18-24 year olds don’t vote today and any ideas they
think that could encourage them to vote.

• Youth voter awareness week takes place in April. We will use this time before the
elections to send ‘The party bus’ around 15 cities in Lancashire to promote the
young to vote, sending the message ‘because youngsters are the future of our
democratic society’. The bus will travel different cities and on the bus 18-24 year
olds will be able to register to vote.

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Methods and tactics and creative concepts

The politics No Joke Campaign will consist of:

• The main comedy event – This will be held at the MEN Arena and ‘Peter Kay
Live’ will be the face of the event.

- Peter Kay is a celebrity originally from Lancashire and once commented

that he doesn’t joke about politics.

- The event will consist of a combination of Peter Kay performances and

local MP’s talking to audiences about the reasons and importance of the
youths vote.

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 - They will talk through their manifestos to the audience. To contrast the
seriousness of politics the comedy of Peter Kay will attract the audience to
attend.
• Promotion

- We will promote the campaign and the main event through local radio, for
example Galaxy 102.

- Also through the Manchester Evening News as well as other magazines and
local news papers using press releases.

- We also want to feature the event on Northwest tonight before and after the
event. On which the local MP’s in Lancashire can be interviewed to
promote the campaign and the main event.

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- We will also promote the campaign using posters, flyers and nightclub
events to attract young voters.

- At the nightclub events we will arrange a number of competitions, for

example, cash prizes and VIP tickets to the main event.

- We will use local Public Relations, Marketing and Events Management

students from the University of Central Lancashire. I addition to this we
want Film Studies students at local universities to film the main event. We
intend this footage to be sent out to schools and colleges in the area to
encourage awareness and educate younger students about the importance of
voting.

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Key messages

There are several key messages that the public relations campaign will have to get
across to the young public by using media relations and publicity.
These include;

- To engage young people in the political process

- To educate and create young and future voters that will make up our future
democratic society.

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 - Create common understanding and awareness of the individuals importance to
vote.

Timescale

- The campaign will run for three months leading up to the main local election in
May. The main event at the M.E.N will take place in April.

- Throughout the whole three months we will use flyers and posters to promote
our key messages as well as promoting the main event.

- The ‘Party Bus’ will travel round the major cities and towns in Lancashire
throughout the three months, where 18-24 year olds will be able to register to
vote.

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 - We also use radio promotion, newspaper articles and local TV news to promote
the campaign.

Budget

We intend to charge £10 and £7 for NUS holders to attend the event, as Peter Kay
will be performing live.
We have a £200,000 budget. We intend to spend the money in the following ways:
£100,000 – Hire of the Venue (From ticket sales alone) As the venue holds up to
21,000 people.
£60,000 – Peter Kays fees
£25,000 - Party Bus (Petrol costs, decorating bus, driver and staff etc)
£10,000 – Distribution
£10,000 - Contingency

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 £25,000 - Deal with the national express. People will be able to get a coach
from major cities in Lancashire that will take people there and back
which is included within the ticket sale.
£30,000 - Club events, competitions and other promotion fees.

Sponsorship

We want to get the Manchester Evening News to sponsor the Politics…No Joke
campaign. Therefore on all the tickets, posters and flyers The Manchester Evening
News logo will appear. We intend to hold the main event at the M.E.N arena as they
are sponsoring us although we will make a £100,000 contribution to use the venue
for the night, which will help pay for staff etc. We will also promote the campaign
by writing news releases that will appear in the Manchester Evening News.

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SWOT Analysis

We decided to create a swot analysis to analyse the campaign in terms of its strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We hoped this would enable us to eliminate the
weaknesses, exploit the opportunities and prepare for possible threats to make our
campaign a success.

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 Strength
•Creating awareness of the lack
of 18-24 year olds voting
today.
• Originality of the campaign
Opportunities
•Could create long-term
benefits of established voters.
• Create future campaigns
Weakness
•Using Peter Kay as a celebrity.
He may not be popular in a few
months. Using just Peter Kay
may alienate some possible
voters.
Threats
•Other events I.e. club night
may detract our audience from
our event elsewhere e.g.
popular established nights out.

Evaluation

We intend on evaluating the success of the campaign by:

- Looking at the number of 18-24 year olds who voted in the May election to see
if the numbers had increased after the campaign had taken place.

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- We also did a survey at the research stage of the campaign asking 18-24 year
olds who lived in Lancashire why they thought 18-24 year olds didn’t vote and
if they voted. This is ethical, as we have not asked individuals whom they are
going to vote for. We intend to send out another survey to see if people have
changed their minds about voting and voted in the May election, and so be more
inclined to vote in the future.
- This will enable us to create and distribute qualitative data to show and measure
18-24 year olds awareness of the political process.

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APPENDICES

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