Case Study: Winning Beginning NY Campaign
Client: The Center for Early Care and Education
(a collaboration of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, Albany, and Child Care Inc., New York City)
Situation
In 1997, legislation assured every 4-year-old child in New York State access to state-funded Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) by the 2002-03 school year. But three years into the five-year phase-in plan, lawmakers froze funding at $200 million, leaving only one-quarter of the state’s 680 school districts with UPK in place.
In 2002, the Center for Early Care and Education engaged Smith Mumford to develop an issue-marketing campaign promoting full implementation of UPK. The autumn introduction of the Winning Beginning NY campaign proved timely preparation for a surprise attack on UPK in January, when Gov. Pataki proposed cutting out the entire program from his 2003-4 budget.
Objectives
The campaign’s marketing objective initially was expansion of the UPK program, and soon switched to preservation of it in the face of the governor’s threat. Our communications objective was to move UPK up on public-policy agendas, building awareness of program benefits and of damage caused by the funding freeze. Longer term, we aimed to lay the groundwork for a permanent solution by expanding New York’s K-12 public education system to P-12.
Early on, all parties agreed the campaign would have two success measures: (1) 2003-04 state budget outcome; (2) media coverage as a marker of issue awareness.
Audience
Our primary audience was state lawmakers. Secondarily, we aimed to reach those who influence them, including the education and business communities, the voting public, and media themselves as go-betweens to public opinion.
Strategy
We based our strategy on analysis of polling data, audience composition, and political communications options. Our strategic plan combined creation of issue “pull” by persuading political leadership to pass full UPK implementation, with issue “push” by stimulating public demand for UPK. Our campaign would use a full inventory of brand-style marketing tactics, with an emphasis on earned, rather than paid, media given the limited budget.
Communications Tactics
We first built a communications infrastructure for multiyear efforts, including:
- Campaign verbal and graphic identity: Winning Beginning NY.
- Core campaign message: “Quality early education should be a public entitlement.”
- Consistent set of supporting messages and facts.
Launch Phase: With strategy and infrastructure in place, we continued with a two-pronged media relations effort: a statewide “back-to-school” pitch, and a business-oriented effort.
The back-to-school initiative employed three tactics for gaining media attention: timeliness, localization, and statistics. Our core pitch was: “This was the fall when New York’s youngest back-to-schoolers should have had statewide access to fully phased-in UPK, but instead we’re a state of haves and have-nots.” We customized the launch news release by using local school district data matching each publications distribution territory.
The campaign collaborated with the Committee for Economic Development, a national business-policy organization, at two upstate events. We voiced the theme “early investment pays off, for kids as well as companies,” in an opinion piece for business publications.
“Fight” Phase: When the governor’s threat turned up the heat on UPK, our campaign did likewise, with intensive public and private communications efforts. We hammered on a new message, “Cutting early education is penny-wise and pound-foolish.”
Our communications vehicles ranged from legislative testimony to an 8-page tabloid delivered to the Albany target audience through the Legislative Gazette. Our web site kept advocates updated and suggested opportunities to contact government leaders.
Legislative leadership seized on UPK as a key reason to overturn the executive budget. We worked cooperatively on media events, capped by a press conference at which 15
4-year-olds presented more than 150,000 signatures on petitions demanding preservation of UPK.
As the budget vote approached, we enlisted paid media: a radio spot in markets selected to reach key legislators, and distribution of video B-roll to aid TV coverage.
While the tactics involved were common to the efforts of many well-funded pressure groups in Albany, never has an effort of this intensity served a children’s issue.
Results
We won: The Legislature fully restored UPK funding. And during the budget battle, several state leaders credited the vigorous efforts of Winning Beginning NY for having played an important role.
Launch Phase coverage earned more than 7 million audience impressions through November, including 500+ earned editorial inches equivalent to $90,000 in paid advertising space, and 195 minutes of earned broadcast time equivalent to $108,000 in paid advertising. “Fight” Phase media relations efforts earned more than 30 million audience impressions from January through July, including 2,666 earned editorial inches equivalent to $742,000 in paid advertising space, and 202 minutes of earned broadcast time equivalent to $80,000 in paid advertising.
Highlights include coverage by the state’s Top 20 daily newspapers, national pieces by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, and broadcast coverage in all major markets.
