How to market the "Yes" campaign?

To sell anything to a modern public, even a "Yes" in a referendum,
you have to do advertising and marketing. Who here knows how to do that?

At the Ottawa "Yes" campaign launch, I heard nothing about *how*
we are supposed to effectively communicate the goodness of PR to the
Ontario public. I went looking to buy one of those nice black "FairVote"
T-shirts, and was told they weren't for sale.

How do we effectively market PR to Ontario?

I'd buy a T-shirt!

If they were available that is.

I went on FaceBook and did a few searches such as "Yes MMP" and ended up finding groups opposed to the MMP vote, but nothing on the Yes side. May be a place for a younger person to join and weigh in, ensuring that there is an easily found place for the people on the Yes side -- and to provide answers to the arguments of the "No" side. (All the usual FUD).

Hi Russel et al,

First, thanks to most of you for coming to our launch yesterday in City Hall. We had about 150 people there, and about 6 or 7 news outlets. I didn't get to talk to many of you since I was distracted managing the show, but looking at the photos afterwards I recognized many of you in them. Check out the photos section for photos.

A few items:

I think we were already stretching the short patience of the audience and media running a 1-hour event, and speakers decided not to get into the gory details about what was planned for the upcoming campaign because of time. Though Charles & Jerry at our info table certainly told many people about our plans if they asked, and many people signed up on our "More Info / Volunteer" sheet there too (so they'll get emails once in a while during the campaign).


Good point about the T-shirts (and buttons, bumper stickers, etc). It would have been great to have them at the event. Problem is, headquarters in Toronto is currently behind in getting everything from a Campaign logo to central messaging decided, and in fact I just found out the name of the campaign was "Vote YES to MMP" at the last minute possible to produce signage and a banner for our event. So they're unfortunately still some time away from being able to think about T-shirts, posters, buttons, etc. But I think they probably will be making T-shirts and stickers or buttons at least; if they don't by September then our local group will. There is also the question of very limited funds for all this; we are only a grassroots organization after all (with no rich corporate or party sponsors).

Good point about Facebook. Social networking sites like Meetup, Facebook, Myspace, etc will be key in mobilizing support for our campaign, especially amongst youth. Trouble is, Toronto is just now starting to think about using these in any serious way, and hasn't really done anything so far. I and a couple of other members have personally created MySpace and Facebook groups and events for the Vote YES to MMP campaign, but these haven't been part of any coherent web strategy as of yet (and one is desperately needed - it's a question of manpower). They just exist because members like me take it peronally upon ourselves to do it. And I am just about stretched to the limit with how many sites and real-world projects I can manage for this referendum campaign; the short answer is we need more people who can help with this. To answer your question, here's some Facebook groups that I've been involved with for the campaign, anyone on Facebook should join them:

Oct 10th - I Support Electoral Reform
http://www.facebook.c...

Fair Vote Ontario Facebook Group
http://www.facebook.c...

Fair Vote Canada Facebook Group
http://www.facebook.c...

Youth for Fair Voting Facebook Group
http://www.facebook.c...

Vote for MMP in October
http://www.facebook.c...

Canadian Electoral Reform - Make Every Vote Count
http://www.facebook.c...

Vote Yes Ontario
http://www.facebook.c...

It's even more important to argue our point on groups against voting Yes, in order to win new converts and counter myths about fair voting:

Yes to Democracy, No to MMP
http://www.facebook.c...

Finally, I'd like to point out that I've been pushing Fair Vote Canada to get "with it" when it comes to the web - our strategy isn't efficient or very effective in my opinion. We should be using social networking sites more, producing short funny videos for YouTube, launching viral advertising campaigns on the web, etc etc. (Check out the discussion in the Fair Vote Ontario group, above). I pay for and run this Ottawa Group on Meetup plus the Montreal Fair Vote Meetup Group (chapter I helped start), and along with these I have two empty Meetup groups slots I've been paying for for almost a year - and offered to Fair Vote leaders in Toronto, Vancouver, and Edmonton - but had no takers to use them for FREE so they could host monthly meetups and attract more people in their cities. There's an old saying that applies here "You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". It takes time to change old institutional habits I guess.

Andy Blair
Ottawa, Canada
613-882-6616

Oh, and Ian: those dark blue Fair Vote polo shirts you couldn't buy? Thanks for the compliment, I made them. Toronto lost the vector graphics for the Fair Vote Canada logo, so I had to re-do it from scratch on Illustrator and get the shirts produced for our volunteers (whom I recruited & organized) at our presence to lobby Liberals at the Liberal Party Convention in Montreal late last year (a presence which I organized), using funds (which I fundraised all by myself) from the new Montreal Fair Vote Chapter (which I helped found). Get the picture about what's going on here? One person cannot do everything alone, and I need help.

We were by far the largest NGO group at that convention, and I only had about half a dozen shirts left over and no budget to produce more for the Ottawa launch event (which I helped organize too). Please send an email to Fair Vote Ontario executives if you would be interested in buying a shirt or anything else, hopefully they'll listen and make some.


Andy Blair
Ottawa, Canada
613-882-6616

Why should we wait for September to make more T-shirts? I think if we're going to make any, we should make them now. Andy, can you make the graphics you re-created available to us? I'll go out and have mine made myself.

Well one way to market is through uber-popular YouTube.

Looks like the citizen assembly finally got around to producing something...

Here?s a great online video starring the 103 (so-far) unsung heroes of Ontario democracy. Positively inspiring!


http://www.youtube.co...

Please share with anyone who cares about our democracy!

Why should we wait for September to make more T-shirts? I think if we're going to make any, we should make them now. Andy, can you make the graphics you re-created available to us? I'll go out and have mine made myself.

Hi Marc, looks like you will be able to buy T-Shirts; they are black and have the "Vote YES for MMP" logo on them (looks like FVO only made them in English, though both mens and womens cuts are available). There were some available at the Fair Vote Canada AGM in Toronto on the weekend, and the local Chapter bought a number of them I think. If you want one, come down to one of our Pub Nights or one of the committee meetings, and buy one off of Patricia Marsden-Dole.

I'm sure they will be available on the official campaign website, when that gets up & running:

http://www.VoteYESfor...

Cool! I'll ask Patricia then.