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Submitted by Mike Grenville on Mon, 10 Oct 2005 22:59 |
A billboard campaign has launched in San Francisco to get young Chinese americans to register to vote using SMS that hopes to overcome the largest barrier to youth voting which is just getting registered.
The campaign aims to register voters in San Francisco using Mobile Voter's text messaging service in association with the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC).
By texting a keyword such as "ivote" to 80837, voters will be able to request registration forms to be sent to them and instructions as well as voting reminders prior to upcoming elections.
"As the first of its kind in the U.S., this campaign is an experiment" said Ben Rigby from MobileVoter. "We'll be evaluating the effectiveness of different outreach methods including billboards, taxi-top, and magazine ads."
Voter Guides
"We'll compliment these traditional advertising methods with "Voter Guides" - a roving team of volunteers who will visit densely populated areas of the city, at places such as night clubs and record stores - encouraging people to text Mobile Voter." As not everyone has got the texting habit in the USA yet, the guides will also be ready to show people how to send an SMS to request voter registration forms using Mobile Voter.
To help motivate the Guides, they will automatically be entered into a competition to see who signs up the most by using a unique keyword for people they sign up.
Free Cakes!
The next phase of the campaign will be to enlist local establishments to give away their goods (muffins, ice-cream, dim-sum, etc) when people use Mobile Voter at their location.
For example, at a bakery we'll place a poster that encourages voter registration and promises a free cake to everyone who texts "cake" to 80837. The user can text-in while waiting in line and show a "redeem-code" to the cashier by the time they reach the end of the line.
"What's unique about Mobile Voter is that it enables people to respond directly and instantly to outreach methods" said Rigby." There is no Web address to remember or flyer to carry home. Even more, the instantaneousness of text messaging allows us to leverage surrounding environments to motivate voter registration and to precisely evaluate campaign efficacy."
"It’s inexpensive and easy to conduct this kind of location-specific & instant-gratification campaign with text messaging" said Rigby.
Follow Up
On the campaign side, we'll have captured the user's phone number and will use it request additional information so that we can send a pre-filled out voter registration form to their home.
We'll also be able to track the success of the "cake" sub-campaign as compared with the "bubbletea" sub-campaign at the tea shop and the "dimsum" sub-campaign at the Chinese restaurant.
The information will be used to decide how to roll out the campaign to other areas.
Voter Reminders
By the end of the campaign, the aim is to have registered voters across the city, built a database of opt-in phone numbers and addresses that can be used for future mobilization, and evaluated different outreach methods.
To round off the project, SMS will be used to get these young voters to turn up to vote. Text-reminders will be sent out prior to elections, and on the critical election day.
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