Challenge: Phoenix voters have twice, over the past 15 years, voted down taxing themselves for transit programs. In 2000, the Phoenix City Council once again asked business and civic leaders to try to pass a transit referendum with bus, express bus, bike and rail components. Campaign organizers did not want to make the same mistakes that had caused the ballot initiative to lose several times previously.

Strategy: Begin communicating with the media early and often, before the debate becomes heated. Try to bring the media over to transit proponent’s side, and ensure parity of coverage with credible spokespeople, compelling messages and a demand for balance. Provide a “face” and credibility to the citizens’ task force that created the program

Tactics:

• We conducted an audit of important media to determine their pre-existing stances toward increased taxation for transit.
• Working closely with the campaign organizers, we refined the campaign’s message points to:
  • Transit 2000 effectively deals with the Valley’s traffic congestion, now and in the future.
  • Transit 2000 will help our efforts to reduce the Valley’s air pollution.
  • Transit 2000 helps ensure that our children will enjoy the qualities of life we find so appealing in the Valley of the Sun.
  • Transit 2000 provides us freedom of choice – the ability to choose what manner of mobility we want.
  • Transit 2000 is a comprehensive plan, a system developed by concerned citizens and endorsed by transit professionals, public officials and others.
• We trained several spokespeople against these message points, including Mayor Skip Rimsza, Councilwoman Peggy Bilsten and transit spokesperson, Jack Tevlin.
• We created a media kit that told the story and used it as our primary tool.
• We conducted one-on-one desk-side briefings with beat reporters like Mary Jo Pitzl and news teams from every television and radio station.
• We issued news releases on endorsements that reflected our messages, and wrote by-lined articles for placement in various print outlets including the Republic and Tribune.
• Guerilla marketing – we were tipped off to opponent’s press conferences and/or media events and made sure we were in attendance to request equal time from media that were covering the event.

Results: Transit 2000 won by one of the largest margins in the history of transit elections nationwide. Campaign organizers credited the success in large part to our outreach campaign that educated and rallied Valley media. Guerilla marketing tactics defused the opposition; none of their attacks went unanswered. Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza was so pleased with the campaign, he asked our company to spearhead the Bond Committee PR activities. Because of previous commitments, we graciously declined.