Case Study MCEN - Güd Marketing

Campaign:

The Census Is for Everyone
2020 Census Education Campaign, Michigan

Client:

The state of Michigan Census Team, part of the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget (DTMB)

Project Goals:

Education

Full-Service Campaign

The 2010 census results were a wake-up call for Michigan.

In 2010, Michigan finished with a 67.7% response rate, which was only 17th in the nation. The Michigan 2020 Census turned to Güd Marketing to help substantially improve statewide census participation, which was crucial because the census guides congressional representation as well as federal funding for schools, roads, housing, health care, public safety and more.

The stakes were high. We had to develop and implement a comprehensive communications plan to:

Raise awareness
Create urgency
Dispel myths
Convince hard-to-reach audience groups of census relevance
Surpass 2010 results
Launch the campaign in the midst of an unforeseen global pandemic

Services Performed

Research
Planning
Messaging
Creative
Social Media
Media Buying
Digital
Public Relations
Content Marketing

Thousands of questions needed to be answered to approach a census with only nine questions.

Research commenced immediately. It included nine focus groups to understand key audience groups, stakeholder interviews and an audit of federal and local census messaging and tactics.

The COVID-19 pivot.

The 2020 census and our campaign began March 12. Eleven days later Michigan’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order was issued, drastically shifting the media consumption of our audiences. We quickly adjusted our plan to reduce out-of-home tactics and increase in-home ones.

Due to the statewide lockdown, we reduced our outdoor buy, pulling most highway boards and focusing on local side-street placements in areas with historically low counts.

We increased in-home touch points with digital video streaming, paid social and broadcast TV PSAs. The PSAs, placed in local news, leveraged the spike in viewership across all demographics as people looked for daily updates on the pandemic.

Messaging was key to changing perceptions and increasing participation.

The 2020 census faced multiple challenges – apathy, a lack of knowledge regarding local impacts and ease of completion and fear regarding sharing personal information. To overcome these challenges and increase participation, a three-pronged messaging strategy was created:

Localized benefit-driven messaging. Talking specifically about how public programs (schools, roads, hospitals, health care, fire, police, etc.) are directly impacted by the count. Key points were determined by community and placement.
Functional messaging. Clarifying that the census is short, easy and able to be completed online, by phone or in the mail. Questions from the census were shared outright, dispelling confusion about the depth of information being gathered.
Targeted messaging. For audiences with specific concerns. Myths were directly dispelled – data is confidential and secure, individual information can’t be shared with other government agencies, your data will remain safe and the census does not ask about citizenship or immigration status.

Hundreds of broad and targeted animated and static digital display ads were posted statewide. A combination of photography and custom illustrations anchored the welcoming and warm tonality of the campaign.

As folks consumed information on their mobile devices and social channels in record numbers, a robust series of paid social ads was deployed. Inclusive imagery and illustrations that were granular down to specific cities and neighborhoods throughout the state bolstered engagement.

Organic social media educated, informed and encouraged participation in the census on a personal level.

Research insights from Spanish-speaking and Arabic-speaking communities was vital to developing relevant campaign materials, including video, social, outdoor, print and radio.