Vote YOUR Way

CLIENT: HARRIS COUNTY CLERK’S OFFICE

In 2019 Harris County became one of the nation’s first to roll out a countywide polling place program — meaning that, for the first time ever, Houstonians could vote at ANY of over 700 polling locations. This made voting WAY more accessible and, if we’re honest, suddenly way more fun. You could vote with your coworkers on a lunch break, or pick up your elderly grandmother and vote together near her house rather than in separate districts.

The #voteYOURway campaign is based on the concept of multiple perspectives, in both the theoretical sense (politics!) and the literal sense (different locations). With an audience as diverse as Houston, we had to support four different languages — English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese — and make sure to keep a robust color palette that didn’t trend too blue or too red. The fun and visually distinct design is a bold choice for a government entity, and I think the design contributed to the campaign’s remarkable success. It was energetic, personable and sharable. Plus Dr. Diane Trautman, who held the clerk’s office at the time, was willing to put her ad dollars behind her belief that voting should be as accessible as possible for all audiences. This campaign was everywhere — in Spotify ads, plastered to walls through a guerilla poster campaign, on billboards, communicating via text, even showing up on campuses and in a #DressYourVote social media mini campaign.

My favorite story about this campaign (other than how visible it was) came from a public city council meeting. When a council member asked if the bright colors and energetic messaging might alienate more conservative voters, one HCC staffer responded simply “Everyone is invited to vote their way.”

The data shows people did, in fact, vote their way:

• 75% of those who voted were aware of the countywide polling place program, according to exit interviews conducted by Rice University

• Over half of those voters took advantage of the opportunity to vote at an alternative location

• 1 Million+ #voteYOURway hashtag impressions with 4,600+ engagements

• 1,200+ civic-minded individuals adopted the hashtag on social media

• 33,000+ people reached through Spotify ad placements

• 170,000+ people reached through Twitter with 9,300+ engagements

• 412,000+ digital display ad impressions with nearly 600 click-throughs

• Nearly 100,000 YouTube views of the English PSA

• 20,000+ text bot interactions with 2,000+ community members

• 80,000+ people used the “Harris County Poll Finder” map