The Electoral Commission
We managed all PR and media relations for the Electoral Commission in Scotland, including major programmes to increase public awareness of elections and electoral registration. We first won the contract in 2005 and again in 2007 when it was retendered.
Our wide range of projects included:
- Managing the campaign to boost electoral registration in advance of European parliament elections, which was shortlisted in the 2009 CIPR Pride Awards. We highlighted the comic side of Europe and Scotland’s relationship with it) by recreating the Euro game show, Jeux sans Frontières, and developing photo opportunities such as teaching the Loch Ness Monster how to cast a valid vote. The campaign generated 228 items of coverage and 14 million opportunities to see.
- Introducing political speed dating for young people where they get to meet politicians for three minutes and score them on their listening skills and other attributes. This campaign won the CIPR presidents best campaign award in 2007.
- Developing political tea dancing for older people where they dance with local MSPs and councillors and then score each others performances using single transferable vote - to enable them to familaris ethemsleves with that voting method.
- Take Your Parent to the Poll day where school children were used as communicators through encouraging their parents/carers to vote. Run in partnership with 14 local authorities the programme ranged from lesson plans to ensuring that every child taking their parent to vote got one of 250,000 stickers. Coverage of the scheme generated 174 separated news items in national and local media.
In all projects we developed and maintained a network of PR contacts in local authorities to maximise the impact in local and regional media. We supported this network with toolkits, campaign workshops and template press releases.
