A civil right,
a rite of passage

Voter Virginity
Greater Cleveland Congregations

Campaign Strategy Creative Fame Building Media Strategy and Buying

Get Out the Vote,
Not the Fear

With a few months remaining before the 2024 election, faith-based community organizing group Greater Cleveland Congregations (GCC) enlisted us to help Get Out the Vote in five Cleveland neighborhoods with historically low voter turnouts — like, 9%.

The catch: we couldn’t stump for any specific candidate or cause other than voting itself.

Thanks to billions of dollars in attack ads from all sides, the mood was very much fear and loathing. We had to find a distinctive angle.

First times are exciting… and intense.

Several of GCC’s youth members had recently turned 18 and were eligible to vote for the first time in this election.

They were Christmas-morning excited. They had plans. They had rides. They had outfits picked out and friend groups assembled. They were nervous too considering all the hype and expectations.

It was like they were going to The Prom for the first time.

There it was!

Let’s celebrate first-time voting like a ritual.

Of course, nobody was gonna pay any attention to us unless we had some fun with it…

We got busy online.

We built votervirginity.com
practically overnight.

We got busy in the streets.

We launched posters, direct mailers, door tags, and swag, including temporary tattoos, buttons and VV cards.

We did it on social media.

We targeted first-time voters and older, lapsed voters.

For some people, it had been a while.

But it’s never too late to get back in the game.

We did it across Cleveland.

We launched Voter Virginity ads on billboards in our target neighborhoods and throughout the city.

We tried to do it on a bus.

The Greater Cleveland RTA rejected our campaign because of the word “virginity.” They considered it too “sexy”. Oh the irony. And of course they run Crown Royal ads all day and twice on Sunday. But sexy voting? No sir.

So we had a little fun with that.