|
Bass Pro in Oklahoma City
Situation:
In 2002 the Oklahoma City Council was considering a proposal from Bass Pro to create a super store in the Bricktown area of the city. The idea was that a Bass Pro Shop would draw tourists and citizens to the area, increasing traffic in a showcase area of downtown. Academy Sports and Outdoors of Texas was upset that Bass Pro would receive some special help from the city, help that amounted to a private/public partnership. Academy Sports spent a reported $100,000 on an extensive media campaign designed to cause the city council to vote against this arrangement with Bass Pro. With less than a week before the vote, Downtown Oklahoma City, Inc., called me and asked that I generate support for wavering council members to pass the Bass Pro deal.
Plan of Action:
My proposal was to stimulate at least 500 postcards, calls, and letters to each of the targeted members of the council from supporters of the project in less than a week. The project was approved on Monday at 11:00 a.m.
That afternoon I contracted with two telemarketing firms to survey households who vote in city council elections. I also contacted a list broker and obtained the registered voter list with phone numbers. Then I contacted a mailing house. After the initial groundwork was completed, I wrote the letter to be mailed to Bass Pro Supporters and had approval and a signatory for the letter.
The next morning, results of the survey were in and I now knew who the supporters of the Bass Pro deal were. This data went to the mailing house, which personalized the letters and sent out the mail package to them on Tuesday night.
The letters arrived at constituents’ homes in Wednesday’s mail, and by Thursday the first postcards and letters began to flood the city council. By Friday we had reached our goal of 500 constituent contacts for each member.
The net result was that Academy Sports had spent over $100,000 and had not influenced one single vote. In contrast, our program had cost less than $10,000 and had kept every wavering member of the council on track. Also, I had constituent information about supporters, which could be used in future elections where any of our supporters might be attacked for their position on the Bass Pro funding.
|
