1979 Mission Street
A local non-profit, Mission For All was having a difficult time getting an audience to explain their position in building a mix of affordable housing and market rate units in the Mission District. They needed a public campaign to help explain to members in the community the nuances of what they had planned. Fierce opposition started against the initiative 4 years before I was called to craft this campaign. They called the building the "Monster in the Mission" and made inaccurate claims about the levels of affordable housing and other aspects of the project to the public.
There is an old marketing theory that claims you should never let the competition dictate your messaging. But I felt this was different. They had a 4 year head start on us and had the communities attention so I decided to embrace their messaging and created a direct counter.
It is easy to call a building a "monster" - its tall, cold, made of brick, steel and glass. But it is not easy to call the people that would benefit from this project the same. They are not monsters! These are people in our community. Nurses. Teachers. Union workers. Grandparents. They all have a chance at owning a unit in this building. A chance they might not get otherwise. We had to set the record straight. I had members of the community that supported the project photographed and profiled their version of this story in various forms. I coupled that with some updated facts about the project to further inform the public.
The campaign included a BART station 15 poster take over, door hangers, direct mail postcards, brochures, a website, social media posts and an animated video (to come).
So far, the results have been a meeting with the mayors office, the district supervisor and even positive communication efforts to explain the initiative to the opposition.