Ballot CampaignHigher EdBroadcast

Three spots. One vote. Issue 21 passed.

Columbus State Community College had never asked Franklin County voters for a bond issue. Citizens for Columbus State needed television that could win one, and we produced the three 30-second spots that carried the campaign.

Client

Citizens for Columbus State

Election

March 17, 2020 primary

Project Type

Ballot Campaign / Broadcast

Deliverables

3 broadcast :30s

Result

Passed. $300 million bond issue approved.

Overview

Issue 21 asked Franklin County to approve a $300 million bond issue for Columbus State: updated classrooms and labs, modern technology and job training, repairs to the Franklin County campus, and new construction. It was the college's first bond request in its history.

The campaign ran through the spring of 2020, in the first weeks of the pandemic. The economy was in free fall and voters were being asked to raise their own property taxes. The spots had to make that feel like an easy yes.

01 / The Challenge

Make a tax increase feel like an investment.

A bond issue is an abstract thing to vote on. The campaign needed a face for it, and not one face but the whole county: the nurses, welders, chefs, engineers, technicians, and students who come out of Columbus State and go to work down the street.

Each spot had 30 seconds to make the case on broadcast, where there is no room for a slow build. Three spots had to feel like one campaign while each carried a different piece of the argument.

02 / The Solution

Real people, straight to camera, numbers on screen.

We built every spot around real people looking straight into the lens, each one named and titled on screen: nurse, construction, engineer, fire science, automotive tech student, employer. No actors playing a role, no voiceover standing in for them.

The first spot introduces the people. The other two put the campaign's numbers on screen beside them: 70,000 degrees and certificates, 75 percent of graduates working locally, 200 classrooms and labs to update, 45,000 students a year. Motion graphics carried the facts so the people could carry the feeling.

03 / The Spots

Three 30-second spots, one message.

The campaign aired three spots in rotation. Together they covered who Columbus State serves, what the bond issue would pay for, and why it mattered to employers across the county.